Thursday, November 10, 2005

Hot Load in the Desert

Walter's off to Calexico with a hot load. But after he delivers it, he'll sit down with me (via cell phone) and we'll break through to Hello and bloggerbot those pix within an inch of their lives.

Out of Tucson now, where he tells me the traffic was truly terrible. That he'd be out of the city faster if it were New York

He's in a part of the country that has many early memories for me. Camping and traveling though the desert as a child with my family, or at fancy summer ranch camp in my teens. Riding those beautiful trails, such stunning scenery you don't notice you've been horseback for 10 hours until you figure out you're hungry and the sun is setting.

I want to plant things for Walter. In mittel Europe they don't have much yucca. He's mentally cataloguing his favorites as he goes, something I've been trying to get him to do for years and years. I'm pretty sure one of his best-loved is the Joshua Tree.

Even driving trucks with Walter through that country, I couldn't really get him to settle down and observe his plant favorites. Now he is. And once he makes up his mind to really think about something, Lord that man goes to town on it.

I think he just noticed tamarisk. Saltcedar. He told me of a lacy tree, not so tall...

I need to be there again. Oh, I'm filled with longing. I miss the desert so much sometimes it makes me feel utterly lost and alone.

5 comments:

Desert Cat said...

Traffic is terrible in Tucson because the NIMBY's and the starry-eyed mass transit dreamers won't let any freeways be built across town. The only one we have passes through town along the southern and western edges.

Lucky for me I live closer to downtown than I work, so I'm always commuting opposite the rush-hour traffic direction.

Desert Cat said...

Although I should note that Daisycat also thought traffic was particularly bad today. I don't really know why that would be. Maybe the snowbirds are showing up early this year.

Where did he stop in Tucson?

k said...

I'm not sure he stopped at all, he's not stopping much on this run. That hot load was scheduled to go all the way across country -Alabama to CA - in a couple of days. And if he can, he's supposed to deliver before the scheduled time, which is usually a no-no. So he's tearing through as fast as the (trucking) law allows.

Most everyone likes to think their traffic is The Worst. When you drive all over the country you get to see whose really IS bad. Walter says Tucson is bad.

I always got a kick out of commuting against the flow of traffic. It's the Only Way to Ride.

Ha! You've probably got some of our snowbirds there this year.

Desert Cat said...

Well if he was "just passin' thru", then he didn't experience bad Tucson traffic. I'd like to hear what he thinks if he ever has reason to drop a shipment somewhere midtown and then get back to the freeway. Durning rush hour. In December.

ADOT is going to start making the freeway part worse again soon though. They're widening the portion from I-19 out to somewhere past Miracle Mile Road over the next few years, and through traffic will be routed onto separate lanes from the intracity traffic. Yes indeed! The I-19 interchange mess over the last several years was just the beginning!

k said...

Good grief! That sounds awful.

I read Walter your post. He said the highway traffic was definitely bad enough to qualify as Bad.