Jimbaux is still alive.
Hi, there!
Five days after I photographed the CP 2816 steam locomotive at Dequincy and 12 days after I had a great chase of the Union Pacific Railroad New Iberia Turn westbound, I was back in the homeland for a dentist appointment and got some pictures.
This was not a great outing with impressive pictures, but that’s okay. I was glad to just be able to do it.
Before I get to today’s pictures and narrative, I will share some thoughts from the last five days, starting with the day after my outing to Dequincy for the Final Spike Steam Tour train.
Sunday, May 26th
It’s not too hot out here. It’s bright. I have a mild headache.
I weighed about 166.8 pounds this morning. I did eat a good bit of carbohydrates and sugar yesterday. So, I will try to not do that today, which should be easy, since I am not going anywhere. I may fast, I guess.
I have some thoughts from yesterday. Well, let’s see.
I woke up this morning to a Facebook message from David Blazejewski saying that he was at Dequincy and wishes that he could have gotten to talk to me, and I am like, wow, I wish that I could have gotten to talk to him, too.
The picture turned out okay. It almost didn’t happen, though. That was kind of crazy, but I would have just had to sit out there in the heat with no shade indefinitely, waiting for the train to show up with almost no warning. In retrospect, that seemed like an impossible task anyway.
I didn’t hear anything from anybody yesterday, other than Blazejewski. People in southeastern Texas got some interesting shots. I am looking forward to seeing Blazejewski’s shots.
I guess that I slept okay, the 05:00 alarm clock woke me up, and I hit “Snooze” several times until really almost 06:00.
I want to go home, man. I want to go home. I want to get the hell out of here.
I want to see the UP New Iberia Turn often. I want to see the Sunset Limited stop at Schriever often. I want to see it at Melodia. I want to see it at Saint Charles Church. I want to occasionally go to Raceland and not have to think about the horrors there.
I didn’t see a person at the depot yesterday who was not white. It’s crazy. It’s a very white hobby. It’s a very autistic hobby.
I mean, maybe I should have just gone and just watched the train pass through. I don’t know.
I can’t believe that I was actually inside of the depot with everyone else locked out, and I also kind of can’t believe that there was nobody else out there at CS Junction photographing the train.
The depot is pretty cool, but it’s difficult to work it into a shot if you don’t have a drone, because it’s on the outside of curves, and the areas away from the track across the depot aren’t really open. So, you can’t get a camera far away to pull in the depot in the background while showing much of any train. I mean, the best picture that you can get from the ground is a nice picture of the depot with a train in the background.
It’s weird. With his drone, Donovan Reed did what I think was the perfect shot of the train at the depot, and I described why it was such a great shot in a Facebook post.
I guess that people are going to chase that locomotive to Laredo in the South Texas heat. I can’t do that, not anymore. I guess it’s true that I am getting more sensitive to heat as I get older. I don’t know. Maybe the rate of change there is no greater than it is for a person who doesn’t have the sensory sensitivities that I have.
Yeah, I was glad to get that Westlake shot yesterday, and it’s not a good shot. It wasn’t like, oh, cool, but it was something new, and I learned, and it’s more territory that I have now covered, which is what I like about it.
Man, I looked good yesterday at the gym in Iowa, which means that I looked good when I was at the depot in Dequincy yesterday.
After I shot the train at Dequincy, I was coming south on the Lake Charles Sub, and I thought, oh, wow, if that local train comes northward, I will chase it, but it was so damn hot, and I was tired, I didn’t want to wait for it. So, I was thinking that, if it comes north while I am here, I might turn around and chase it all the way to DeRidder and give up the chance to shoot the Sunset Limited, but I wasn’t willing to wait once I got by Mossville.
So, this morning, I looked at Donovan’s pictures from months ago and kind of figured that it probably runs a little bit later; so, I probably would have been able to see it had I waited a little bit longer. I just am not entirely sure that it runs on Saturdays.
Wednesday, May 29th – Yesterday
I came to town today, but I ended up taking no SLR-camera pictures the entire day. I was thinking then that I probably was not going to spend tomorrow night (tonight) in town; I was not really feeling it. This morning, I washed a big pile of dishes and folded towels and underwear after drying them yesterday.
Amtrak Julie said that there is a service disruption. So, I am not going to photograph the #1 today; so, that is why I am a bit delayed in leaving and am okay with it. There was no point in rushing. I had nothing else to do other than photograph the Union Pacific Railroad local train.
