The New Reality
Today was the big day! Today was the day that I floated an idea to Patty that might save my life or at least lead to dramatic improvement.
I also got some pictures in the process!
I also, however, discovered a serious problem with my camera when I got to the house and downloaded the pictures, but we’ll get to that in due time – though you will see some evidence of this problem in some of the images presented here.
Today is Tuesday 21 November 2024.
I went for a walk before dawn.
I need to do better with food preparation. I’m probably going to put on pounds today and yesterday. I am excited about meeting with Patty and also the fact that a specific someone else wrote to me yesterday.
The Garcia truck was parked against traffic, just like Rose walks with traffic.
Yesterday made me feel good, and the prospect of what might happen today makes me feel good.
The thing that I am doing now doesn’t need to be sustainable, because everyone understands it to be a temporary thing, but I could be associated with these people for the rest of my time working. My newspaper job was unsustainable, I was thinking this morning.
I don’t know why I thought that I needed to go to the gym this morning, but I did go to the gym, shortly after 07:00. I did a chest-triceps workout, without working out shoulders much except on the incline bench press.
Then, I showered and shaved.
I passed by Lafayette Yard and saw one BNSF Railway C44-9W pulling what looked like and L&D interchange cut westward in the yard.
Yeah, those are some spots on the sensor. 😬
I had planned on going to Baton Rouge via Opelousas to check out Lakeland, where I had never been, but I was running too late to do that. I would do so on the return trip.
So, in Lafayette, I got onto I-10 eastbound at the University Avenue exit at 10:14 CST, and on 106.3 FM came this “we get what we want, we get what we deserve” song. What song is that?
This is the third time that I go to Baton Rouge this year. The first time was in March, and the second time was in May.
On I-10 east of Lafayette, I crossed the solid line and then passed a sign that said “do not cross the solid line”. Well, damn. I wonder if I will get a ticket.
My experience driving across the Atchafalaya Basin this morning was uneventful. At 11:19-11:20, I crossed the Mississippi River on the US Highway 190 bridge, ducked under the Y&MV bridge with a 2020 deck on there, passed by the stockyard, and saw a hi-rail truck on the Kansas City Southern Railway – excuse me, Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited – D Line. No, I am not going to Natchez, but that would be interesting!
I got to the meeting location early and realized that I had missed a spot near my nose when I was shaving this morning and, so, then went to the nearby Albertson’s to correct that.
This was interesting.
Yes, I got some other snacks while I was at it.
Hey, look at this old thing out in the parking lot!
This is an antique by now!
Nothing like that gets made anymore, right?
I had not seen this part of Baton Rouge in ages.
I have a weird history with this city.
It was the first Louisiana city to which I seriously considered moving, even though I have yet to do that!
Yes, I considered living in Baton Rouge before I considered living in New Orleans, and, yes, I’m still not ruling out the possibility of living there in the future.
Anyway, the meeting was mostly good, but maybe it was not. The question about Jackson was a bad sign.
After the meeting, I felt relieved that it was over, and I went about and played around a bit!
I went northward on this road, and I eventually landed at the KCS – I mean, CPKC – yard.
Well, that is interesting!
I like the architecture of the yard office.
Notice the old passenger platform in the below image.
Notice the top of the state capitol building in both of these images.
I then kept going northward, and, as luck would have it, I happened to be on the Canadian National Railway Hammond Subdivision when the A301 or the M301 or the A401 or the M401 or whatever it is called now was running eastward out of town.
This is pretty uninspiring, isn’t it?
Some 20 years ago, somewhere around here, I shot, on film, the local train that runs on this track.
About 20 minutes later, right at around 15:00, I was going back across the river – this time, westbound – on the US Highway 190 bridge when I passed a Union Pacific Railroad transfer train that just so happened to be on the bridge and just so happened to also be going west at the same time.
I raced to the ground in Lobdell in time to get shots of it.
Well, this is cool!
I have shot pictures of trains on this bridge at various times over the last couple of decades, but I don’t think that I’ve done this view before.
You can see signs of my camera problem.
At least this shot turned out okay.
This train is the transfer run between Union Pacific and CPKC in Baton Rouge, run out of Livonia.
Yeah, how is that? 😉
It’s too damned bad that that first car is graffitied.
I liked this cloudy coolness!
So, I did a bit of a hat trick today, by photographing action of three Class I railroads: BNSF, CN, and UP, along with static shots of CPKC stuff.
So, I went by the Lakeland sugar mill, a weird sugar mill, traveling to places that I hadn’t been before today.
This is Russel Honoré’s part of the world.
It was difficult to photograph the mill, really, because there aren’t many publicly-accessible views of it.
So, then, I went to a place that intrigues me, near here.
Well, no, it’s not McDonald’s that intrigues me.
It’s this little town on the old Gulf Coast Lines mainline where this McDonald’s is that intrigues me.
This is Erwinville, Louisiana.
I am thinking about my Erwinville-Dequincy train on the Acadiana Railway, with a branch to Lakeland that connects with the CPKC on the other side. That, too, is silly, but it’s also pretty cool.
Look, a guy can imagine things, okay?
It would be so cool!
So, then, I went to Livonia, but, unsurprisingly, I couldn’t see much. I got only this picture of a switch job shoving.
That is all for the railroad action today.
So, just before I got to Blanks on US Highway 190, traffic stopped.
There was a wreck just before I got there, meaning that it could easily have been me in the wreck, especially if I had spent a little bit less time at Livonia or Erwinville.
Yes, you can see a train right there!
Both of the westbound lanes of the highway were blocked, and I got some video of the eastbound train passing while I was stuck there.
Everyone parked behind me had headlights on, right when they don’t need them on, but so many of them won’t have their headlights on when they should be on.
Not long (probably) after this, I took a look at the maps on my tablet and I realized that there is a road to the north so close to where I was that I could see it and that taking it could get me around this mess. So, I showed it to some people behind me and said that I was going that way.
The route was River Station Road to Louisiana Highway 77 to Louisiana Highway 81 back to US Highway 190 in Lottie. I had never been to any places on this route other than US Highway 190. So, I visited Fordoche, Louisiana, for the first time in my life, but I saw it only in darkness and from inside of an automobile.
There were several automobiles behind me! There were none ahead of me! So, these people were following me!
I got to Krotz Springs, to a gasoline place, out of fuel and in need of a bathroom, and some man whom I did not recognize told me “thanks for leading us out of there.” Wow!
I got gasoline.
So, that’s all for the pictures for today.
At the house, after downloading the pictures, I discovered that I have a serious problem with my main camera, because there are splotches all over the sensor, which explains why my Amtrak picture from eight days ago was so splotchy.
This is a serious problem and will need a serious solution.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I am really tired.
Jbx
