We had a drive from St. Joseph, MO to La Junta, CO of just over 650 miles today. Leaving at 7:00am we arrived in La Junta at 3:30pm Mountain Time about nine and one-half hours. Old Blue performed well and mileage was consistent except for the 205 miles between Salina and Oakley, KS. In that stretch we were driving into a strong and direct heawind. But, we are here and tomorrow is a 250 mile drive to Chama during which we cross La Veta, La Manga and Cumbres pases. We hope to arrive before noon as we have to set-up, do some minor plumbing work, and clean-up prior to an evening dinner/meeting of docents at the High Country.
Our
space at the Rio Chama RV Park is just until Saturday at which time
we will move the trailer to another space in the same park. Rio
Chama RV books solid a year in advance and when I called to ask if we
could arrive a couple days early to attend the meeting they managed
to find a place that would be open but it meant a move on Saturday.
Nice folks and very accommodating.
Before
I start with the subject of this post I need to mention that on
arriving in our room in La Junta G turned on the tv to check the
weather. Their ongoing story is a severe dust storm in Arizona.
Concurrent with our travel, Bob and Penny Parish are traveling to
Arizona. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers for safe
travel....
**********
**********
A
snow plow operation is a major undertaking. A
rotary operation – there are two remaining steam powered rotary
snow plows left and to our understanding they are both on the Cumbres
and Toltec – consists of the rotary plow, a coal tender, one or two
water cars, two to six locomotives, a tool car, a kitchen car, bunk
car and other miscellaneous maintenance of way cars. It
is a rolling tool shop and it is all under control of the snow plow
operator.
Yesterday I threw together
a post which was a bit of a mess gramatically. Now I have never
claimed to know an adjective from a gerund, or a verb from a pronoun.
Likewise I am basically a moron when it comes to punctuation. Thus,
I produced this magical paragraph:
“A
snow plow operation is a major undertaking. A
rotary operation – there are two remaining steam powered rotary
snow plows left and to our understanding they are both on the Cumbres
and Toltec – consists of the rotary plow, a coal tender, one or two
water cars, two to six locomotives, a tool car, a kitchen car, bunk
car and other miscellaneous maintenance of way cars. It
is a rolling tool shop and it is all under control of the snow plow
operator.”
For
something like that I use the Browning Rule when punctuating “If in
doubt punctuate” which goes on, “If in doubt where to place the
punctuation, close your eyes and punch a key on your keyboard in a
random shotgun pattern. Only truly literate people will know the
difference and if you are an example their friends they must all be
terribly not so clever”
I
consider the piece I wrote a perfect example of the Browning Rule –
I didn't know where to punctuate so I just punched a key on my
keyboard. Unfortunately, I did not punch enough periods. So, here
is a revised version that I will use to edit the previous blog:
“A
snow plow operation is a major undertaking. A rotary
operation – there are two remaining steam powered rotary snow plows
left and to our understanding they are both on the Cumbres and Toltec
– consists of: the rotary plow, a coal tender, one or two water
cars, two to six locomotives, a tool car, a kitchen car, bunk car and
other miscellaneous maintenance of way cars. It is a
rolling tool shop and it is all under control of the snow plow
operator.”
Now
that I have heavily edited the offending paragraph I don't believe I
like the “flow” of it so here is a better version.
“In
a screaming blizzard on a dark and stormy night the driver of the
plow was confronted with a terrifying problem, “This damn thing
stopped and the whistle is frozen How the hell will I get everyone
else to stop?”
Yes
the rotary plow driver is responsible for the entire train. If he
screws up thousands, nay millions, of dollars of damage to the rail
and equipment may ensue. In this case he has definitely “screwed
up” and he is in so much trouble that I can't begin to detail what
his life is going to be like in about 15 minutes.
You
understand, of course, that his plow is in the lead on numerous
pieces of very expensive equipment which rest of a rail-bed which
could be damaged – yes, you do understand DON'T YOU!
This
is a list of possible pieces of equipment associated with his
horrendous mistake: A zillion dollar rotary snow plow, one or two
water cars, one to four or more locomotives, a tool car full of very
expensive tools and stuff, a passenger car converted to a kitchen,
some old drafty box cars for the dozens of crew members to sleep in
and a caboose or two for conductors and management folks. If things
are really bad the fool who jammed the rotary will also have a
business car at the end to the train with some sort or really
important nabob who will spend the entire night cussing and swearing
and plotting how to make the life of the rotary driver pure hell for
his entire time in an eternity made specifically for snow train
drivers forget about absolution or the purgatory thing it is far the
late for any of that for the boob in the rotary with the frozen
whistle.”
How
about that?
Naah,
I don't like it so I did another edit and re-posted yesterdays post.
If you want to know what it says, you gotta read that post.
Aren't
you glad you wasted your time reading this? I promise I won't do
another post until September 12th,
unless I have Internet access in Chama.
Don't ask why the text is a different color - It's a techie thing and I don't have a clue.