Dammit! I forgot my camera equipment, and I realized this only after I had driven about 10 miles from the house. At least I figured this out before I drove too far. I thought of looking for my camera gear when I was thinking about the UP local train.
At 13:56, after an uneventful drive, I arrived at Schriever.
LDRR 1717 is parked there.
I saw two work trucks, it looks like for a contractor, not the L&D crewmen’s personal vehicles or even L&D vehicles.
There are no cars west of Old Schriever Highway. There are no centerbeam cars, no nothing; there are just a bunch of tank cars in the track east of the old highway.
So, that’s it. It’s boring as dirt and hot as hell. I went to Taco Bell in Thibodaux to eat and then returned to Schriever, hoping to catch the UP New Iberia Turn. After a few hours, though, I could not hang out in the heat to wait for the UP local train; it may have come later, but I abandoned the effort to find some air conditioning.
So, I had a good gathering with my host; they had some really good ideas to share with me about what to do next. I did not take a single SLR-camera photograph today.
Thursday, May 30th – Today!
It felt good to walk early this morning in the original hood.
I wasn’t really imagining walking in this neighborhood when I planned the trip, because I figured that it would be hot, and that I would be sweaty, but it was actually not hot before 05:30; it was actually quite pleasant. I wouldn’t say that it was cool, but it felt really invigorating to be out there.
In the old house there, in what was the, I guess, piano room there is a big-screen TV on the western wall. Okay, that really kills the vibe. This ain’t the 1980s anymore, or even the 1990s.
It’s fine that I got no DSLR-camera pictures yesterday. I have already taken more such pictures this month than I have in all previous months this year combined and more than I am likely to take in the next few months.
So, basically, until October, this could be the greatest number of pictures that I take, and it’s possible that I will have taken more SLR-camera pictures in May than I will in all other months before September combined. It’s crazy, funny how that works.
I left the house to go to the dentist, and I swung by the track in Schriever.
Yeah, an eastbound train was coming!
I counted 108 cars on this BNSF Railway train at 09:21.
There have been times in the last few years since the exile that I have done that shot of an eastbound train from the Old Schriever Highway, but this is the first one that I do in the traditional morning light like this. I think that one of the shots that I did there in the last few years may have been on a thickly-cloudy day, and then the other ones were in the evening. This one is full sun.
I do like that I got a telephoto shot of this train passing the depot that reminds of a shot that I did here with a telephoto lens in late 2002, 21 and a half years ago.
Okay, it’s getting hot out here. I cranked up the truck and turned the AC on. I just got gasoline at the Shop Rite, the Birdies Food And Fuel place, because all of the pumps at the GoBears place are covered. Now what? Go to the dentist? or hang out here for a little bit longer?
I need to repair this telephoto lens of mine.
So, yeah, May 30, I like that number for a date. Yeah. So, I got a shot today; I did, after all, get a very decent, very presentable train picture on this trip, even though it is very standard of kind of a boring train, it’s still a train picture.
I kept forgetting that the UP local train will run eastbound this afternoon; my goal was to see it somewhere. The tricky thing is going to be is, do I try to hang out in Thibodaux and Schriever in the hopes of catching a phantom westbound train until it meets the UP local somewhere, or do I try working my way west to try to intercept the UP local train? It’s tricky, because I could start out doing the former and work my way west if time passes, and, if no train comes, but, then, that could mean giving up possible shots of the UP local train. So, it’s tricky, but I will decide that later, after the dentist appointment and a meal.
Here and now was my chance to go and ride by Devil’s Swamp and to go see if that shot is available. Yes, there are tank cars parked on the Napoleonville Branch track. Man, I really miss Thibodaux Junction; that was a good place.
Let’s see, Devil’s Swamp Road. Is it still even a public road?
Yes, it is.
Man, I have been down this road so many times, and almost never for any purpose other than foam, foam, FOAM!!!!!
Yep, this road is the same.
The thing that I want to do back here is see if that top-of-the-truck shot of the track is still available, that view that I did on 1 April 2014.
Well, I guess that you could say that it is.
I wish that some of that vegetation on the northern side of the track would get chopped, though.
Yeah, I’ll take it. This shot is available, but it’s a little more overgrown with vegetation than it was in April 2014.
