Saturday, October 20, 2012

Been Pretty Busy

And purty tahrd at the end of the day, so posting went right outta der winder.

Went on a trip to Ohio this week and didn't start until Tuesday. Eight of us went to a little burg just southeast of Springfield.


This is half the crew parked at Kingdom City, MO the first evening. The other half was across the street at a truck stop - they all slept in their sleepers. Guess that's why they lug 'em around, eh?

The leaves were certainly changing.




These were all taken eastbound on I70 in Illinois. The bugs on the windshield were from Kansas and Missouri.


Leaving Ohio on westbound I70.


Somewhere west of Indy on I70 - when we weren't stopped for traffic jams in the road construction. We even got to stop and trickle by a state trooper parked facing traffic in the left lane about ten or so miles from the next construction site. I suppose he was out there cutting back on the traffic that would end up getting jammed up in the construction area. This is where a GPS with traffic updates would be handy. One of our compadres behind us caught wind of the jam and went around it on US 40 to the north. We were familiar with it since that was how the State of Indiana had us routed since we were wider than their eleven foot limit on I70. Oh well, just that much later to bed that night.




What one can see of Ft. Riley, home of the Big Red 1, from I70. The top picture shows a bunch of Chinook choppers, and the last has a bunch of their stockpiled equipment both in sand and green colors. This place has really grown - back when I went to K-State, there were nowhere near the buildings there - nor the apartment complexes on to the west, or the businesses and so on.

And I was a moron and missed this picture, so I ripped it off the web.

Pic from here:  http://www.indycargarage.com/profiles/blogs/2007534:BlogPost:28149
And just to give y'all an idea of how flat Kansas is in the Flint Hills:

Photo from here: http://cjonline.com/stories/060108/kan_285036171.shtml
Oh, wait, that actually shows a hill or two! Truly, only parts of western Kansas are notably flat. Most areas have a few rolling hills - perhaps with hills not so high nor valleys so deep as other places, but hills nonetheless!

9 comments:

drjim said...

Really pretty countryside there!

threecollie said...

For the first time ever I have been where your photos occurred! When the boss and I went out to KC for auction school. We were talking about you in the milk house yesterday wondering if you were shut down by all those high winds.

lisa said...

Those are some nice rolling hills. The Ohio trees look about like what ours are looking like also. I know as far as construction goes for us car people it is a royal pain in the arse, I hate to be you truckers having to put up with! More power to you!

Jeffro said...

drjim: That is one of the benefits of traveling in certain areas fer sure!

threecollie: Believe it or not, it wasn't windy enough. It has to be averaging thirty mph in most states - wasn't even close in MO.

lisa: IL and IN are pretty much the same - there are stretches of nothing but trees closing in on the highway, then it opens up with lots of little fields full of fall crops - mostly soybeans in those areas. There was some corn, but it must have been too wet to get to it, sure seemed awfully gray - like it had been sitting for a while. At home, that is a sure sign of smut, which completely ruins the value of the corn.

Anonymous said...

Now I learned something (as usual @your posts): your picture-from-internet made me look up what Flint Hills are.

Your last picture is what English (as in England, UK) rolling hills are aspiring to. With all their doll-house Dollies.

Jeffro said...

Tatyana - one of the features of the Flint Hills is it's lack of underbrush and scrub - and some trees - because the stockmen who own the ground generally burn the pastures every year to promote the growth of fresh prairie. So, a lot of undesirable vegetation is eliminated and there is great grass for the cattle to graze.

But of course they're misusing it and should be growing tomatoes and squash, or something..... ;)

Laura said...

I love Fall.

Anonymous said...

They can start planting tomatoes right after removing all limestone from the land.
To think how much carbon credits they can gain by not importing Israeli and Italian stone!

Jeffro said...

Heh. Gonna take a lot of digging to do that! The bedrock is all limestone and in certain areas it was used to make post rock fencing! It's too soft to replace granite, marble and such, unfortunately.