Coming down off the road...

[alexpgp]

I suppose it was a good thing we arrived when we did, because soon after we unloaded the car, the sky began unloading moisture. It rained on and off through the night, and sitting here in my old bedroom, I can see that it's still quite wet outside.

I don't have the time or the energy to drag all the stuff up from the basement to set up the kind of work space I'd like to be using, so I'm making do. I want to get the 5,000-word item out of the way so I can relax until the promised onslaught of meeting-related documents - all I can translate and more - starts arriving tomorrow. I had so hoped to have a day available to go visit Manhattan...

Looking back, it was a pretty good road trip, despite the occasional disappointments. While still in Colorado, I took the following shot about 3 miles from the point where Highway 160 goes as far north as it can, locally, and then turns sharply to the south as it winds its way through the Sangre de Cristo mountains between Fort Garland and Walsenburg.


My experiment involving working in the car while Galina drove lasted about five minutes, as the difference between looking at my HP's screen when it's cloudy and when it's bright and sunny outside is pretty dramatic. The case I constructed would require a lot of modification to make it truly usable, but to be frank, with all of the bother that cross-country driving already entails, I think I'll put this task wa-a-ay at the bottom of my list of priorities.

I did manage to install the Windows software that came with my DeLorme Earthmate GPS USB device, and the software did a workmanlike job of figuring out a route from Pagosa to New York, but it wasn't as if the job involved differential algebra. Basically, the route consisted of two steps: go north until you hit I-80, and then turn east.

On Thursday, we pulled over at a small rest area in Iowa, to stretch our legs and let Shiloh do her thing. There was a crabapple tree not far from where we parked, heavy with abandoned birds nests. A little way away, there was a mowed path leading back into the trees that line the Interstate around there, and when I went back there, I found myself face to face with an agricultural field of some kind.

I was surprised to see just how many fields still had corn standing in them (you can see some corn in the field to the left of the one in the picture). Seeing how cold it had been getting during the night in Colorado, I figured it was pretty late in anyone's growing season, but then again, if you took everything I know about the practical side of agriculture, you could stick it in your eye and not feel a thing.

As we drove east on I-80, I kept noticing some unusual freight being shipped by highway headed west. These were very long and narrow blades - well over 100 feet long - to some kind of wind turbine. As we approached Adair, I spied a number of large wind turbines dotting the landscape and took several shots out the window in "drive-by" mode. (Only the one here is viewable if you don't enlarge it too much.)

It was also the day when we realized the fine balance there was between trying something new and unfamiliar, such as the "Mex-West" cuisine at a place called Taco John's, and the tried and familiar, such as just about any McDonald's on the planet. When push comes to shove, I think I'll opt for a gentle gurgle in my gut from the basic M-1 McDonald's cheeseburger than the dubious pleasure of being able to say "I survived" after eating mystery something from somewhere.

Yesterday, we followed a hand-lettered "FLEA MARKET" sign someone had planted on the shoulder of I-80 somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania, and went to visit a long, low-slung former farm building that was just off the interstate. On the one hand, there were a lot of reasonably nice antiques on sale, but the prices... wow! Those folks sure were proud of their prices, let me tell you! (Then again, it's entirely conceivable that they sell quite a bit of merchandise to passing tourists!)

I left with nothing more than a pint of home-canned apple butter (which we'll crack open once the refrigerator here has been restored to some semblance of operation after having been left unattended for several months).

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It's the weekend again and time to decide on which contestant gets the boot in Week 2 of LJ Idol. Please take a moment and vote for me in this week's poll to make sure yours truly isn't voted out of the competition this week.

Cheers...

Comments

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

I've managed to live my entire life without ever eating a McDonald's product. On the other hand, I've really enjoyed eating at some strange places going cross country, although I have to admit, I found most of them in the old days when the road still wended through towns instead of going around them. I came up with a couple of rules - nobody can completely ruin a burger, lemon pie or cherry pie. Even bad, those are always good ;)

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Well, I think that's the trick... to find places that aren't part of some chain or franchise (which is the case, as it turns out, with Taco John's) that've been around for a while. The result may not be cordon bleu, but it probably won't make you regret the meal, either.

Cheers...

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Those trees are beautiful.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

They surely are, though it takes a pretty cold snap to turn 'em yellow like that... no more going into the woods until spring for me!

Cheers...

[marketeer]

That first photo is gorgeous!