Washinton State

We headed into Washington in the east end of the gorge. This particular trip I started out so excited cause we were 180 from Portland, where the kids and grand kids are at. We had told our dispatcher many times that we wanted to go into Portland to see the kids, but the jackass instead turned us around and headed us back outta Washington and Oregon and headed for Texas. I shed many tears that day, needless to say I was completely devastated by this, but our dispatcher got his, he was fired the next monday!

Nashville

We have been through Nashville several times but they have all been at night, finally we got through there during the day and I was able to get some pictures of the skyline.

Family

On one of our recent trips through Twin Falls we were able to meet up with our son Andy, my sister Karen and the Don, who just happen to be in Twin that week and my mother in law. Ya just never know who your gonna see on your travels!

Idaho

We were in I84 headed west in to Boise, click on the picture to enlarge them. The river pictured here is the Snake River.

Opps!

We were headed west on I84 in Idaho and right around Burley on the north side of the freeway a crop duster had just bit the dust, they still had fire extinguishers out, so we just barely missed all the fireworks.

Mass quantities

In Northern Texas, one of the towns I remember is Sweetwater, I cannot remember what highways we were on. For approximately 80 miles there were just hundreds, no thousands of wind mills. We even made a couple of highway changes and they were still there, we were headed south and it was about 80 miles of them, could ya just imagine how far they went east and west? This definitely was the biggest sighting of wind mills we have ever seen, Texas always has to do every thing bigger than anyone else!

More wind mill convoys

This wind mill convoy was in northern Texas. There isn't a day go by that we don't see parts of a wind mill go rolling by or being staged to roll.

Meat packing plants

We have been to 3 large meat packing, processing plants. They all seem to be about the same, as a matter of fact they may be owned by the same company. There is no denying what takes place at the places, first of all these towns they all stink really bad, upon arriving ya notice that the cattle hauling trucks drive into one side of the plant and the reefer units pull outta the other side of the plant. I'm sure you can figure out what goes on in between those 2 places, I said it that way to Jason and he was his usual smart alack self and he said manicure/pedicures and mud bathes? Have ya ever seen the movie, "Fast Food Nation"?, that's exactly what I thought of the first time we pulled into the first one of these plants. Do not get me wrong I am a carnivore, it is definitely a life style, by choice and it takes commitment!

There are always huge feed lots right next to the meat packing, processing plants.

hush, hush load

Recently we had a load, picking up a trailer full of computers at Dell and taking them to DHL to be shipped out to their customers, even in this day and age this was a very hijackable load. There was extremely tight security going into Dell to pick them up, we were only taking them 200 miles to DHL. We had quite a few specific instructions to follow, before we picked up the load we had to fuel before going to Dell, once the computers were loaded Gary had to sign many, many documents. All with specific instructions, like once we were on the highway we could not stop for any reason, Gary had to take specific roads that Dell gave him to follow, we could not talk on our cell phones about what was in the trailer, plus here's the kicker, when we left the Dell lot there was a car following us to our destination. And the stupid part about the whole thing with the tighter security and specific instructions we had to follow, once we got to DHL, they popped the seal on the trailer, opened the doors and had us drop the trailer at the back of the building and drive away, it was completely unattended? We figured that we had done our part and it was outta our hands by then.

Those rich Texans

OK, now this isn't fair, we know Texans get rich off of all that oil they pump up. But now they got oil derricks and wind mills on the same property, isn't that double dipping the universe? Dam rich Texans!

We got a wind mill in training here!

This cross was just sticking outta the top of a bunch of trees in northern Texas.

Blades

These pictures were taken in 2 different places, the first 2 are of a convoy assembling to transport some wind mill blades. The second 2 were kinda exciting to see, this is actually were they make the blades for the wind mills, this is the first time we have ever seen a plant were they are being made.

Field damage

Besides all of the flooding there were quite a few tornado's that night, in these pictures you can see corn fields and large parts of the fields are smashed over to the ground by the tornado's. To get a closer look at the pictures just click on the picture.

Hurricane Ike

One of the nights that Ike was over the US we were in Missouri. The rain was coming down hard, we hit hail a couple of times and the wind was strong. We decided to pull over for the night early, good thing we did cause Ike passed right over the top of us and headed NE. Luckily we stopped at a rest area that was up on a small hill, cause after we drove away from the rest area the flooding was just incredible, it was every where.

Fall

Well it is that time of year again, the leaves are changing colors. It is so pretty seeing all the different types of country side and all the different colors. Makes me wanna take a drive to the Oregon coast and see all the leaves changing on the alder trees along the way.

Wind mill convoy

These trucks were being staged in Snowville, UT which is north of SLC. We see these convoys for wind mills all over the country side. We've come to the conclusion it takes a minimum of 9 trucks to haul 1 wind mill. There are 4 pieces to the tower, 3 blades, 1 motor and 1 hub, not to mention wiring, connectors, etc.

Great Salt Lake

And of course just north of SLC is the Great Salt Lake, yes there is actually a lake! From the freeway you can't get really great view of it. It is full of salt to, I didn't get a picture of all the mounds of salt at the south end of the lake, my stupid camera battery died before we got there.