Thursday, March 10, 2011

Highway 191 in Southern Utah - breathtaking, eh?


It wasn't the greatest day for taking pictures, but since I've never been down this highway before, and may never again, I just took them. It was very cloudy and raining off an on, but the snow made the pics interesting.

These "buttes" are like the ones in all the old westerns, but I don't know where the huge towering ones are.






There are some interesting shapes out in the desert, and they just protrude with nothing around them.










Quite a pile of rubble










This one was near the end of the scenic area. I had hoped to see the "hole" that is on all the Utah license plates that's near Moab, but I guess it's off the main road.

There were signs to it, but no view. I have never heard of this one and I can't remember its name, but I was very pleased to spot it as I rounded a curve, and I was standing on the brakes to stop in the pullout at the side of the road to get decent pictures.




And then there's Texas... It's flat, but this is cotton country - thousands of acres of cotton fields, and the farmers are just starting their field work. By this fall, these lands will be white with cotton blooms, and that is when it's interesting to an X grain farmer like me. I love to watch the cotton harvest, and have seen more of it down by Childress, TX.

Today, I'm just sitting in Abilene, TX waiting for a reload. Yesterday, I unloaded in Hobbs, NM and deadheaded over here to wait for a load that is supposed to meet me in Austin, TX - about 200 miles farther south. This was as far as my log book would let me go.

So in their great wisdom, (H & R's) they are sitting me here for a logbook reset. That's 34 hrs without moving and you go back to 70 available hrs. Doesn't make much sense to me, because I've got over 60 hrs. for the next 6 days which is more than enough to get back to Canada. But this way, they don't have to pay me a "layover" which would put $100 in my pocket. They'll do anything to shaft a driver out of getting paid. I wonder how many days the planners and dispatchers put in without pay. :-)

About the only interesting thing here (Flying J Truckstop in Tye, TX) was these military jets landing. There were about a dozen of them and I was able to zoom in to get a pretty good picture.

Early this morning, I could hear planes overhead because the airport is just south of here, and that's what woke me up. Since I didn't have to work today, I was up after 02:00 working on my website, and I finally figured out the php program to cloak download links so people can't just help themselves to my files without paying.

Although it's very simple program after I got it working, the guy who did the video explaining the program wasn't the best, and I had to watch it about 12 times. I guess that's what happens when brilliant people try to explain simple things.