It's a Big Boy!

Twenty-five Big Boy locomotives were built for Union Pacific in the early 40's and were operated for nearly 20 years. UP acquired 4014 from a museum and rebuilt it in time for it to feature in the 150th Anniversary of the Golden Spike this summer. They're now taking it on a tour.

I knew of a place a ways from the main road where there was a small bridge over a wash and a slight uphill grade. I was hoping it was far enough away that it wouldn't be overrun with other sightseeing folks looking for a rare sighting.

I took a chair and some snacks and headed out a  couple hours ahead of schedule, settling in the shade where I had a decent view and could take a few test shots.

For an engine that weighs 1.2 million pounds with 16 drive wheels, it sure was quiet!

4014 was running late. It had departed Yuma late, and as a result had been side-tracked several times while paying traffic moved through. It finally showed up nearly 2 hours late.

I figured with the grade that the train might come through slower than it did. It was running considerably faster than the freight trains,

which didn't leave any time to compose shots.

I was just glad that my Pixel phone shot as fast as it did.

Looks like the engineer had someone looking over his shoulder.

And with that, my less than 30 second meeting with railroad history was gone.

Reflections of Green & Red

We were fortunate this year to be the only party on the shuttle for our nearly annual river trip. We were on the water at Ruby Ranch nearly an hour earlier that normal and that paid dividends. No wind until we got to camp.

As usual, click on any picture for a larger version. The two panoramic shots at the end are quite wide. Suzanne asked for reflections, so...

First camp was at the mouth of Trin Alcove. Wind (and sand) blew all afternoon but settled down as the sun disappeared behind us.

The next morning was mirror smooth as we started loading out. This picture is looking upstream from the mouth of Trin Alcove.

Somewhere around River Mile (RM) 88.

Just downstream of Hey Joe mine.

Our second camp was on a high sandbar on the downstream end of the island about RM 72.8. Morning sun starts lighting the cliffs in the corner.

We didn't stop at Bowknot Bend this year since we knew there were several larger groups that would likely be stopping there. In fact, we didn't even get any pictures of it from the river, at least on the upstream side.

This is BJ's view as we face the last mile before our Thursday (and Friday) night camp at RM61.5.

And this was my view. We're headed for the bright white spot to the right of BJ's hat. This high water camp provides shade and wind protection as well as hiking opportunities into Two Mile Canyon.

Sunrise on Friday morning looking back upstream. The low spot in the cliffs is the narrow (and lower) neck of Bowknot Bend.

Approaching RM59

Somewhere upstream of Hell Roaring Canyon.

Evening from the mouth of Trin Alcove

Morning glow from sandbar camp about RM 72.8

That's Enough

We left Nampa, heading eastbound with more freeway miles than we'd had on the trip to this point. We did a bit of zigging and zagging to pick up up a line of contiguous counties but took very few pictures other than this one at Twin Falls. We spend one night at Massacre Rocks State Park west of Pocatello. Since it was mid week, we could get a senior discount on a water/electric site which was nice given the warm afternoon temperatures.

The plan was to make an early stop the next morning at the Idaho State Journal since there is a webcam cache located there that would have been a milestone cache for me. I tested it on my phone the night before and it worked well, but when we "needed" it, it didn't work so we moved down the road to another cache for that milestone.

Our line of travel was very crooked and counter-intuitive, but I was trying to add new counties and we were trying to stay high in hopes of cooler temperatures. It was a nice idea but didn't work as well as we'd hoped. The drive was beautiful with temps often hovering between 85 and 90.

I'd planned to stay at a state park with dry sites but decided the air conditioner was essential so we pulled into a picturesque RV Park in Coalville for the night. Friendly folks, nice facilities, but also freeway traffic noise all night.

Out of Coalville we headed up again, stopping on occasion for interesting historical monuments,

sheep herds,

and sites of famous mine disasters.

In Helper, we stopped to check out a variety of coal mining equipment including this mechanical back scratcher.

Loved the old, small towns scattered along the two lane highways. Even better, traffic was minimal!

We toyed with staying in Moab. We did stop, and managed to snag some late season shuttle dates for a short Green River trip, but then kept going for higher ground. After twenty years of driving past it, we stopped at Devil's Canyon campground south of Monticello. The short thunder storm did the trick to lower the temps, and we enjoyed a very nice night in a $5 site (thanks to our senior discount.)

We took time the next morning to do a Wherigo cache that took us on an interesting tour of Blanding. Managed to do it all with the trailer in tow, although getting turned around at the final was a bit tight.

As we often do, we stopped for a couple pictures in Monument Valley and then headed for our last night of the trip at Bonito Campground outside of Flagstaff - again, selected for the elevation.

110 nights, over 10,600 miles on the trailer, over 12,500 miles on the truck. We averaged just under 14 mpg for the trip with gas averaging $3.90 when converting to US dollars and gallons. Thanks to a bunch of boondocking and moochdocking opportunities, our camping costs averaged $14.91 per night.

Not only is the Scamp in the garage and the trip over, this post represents my 950th blog post. No telling when or if there will be another one. Time for a break??