I then rode through Acadia Woods; a long time ago, I worked in plenty of these houses. This place looks basically the same. There are new fences and renovated houses. I haven’t been through here in a while.
Rodeo Pen Road, yep, I remember, barely, when there was a track there, barely. Man, if only Lafourche Sugar shipped by rail, this track might still be here, and that woud mean the world to me.
What the hell? There is a roundabout here now? Wait a minute! Where does this road go? There is a new road here? Excuse me; I am going check this out. There is a new road going where the old Acadia Road was. Oh, well, it doesn’t go very far.
Ha! Is this a public road again? No, it’s not.
At least you can get up to right here, though.
All right. So, this is interesting. I am somewhere where I have not been in nearly 20 years, but I just can’t get any closer. So, there is a decent broadside shot to be had here, which I can keep in mind for future references, possibly as early as today, because, if the UP local train comes this far before I leave, I can get a good broadside shot of it here, and I could photograph Amtrak trains here. Wow.
I am going to come right here. This is amazing. This is like a trip back in time for me, how badly I want to go back there to the crossing.
This makes me wonder why that little stub is open to the public now, and which makes me think that it is for future development.
Anyway, then, I had to go to a private park, which is a very political thing.
The dentist appointment was fine. My next appointment is scheduled for December 10.
After the dentist appointment, I went straight to Huddle House.
I had a good breakfast, the MVP breakfast, but, once again, I had the problem of their cups being too small; you have to sit there with food on your plate waiting until someone refills your cup to resume eating.
The food was okay, but the experience was less so.
After I left Huddle House, I was driving up Saint Patrick Highway and past that bar by or at the old ice house, and a woman walks out the door and lights up a cigarette; it was that that made me have a visceral response, and it was at that moment that I finally figured out how to articulate the problem, which is that, when we have a situation in which anyone can make any space inaccessible, as this woman was doing, there should not be “no smoking” signs. There should only be “this is a designated smoking area” signs, because she is outside, and, so, people just think that any place outdoors is an okay place to smoke cigarettes.
I am saying, no, it should not be assumed that any place not explicitly designated a no-smoking area is okay to smoke in. No, it should be assumed that any place that is not explicitly designated as a smoking area is not okay to smoke in and-or that, if you are outside and feel the need to smoke a cigarette, you should treat the situation the same as if you were far from any toilet and needed to engage in outdoor excretion: make as much effort as you can to put yourself where nobody else is, seclude yourself in such a way as to ensure that nobody has to deal with your crap.
The reason is that, with the way that it is now, it is legal for anyone to make any outdoor space inaccessible, any outdoor space where I might already be or where I might want to go, to make it inaccessible, and, actually, I was thinking yesterday about like, as it relates to good arguments for policy, we shouldn’t say that we should legalize marijuana because we need the revenue, and I was thinking about how the case for banning cigarettes is stronger than the case for banning marijuana and maybe alcohol too, even if I oppose banning either.
We shouldn’t ban cigarettes; I am morally opposed to such outright bans. However, we should just ban smoking in any place that is not a designated cigarette smoking area. There would be no crime of possession, it would be legal to buy and sell it, but, if you light up a cigarette anywhere other than designated smoking area, any place that a human being can be, you can be charged with sensory assault. Make them be the damn burden.
It’s just that anybody can light up a cigarette near anyone else pretty much anywhere outside, and that is seriously wrong. That should not be. You can effectively kick people out of public places or even their own private property if your smoke is going into their yard.
Anyway, at around 12:00, I was at the civic center to kill some time and walk around before returning to the house.
There was an event being set up; it looked like a graduation. I don’t know what school. I don’t really care.
It was good to just walk around inside this not-too-bright place.
It brought back some memories.
That was nice. At about 12:20, I left the civic center.
Oh, no, there is a structure being built, probably a residential structure, on the corner of Church Street and West Seventh Street. Well, that ends the already-no-chance-of-happening idea of putting a railroad spur into Frost Lumber right there! Maybe I can live there and imagine trains passing here.
I wonder what happened to that old man who lived out here whom I gave a map. I remember that lady thought that I was a cop.
Look at these sunflowers on the corner of Henderson Street and Bradford Street. That’s really nice.
Riding down Parish Road, I was imagining the trains that I saw pass when my mother would drive me down here, my poor mother, my poor mother.
The fireman should not have to hold a fair. The town should hold an event just because it wants to do so.
