Another day in Dateland

Roses are red, violets are blue, I like trains, I hope you do too.

I took this picture just as the sun disappeared below the mountains, and it was almost too dark for me to see. But I was lucky to have a train go by at that time of day.

I decided to stay another day in Dateland. Now that I'm less than a 100 miles from Ajo where I'm going to hunker down for the holidays I don't feel in a hurry to get there.

When I pulled into the RV Park here in Dateland yesterday it looked more crowded than I normally see it, but the crowd was in the long term stay area and the short term area where I wanted to be was empty except for a guy riding a bicycle staying in a tent.

Keep that in mind while I jump ahead in my story to something seemingly unrelated... Driving East on I-8 yesterday there were miles and miles of road repairs going on usually with one lane blocked off and traffic, what little there was, slowing down to 35 miles an hour. I was happy to see this of course because parts of I-8 were getting pretty bumpy, and now it was getting a brand-new coat of asphalt with dozens of dump trucks lined up bringing in materials.

Jumping back to the campground part of the story... In the late afternoon I started hearing a bunch of vehicle noise so loud I thought a train was coming through, so I went outside and found out not only where the noise was coming from, but where all those guys repairing the road sleep at night.

Lucky me! They all live right here at the campground. My first thought was that this is going to be a noisy night. A couple of dozen youngish, hard-working, hard drinking, road building guys are going to light up this campground tonight. But I was wrong.

I must've been thinking about what I was like when I had some tough jobs. But these guys must work pretty hard because from what I could tell they ate dinner and went to bed. Now I'm not gonna push my luck and stay here for the weekend, because tomorrow might be payday and hoping for peace and quiet after that might be out of the question. So I need to get to Ajo where senior citizens reign supreme and everyone's in bed by eight.

                                       theboondork

Here's a few of my campground neighbors, this isn't all of them, I couldn't get them all in the picture. This road runs next to the campground, the campgrounds on the left, and the railroad tracks are on the right

This tower, that's a couple hundred yards from the campground certainly doesn't improve the view, but I've got Internet speeds that would make Bill Gates jealous.

And speaking of tall towers, since I'm deathly afraid of heights I've always wondered where they find people crazy enough to climb up these towers and inspect them for signs of problems, before problems happen.

Well I just found out. I heard a loud buzzing sound while relaxing in the Arctic Fox, went outside, and watched a professional drone pilot take videos of the entire tower from top to bottom, side to side.

That looks like a job even I could do. If I had a large, very expensive drone, the knowledge and skill to use it, and a modicum of ambition.

Sunrise this morning.

When a million pounds of train is roaring by me at 60 miles an hour 30 feet away, I can't help but think of all the railroad spikes I'm seeing along these tracks that look like this.

These tracks aren't that far from the campground, and I sure would hate to wake up one morning and find a locomotive laying on my chest.