We saw an interesting piece of business at Lamar Colorado.
Most stations have old Santa Fe Locomotives hanging around. This one had a locomotive and a water tank, which you can see in the back of the photo.
Then we saw a wind turbine blade!
It turns out that Lamar has a wind farm and they are showing it off at the station.
It was nothing like Palm Springs wind farm, I promise you that. I think it had 4 turbines.
I laughed, when I searched for information about it.
Aaah, rural America...
Almost exactly a month ago I wrote about our bus ride from hell on AMTRAK. You can refresh your memory HERE.
At the time, my Brother-in-Law commented to me that I should contact AMTRAK and let them know it was not handled correctly.
I thought about it for another week and one day I wrote an account of the entire mess. Then I let it sit for a day or so and finally cut it down a bunch and sent the story out on an email.
Crickets...
I heard nothing for weeks.
On Thursday we went to the gym and so we missed a call from AMTRAK. ACK!
When we called back it was a hold for 1 1/2 hours. They call you back just before you get to the front of the queue (thankfully). We were told that it was now after 8PM EDT, so call back tomorrow. ACK!
Day 2, we call right after lunch and were on hold for just 1 hour. Yay!
The customer service representative gave us $200 each in future travel, on AMTRAK.
A win for us and yes, I am looking at possible trips in the future.
I have a tendency to mention that something very wonderful is an E Ticket attraction.
For all those who have no idea what I am talking about, here is the real "E" Ticket.
We happened to see the old time Disneyland Coupon Book on the desk of the sales person at Sit-n-Sleep last week.
It has the entire amount of coupons, going from something so simple as the Disneyland Carousel (an "A" Attraction if memory serves) all the way up to the biggest rides the park has, like the Matterhorn Bobsleds or Space Mountain which are, of course, an "E" Attraction.
We have a couple of tickets, but I think we gave away the "E" ticket. Great memories of old times.
So last week, we bought a new bed.
We didn't need one right this minute, but after spending a vacation week on several king beds, I decided that it might be worth our effort and money, to give us more room.
Why the heck didn't we do this decades ago!
The main problem is that we don't have a whole lot of room, so we turned the two end tables sideways.
That worked, but it is not perfect.
I am still not staying in bed throughout the night, but I am there for about half the night. That is better than 2 hours.
We had the delivery men move our perfectly good queen bed into the arts and crafts room.
It is perfect for any visitor who needs a bed, or for us if one of us is sick and needs to be quarantined.
We had an extra queen comforter for the bed and so we used our new one on the king bed.
It is a bit short (which you can't see from this angle), but it makes it.
Mendota, IL is the most midwestern like town on our trip to Chicago and one we won't soon forget.
What set it apart is this ear of corn on a grain silo, set right by the train tracks. It was not by chance.
The Mendota Area Chamber of Commerce is proud to support "Mendota Gold" a 68 foot tall ear of corn that was painted and installed on the Northern Partners Silo facing the downtown area of Mendota on route 34. This is part of a regional project called "Silo Pathways" by North Central Illinois ARTworks as a way to promote tourism and the arts within our region.
Mendota Gold was the 2nd Silo Pathways installation and was completed on August 12, 2018 during the 71st Annual Mendota Sweet Corn Festival. Click the Mendota Gold link, to learn more.
Fort Madison, Iowa is the town that is by the bridge I told you about yesterday.
It gets its name from this fort.
It is a reproduction of the fort that was built near where the original fort was. They found that forts footprint under the parking lot of Sheaffer Pens (which used to be made in Fort Madison).
It is the location of the only battle of the War of 1812 that took place west of the Mississippi River.
The fort was under siege and when the soldiers left, they burned it to the ground and retreated into Illinois.
NOTE: If you would like to watch rail traffic by the Fort, you can see it HERE. It is on the Youtube page called Virtual Rail Fan. It is a very active spot, by the way.
My Water Post For Today.
I never tire of seeing the Mississippi River.
I sort of envy people who live by the river. It seems like a different life then I have.
From it being little in St Paul, MN to almost out to the delta in New Orleans, we have seen it in all its glory.
This photo is taken just before crossing the river, via the Fort Madison Toll Bridge which is just north of Fort Madison, Iowa.
How peaceful it is at this point in the river.