I arrived at the house at about 12:31.
I soaked up some air-conditioning for a few hours and then tried to figure out what the deal with the UP local train was.
This feels like home. She had the air conditioner cold!
It feels far, far, far more like home than my current ‘residence’ does.
At 15:15, I leave the house, eating some of this fruity trail mix that I forgot during that trip on Saturday that I had. It’s been sitting here in my truck for months.
Okay, what am I going to do now? I really don’t know. I guess that I’ll go to Schriever.
Passing Arms Street made me think of something, specifically, about that old bank building on Arms Street out in the cane field by itself and looking forward and realizing that it’s not there anymore made me think of something. It made me think of how it appears that that nursing home in North Thibodaux is gone, demolished, the building.
Anyway, everything makes sense now, now that I know that I am autistic. Everything makes sense.
I guess that I am going to Schriever now. The UP local train left New Iberia eastbound about an hour ago, according to Perry Templeton.
Okay, I am driving by that Off The Hook billboard, and I am tempted to get one of those shrimp whatever things there.
I can detect the salt on this trail mix. Maybe that is how it stays edible for so long.
Jude’s Hot Chicken and Shrimp, where the Church’s Chicken used to be. It might be nice to try.
Fitness? I guess that that place is not a gym anymore. Maybe the Wellness Center combined with Anytime Fitness put it out of business
There are a bunch of people from my past who might be open to hearing me talk about autism and acknowledge that my struggles and things that I did wrong.
I arrived at Schriever, just not feeling like sitting out here roasting in the heat while waiting for a train to show up, probably a lousy BNSF train. Oh, the L&D job is back, with hopper cars. That could mean that they went to Raceland or that they went to Morgan City or Boeuf. I wish that I knew. I wish that I was around here to know.
The LDRR 1717 and three hopper cars are here.
What in the hell do I do? Do I just sit here and wait for a train? If it wouldn’t be so hot, I wouldn’t mind doing that.
That David Austin Walsh guy is so sad.
I don’t feel free to be me.
I sat there for a couple of hours with the engine running and AC blowing, waiting for trains that did not come, a total waste of my time. At about 17:30, I began to mosey on over to the west and possibly intercept the UP local train, which had to be somewhere. “Alive” by Pearl Jam was playing on 98.1FM. I guess that it is an appropriate song for today.
So, this was kind of a waste, just sitting there for all of that time. Originally, the weather forecast called for clouds and rains this afternoon. So, I had been thinking that it would be good lighting for eastbound trains, but, by this time, it was sunny out with just a few clouds, typical for this time of year.
Perry said that the UP local train had a pretty solid length and had a Norfolk Southern locomotive pulling it. Actually, it was getting to be so late that that Thibodaux Junction or the Acadia Woods shot might work, but the trick is getting there.
I managed to eat the entire contents of one of these two plastic containers of fruity trail mix that I had. So, what else? really nothing, pretty much nothing happening at Schriever, no sign of Stephanie; I am guessing that that fascist died. I was thinking of the 1717 like it was the 1850, like how Stephanie loved my pictures of the 1850.
I stopped at the crossing in Chacahoula to just have a look west. Damn, the vegetation is thick now. It used to be not quite as thick; you used to be able to see through the trees to the track more.
I was yawning. Part of the reason that I decided to call it quits was that I was putting myself late getting back to the house, and I didn’t want to screw up my bedtime. So.
There was no sign of a train at Chacahoula. There is some interesting ballast to the east of the crossing here. I haven’t been to Wilson’s Kountry Korner in a long time. Today is a bad day to go there.
Anyway, I decided that Berwick Bay would be the sensible low-risk place to attempt to intercept the UP local train, since I have no radio scanner.
This is a neat place.
Here comes our train, coming out of Berwick.
I got it!
That’s also the best that I will do today, apparently.
It’s been a while since I have seen a Norfolk Southern Railway locomotive.
Allrightey, that’s enough for now.
The train had 36 cars.
I went down Alice C Road at the Bayou Sale siding and ended up by Franklin.
This place is somewhat neat.
This thoroughfare with the light poles helps to make it neat.
This isn’t the first time that I have stopped to take pictures of this subject.
It probably won’t be the last, either, but that is the last picture for today.
So, that’s all for today. I arrived at the house at 20:15. This isn’t a story of an intense chase, and that’s okay.
Jbx
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