Salt Lake City, Utah

Here's some of SLC's sky line, it's not as spectacular as other cities, but at night when temple square is all lite up it is just breath taking.

Just mountain after mountain after mountain.

I take pictures every where else we go, I haven't even thought of taking any of SLC (Salt Lake City), we are based out of SLC and go thru there every once in awhile. The whole area is at the base of the huge mountains called the Rockies, ya may of heard of them? During the winter these mountains are covered in snow and it is so beautiful to look at. People in Twin Falls do their major shopping in SLC, for back to school, christmas, stuff like that. It is approximately 220 miles from Twin Falls Idaho.

SLC moon

We were sitting in the parking lot of Autoliv, trying to pick up our load in Ogden Utah. I was just sitting in the cab when I looked up and saw the moon, I just thought it look so pretty that night.

Another cross

This was another large cross we saw, it was in Ballinger Texas. It was not as big as others we have seen but it was pretty big. It was just out in the middle of these trees, sticking above the tops of these trees.

Meat plant

Besides the terrible smell, you could tell it was a meat packing plant, the animal haulers drove into the east side of the plant and the regular trucks went in and out of the west side of the plant. So, the animals went in one side and came out the other! But what this whole thing reminded me of, have ya seen the movie 'Fast Food Nation'? This reminded of that movie, with Mexicans all around and it being a meat packing plant, I don't know it just reminded me of that movie.

Now back to this load that we picked up in Friona Texas, the great part of this, Gary let me drive the truck more than usual, he backed the trailer into a spot. But I got to disconnect the tractor from the trailer, drive to the other end of the row of trailers and connect it to our loaded trailer, it was so cool!

There were two very long rows of trailers out back, most of these trailers were loaded and ready to go, we found ours, we were hauling tripe (cows stomachs). We were taking this load of cows stomachs to Laredo Texas, were we would deliver the trailer to a Mexican shipping company in Laredo and they would take the trailer with it's load over the border to it's destination. We have done this before. And believe me when I say that Laredo Texas is the bowels of hell! It's dirty, hot and miserable, nothing but Mexicans, lousy drivers that cut ya off, even other truck drivers, I think I mentioned that in the blog about our first trip to Laredo and we didn't even get any tamales this trip.
Once we were inside, we could see this place was really busy. There was a wash bay, all trailers had to be washed out before they could be loaded, luckily we were just dropping our trailer so we didn't have to wait and go thru that part.

We had to pick up a load at a meat packing plant in Friona Texas, it was head for Mexico. This whole town of Friona smelled, it smelled real bad and with the heat I'm sure it made it even worse. Driving up and getting into this place, you would think it was Ft. Knox or something.

Buford, WY

Buford, Wyoming was named after General John Buford, a hero of the Civil War. Buford led the unit that fired the first shots at the battle of Gettysburg, and distinguished himself in many other battles. John Buford was a lifetime military man. As a Second Lieutenant before the Civil War, he was assigned to the 2nd Dragoons, and traveled to Salt Lake City. We believe he came through Buford, Wyoming and gave his name to the town that lives on today. Buford was originally founded in 1866 as a fort, built to protect the railroad workers building the first transcontinental railroad and settlers moving west.
Buford lives on today with the Buford Trading Post. As it did in the 19th century, the Buford Trading Post serves travelers crossing the nation. We’re more modern than we were in 1866.

Buford may be small, but it has a large history. President U.S. Grant stopped here in 1869, and Butch Cassidy allegedly robbed the place. He was captured and spent some time enjoying the hospitality of the Wyoming Territorial Prison in Laramie, about 26 miles west of here.

Welcome to Buford, Wyoming, Population 1! Buford’s claim to fame is more than its small size or being the nation's smallest town. Buford, Wyoming is the highest town on Interstate 80, the main cross-country route between New York and San Francisco. The Buford Trading Post is located between Cheyenne and Laramie, right along the Interstate and the old Lincoln Highway - U.S. 30.

Convoy

These pictures were taken in Snowville, UT. This was a staging area for a convoy, the trucks and pilot cars, the truck were carrying the stem/trunk part of wind mills. We have seen similar convoys all over the west coast. It takes a minimum of 8 trucks to haul 1 wind mill, 3 or 4 for the stem or trunk (depending on the height), 3 for the blades, 1 for the rectangle body and last but not least 1 for the cone where the blades go.

Family

Like I've said before, ya never know who ya will run into out on the road.
This particular day we were headed for Washington and made a quick stop in Twin Falls, Gary's mom, Andy, Karen and 'the Don', came out to the truck stop on I 84 to say a quick hi. Karen and Don were in town on business and leaving town, Gary's mom picked up Andy and brought him out to the Flying J. We grabbed a few pictures and said good by to Karen and Don, then we used Gary's moms car to run 2 quick errands in Twin 30 minutes tops, NOT! As we finished our last errand and got in the car to go back out to the truck stop, her car would not run, we ended up having to have it towed to the Chevy dealer, it needed a new fuel pump. So our 30 minute, do a quick errand, turned into 3 1/2 dog gone hours!



Pictured are, Terri, Karen and Andy

Idaho wind mills

This farm is in about the same area as the new wind mills are going in, these small original versions, have been in place and working at this farm for at least 10 years.



We've always thought of Idaho as behind all the other states, there's a sign at the border 'welcome to Idaho, wind you watch back 20 years', they are trying to catch up in regards to the wind mills. East of Mt. Home, which is east of Boise, they are putting in approximately 40 wind mills. Guess Idaho isn't all hicks?

Elk

I don't know about other states but in Idaho we have elk farms, this one is just east of Boise. There's another one east of Filer and another on the way to Shoshone Falls. Most times they have quite a few elk out and then there are the times they separate the bulls from the heard. The one in Filer has a shop that you can buy the elk meat, elk jerky.

Tree

On I 80 just before Buford WY there is a point of interest, a tree growing out of a rock. Now we haven't actually stopped to take a look at this, but if the government went to the trouble of putting up a sign for people to stop and look at it, doesn't that make it true and believable? (hahahahahaha!)