If you've noticed that the COTTonLINE blog has been unusually quiet during this politically active week, it is because the DrsC are engaged in their biannual migration. In autumn it's from Wyoming, which was beginning to get cold, to California, where until recently high temperatures have been in the 90s.
The other DrC says she notices traffic is lighter than most years, which she attributes to the higher fuel prices. As is often the case, she is probably correct. The long-haul truckers are still out there, but the passenger vehicles are somewhat less prevalent.
Interstate 80 is sort of the backbone of the continental U.S., running from San Francisco via Chicago to New York, truckers call it "the superslab." We've driven many hundreds of miles on it.
Driving west along I-80 in northern Nevada we saw a big steam locomotive (No. 844) pulling a Union Pacific passenger train, somewhere between Lovelock and Fernley. The Union Pacific is known to keep a couple of the last steamers at their yards in Cheyenne, engines that they use for promotional tours to keep the enthusiasts happy.
A web search reveals this trip was Sacramento to Cheyenne and onward to Kansas City and down to Texas. A railroad buff's dream, this trip.
Old 844 ain't purty but she's got presence. We stood alongside her when she had steam up, at a stop she made in Oroville a couple of years ago. The heat radiating off her, the smells of lube, oil and steam, the simple overwhelming size of the thing is almost frightening.
