TDA 11/17/19

Last week started out pretty good and went along like usual but then crashed and burned at the end. To start, I got a load from Billings, MT to Boise, ID. It was a fairly good load with a bit of a deadhead but worth the trip because it paid well and got me moving after days off. The weather was not bad in MT for the time of year and the roads were also good in ID. I delivered my load and then had to sit for the day and night waiting for a load out of Boise. I expected that I would end up bouncing somewhere to get something as there isn’t tons of freight out of the area. Luckily, I got a load from Emmet, ID to El Paso, TX. It was a good load and was going to somewhere there is usually freight heading back out. As a bonus, I got to drive through one of my favorite parts of the country. I don’t know what it is about the four corners area of this country, but it really gets me in the photography mood.

Once I got loaded, I drove across Idaho and down into Utah. I stopped at one of the rest stops I like in ID called the Juniper rest area. It has a geology sign about Lake Bonneville, which was a lake that filled a good portion of the Salt Lake Valley and I think was a good use for the area. In fact, in the current enviro-craziness way, maybe we should put it back to its natural state. Going through Salt Lake is always a pain. It took more time to go through the metro area than to drive across all of Idaho and the northern part of Utah. Though being stuck in a traffic jam did give me a chance to snap a picture of the sun going down on the lake over the houses. I also stopped in the rest area for night in the canyon just south of Soldier Summit, which is a pretty area. I got to drive down Price Canyon at daylight where I saw a passenger train making its way down the canyon. I didn’t know they still had passenger trains running across the middle of the country, so it was kind of cool to see. I also took some shots of the badlands between Price, UT and Greenriver, UT and the Book Cliffs near Greenriver. I drove through Moab, which as I remember was a quaint little tourist town with good food joints and interesting people. Now, I’m disappointed to say Moab has been overrun by hippies, yuppies and the like all living in the hundreds of condos and apartments. It’s kind of a shame. I used to go to Canyonlands every year or two in order to hike, photograph and recharge.

Then, I went down through Shiprock, which I got to from the backside (hard to find places to park in a big truck). I think I also went past Chimney Rock, and across the Navajo nation, which is as squalid as always.   The biggest problem with going through the area is that I have to fight the urge to stop every five miles to shoot pictures because the light is perfect or some other silly reason. It would take me two weeks to drive through if my camera was in charge of the trip. I’m afraid some of the pictures I did take are a bit low in quality as I shot them while driving past (strafing style). Also, there is a fair bit of haze in the air everywhere I have been lately. I’m afraid I can’t do much about that. I don’t have a haze filter for my camera lens. As a disclaimer, any odd splotches are most likely bugs on the window (bet they don’t have the guts to do that again). 😉 Then when I was within an hour of finishing my day I started getting a low voltage alarm from my truck, which means the alternator has most likely died. I managed to get to the truck stop in Belen, NM. Unfortunately, the mechanic didn’t come to work. So, here I am sitting and hoping the mechanic 1) shows up and 2) can fix my truck. Otherwise, I won’t make my delivery Monday. Well, I guess that about catches up to today.