Sometimes, the drive can be just a drive. Nothing much to share.
Not today. So I’m making a post about what it was that has moved me to share.
First, the number of trains we saw along the route was unreal. I have this thought that Bernard secretly had a wish to be a train conductor.
Why’s that? Because 99.8% of the campgrounds we’ve been at, we’ve heard trains. Yes, even in the deepest parts where you think you’ll not hear a sound. Nope. Bernard has this knack for finding campgrounds where you’ll hear at least ONE train during your stay. That’s the truth.
And if you ever wonder how your Amazon packages travel? Here’s a picture.
And then grain silos. These were huge. And not just a few here and there. There where clusters of about 10 to 12 silos. And as soon as you thought you’d seen the last of it, you see another cluster. (I didn’t get a good enough picture of those.)
Now why would I mention hay and silos? To feed the enormous amount of cattle we’ve seen along the road. I grew up in the country and saw plenty of cows in my lifetime in Canada. Nothing, and I do mean nothing prepared me or Bernard for what we saw. And this wasn’t just cattle grazing in brownish, dried up fields. They were thousands and thousands in pens ready for – you guessed it – to become your steak, roast, hamburger on your table.
We saw at least a dozen packing plants (or as I call them slaughter houses) where the cattle is shipped to these plants. And all of these are close to the train tracks.
So my dear friend, this is what happened along US route 60 and 70 today.
Bernard’s 2 cents
that section of route US60 in Texas appears to be a major train corridor. We saw train after train, as we drove, not just one train once in a while. Most of them with 4 locomotives and a long stretch of double stacked containers. Most of the traffic we saw was containerized – a few intermodal cars (wheeled trailers on a flatbed train car) – very few box cars, grain cars or tanker cars.
Shortly after the New Mexico state line, we switched to US70. The terrain was quite flat and had minimal traffic. We must have driven almost 2 hours with no services, no residences, no noteworthy landmarks (I checked it on Google Maps, and its 110 miles from Texico NM to Roswell NM)
BONUS: tonight I get to add the New Mexico state sticker to my RV map