Saturday, November 22, 2008

Interloper

This is where I get onto the highway, but when I saw the bright colors of the train, I felt a picture was required. Of course my camera was in the back seat in my bag, so I jumped out, yanked open the back door, grabbed the camera and caught this shot.

The bright colors of the train cars against the high desert landscape - had to do it. Pulling onto the highway and accelerating to traffic speed, I realized that that the vehicle parked on the shoulder was actually a CHP. I do have out-of-state plates you know. I watched my mirror for a nervous couple of miles. I must be small potatoes. I like being small potatoes.

3 comments:

~~Sittin.n.Spinnin said...

I love the trains out here. Although they seem totally out of place in the wild, big open spaces of Nevada, they are very much a part of it. When I lived in Georgia, where the towns are all strung together, the first train I saw had 3 cars on it ROFL, I asked my MIL "Where's the rest of it?" Seemed like a total waste of time to have that great big engine pulling those three little cars LOL

Valerie said...

Glad the CHP didn't pull you over...you couldn't have used the "I'm late for work" excuse!

Our town is bounded by an intersecting triangle of (busy) railroad tracks. When going across town it is necessary to add in possible train delays.

The year that Reagan was shot, I was working with a young man in an iron lung who lived in town. The family had a back up generator for power outages, etc. But he couldn't sleep at night. Finally during one of my visits he confessed that he worried about how they would get him to the hospital if he needed it and there was a train. So we spent one of our sessions mapping out a plan on little known dirt roads that the EMT's could take to avoid the train tracks. Then he could sleep.

Matt succumbed to the ravages of muscular dystrophy about 20 years ago, but I still think of him when I find it necessary to take one of those dirt road shortcuts to get past a train.

Sharon said...

Downtown Reno is bisected by the train tracks. The hospital is just to the north of them, so a couple of years ago, Reno dug a trench right across the city and buried the tracks, effectively making a tunnel. I worked downtown then and it was annoying during the construction phase. The inconvenience is just a distant memory now.