I hope you enjoy.
There is a plaque in Historic Chicago Union Station and it explains the importance of this station and this location.
Chicago is the railroad hub of the nation.
Almost every AMTRAK route travels to Chicago. The main one that does not, is the Sunset Limited that goes from New Orleans to Los Angeles (though you can take a detour up to Chicago if you like.)
The tracks that serve Chicago are co-owned by six Class I railroads — BNSF Railway, Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific Railway, CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern Railway, and Union Pacific. There are also small regional rail lines.
My Husband comes from a big Rail Road town. I am very proud of that fact.
Another sandstone area of New Mexico. This time 44 miles to the south and west of Albuquerque, NM.
The town that is nearby is Mesita, NM. Population 800.
It is best known for Owl Rock along Route 66 and these sandstone hills.
I wish I had known about Owl Rock. Maybe we could have seen it from the train.
As we were heading toward the Raton area, the weather started getting bad.
A thunder storm always slows down the train and gives you scary views.
This one, off to the north made us think that a tornado might be in the area and potential trouble for us. Thankfully not, it was probably just heavy rain.
When we got through the Raton Pass area and made it over to Trinidad, CO, we saw the Pergatorie River that runs through the town was filled with brown water. A clue that some major rain happened just before we arrived in town.
You never know what weather you will hit as you travel across the Country.
I mentioned that this area of the Arizona/New Mexico border was very beautiful.
The Arizona side has the Painted Desert and the New Mexco side has these sandstone cliffs, between the border and Albuquerque, NM.
These particular sandstone cliffs are by Fort Wingate (which was one of the battle areas with the Navajo Indians). From what I read, the fort was moved 3 times, over the years and I believe it does not even exist anymore. FYI, the photo was taken just past Wingate, closer to Jamestown, NM.
In my travels on the Internet I saw that there is a marker in Wingate, to commemorate one of the 3 Fort sites.
A small piece of trivia: The Navajo Code Talkers from WWII were stationed at Fort Wingate.
This is one of our smoke stops, Gallup, NM. We have just passed the Arizona/New Mexico border. Please note, it is a beautiful area of our Country (more on that, another day).
My train car was way to the front and so I did not get a photo of the Gallup sign. This, besides the fact that my phone told me it was near Perea, made me spend more time tracking this station down, then I thought I would have to do. Finally, I figured out it was a smoke stop and that got me to Gallup. Yay!
If you don't know AMTRAK, every 5 hours there has to be a change of crew and so we have time to get out of the train if we want, and look around a bit.
I don't remember why, but I did not spend time walking down the train, it might have been a short rest stop.
HERE is the website that shows off the skate park. It was built in 2018, so it is not very old, at all.
Good use of excess land, right near the track at the station.
It is quite beautiful and the photos on the website, give you a great overhead view of it.
I am not sure why it is not being used. It looks like the Pandemic closed it down for a bit.
I hope it is up and running now.
While our train stopped in Flagstaff, AZ we saw THIS Motel across the street.
I looked it up and found out that the Hotel Du Beau, with an 80 Foot neon sign out front, has been around since the 1920's
It was one of the original motels built to serve the traffic on historic Route 66.
The fact that it still is standing all these decades later, is quite an accomplishment.
Check the website out. It has quite a history.
My Water Post For Today.
We were on a bus and we were about to go into a serious thunderstorm, so apologies in advance for the quality (or lack thereof) of the photo.
This is the Mississippi River by something called the Chain of Rocks.
In low water levels, it is an impassible area of the river...so they built a lock (#27) to divert water traffic from the area.
There are actually 2 bridges there, the Old Chain of Rocks bridge (old Route 66) and the New Chain of Rocks Bridge.
You can actually walk onto the old bridge, if you wanted. It has a 22 degree angle in it, which seems kind of exciting.
You can check it out and more on THIS Wikipedia site.
I hope you enjoy.
I promise I won't bother you again about salsa...
Those tomatoes that I showed off yesterday, minus the one still in today's photo, made this much salsa.
It filled up about 2/3rds of the mason jar I used.
You can see it went a bit to the pink side, since the Brandy Boys are more pink than red.
All in all, it came out fine.
This might become a normal part of my routine, moving forward. At least for the next month or so.
I have at least 9 more peppers on the vine.
