Bayous And Silver Mountains
Greetings, and welcome to the July 2006 Sampler essay.
This was the summer of 2006, a time of transition and travel as already demonstrated by the “June 2006 Sampler” essay.
We will start with a BNSF Railway train at home in bayouland and then some Kansas City Southern Railway action in New Orleans before going far away northwest to Burlington Northern Railroad country and then returning to bayouland.
Saturday, The 1st
After a Joyous Sounds concert in Lockport, I was in Schriever after dark as BNSF Railway train M-LALNWO-1, with BNSF 7703 as the lead locomotive, passed eastbound on the siding next to the western borrow pit that reflected its headlights.
The train, from the BNSF Railway yard in Lafayette, Louisiana, to New Orleans Public Belt Railroad’s Cotton Warehouse Yard in New Orleans, was there to meet a Union Pacific Railroad train with NS 9015 as the lead locomotive.
Monday, The 3rd
Back at work in New Orleans on this date, I got the Kansas City Southern Railway job westbound heading back to the KCS yard from the NOPB yard at Eagle Street.
I liked that I was getting to know the NOPB-KCS operations here.
Tuesday, The 4th
It was Independence Day, and here was the eastbound Amtrak Sunset Limited coming into Schriever.
This place is sacred.
Wednesday, The 5th
On this day, I photographed KCS movements in different directions on the NOPB. First, I got the KCS 4767 leading a KCS job eastbound at Walnut Street in New Orleans. Then, I photographed KCS 4786 leading a KCS job westbound on the NOPB at Eagle Street in New Orleans.
Those times seemed promising.
Sunday, The 9th
On this day, I went to the airport and boarded an airplane for places that were far away but were still inside of the borders of my home country, the United States of America.
At some point on this trip, I was at the airport in Denver, but I don’t recall if it was on the way out, on the way in, or both, and I seem to remember chatting up a very nice and pretty young lady who was studying biology or something like that. What I do know is that I landed at Portland International Airport in Oregon and, there, boarded a propeller airplane for Spokane, Washington, and that, on that flight, I was able to see Mount Saint Helens and Mount Rainier.
Here is a shot from just after landing in Spokane.
I would then move by some automobile to Wallace, Idaho, where I was to spend the next week as part of a teacher workshop with the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Monday, The 10th
Wallace is a neat little town. I found a nice place for breakfast right by the hotel.
This picture was from inside of the workshop room.
The picture is full of meaning that I won’t explain, except to say that the BNSF hat was a new piece of apparel, a gift that I had acquired in the travels of the prior month.
Tuesday, The 11th
Here is a picture from inside of the breakfast place.
Later that day, I saw a “Just Say NO to EPA” sign in front of someone’s house.
We then went to the Pulaski Tunnel Trail, which was neat, especially for a boy from the bayou.
Wednesday, The 12th
On this date, we went to the Sierra Silver Mine.
I think that working in a mine would have destroyed me.
Thursday, The 13th
On this date, we went to the Silver Mountain Resort in nearby Wardner, Idaho, and rode in the chairlift and in the gondola.
We then ate at some place that I don’t remember, but the seating was outdoors under covers, and there was a bird nest in there with a parent bird bringing food to the baby birds, of which I snapped a picture.
Friday, The 14th
This was my last day in Wallace, and, as I type this 20 years later, the last time that I was in the State Of Idaho.
I did get some pictures in Wallace on this date, but, since I would spend a night in a hotel in Spokane, Washington, on this night, since I made the best of my time there by going foaming on foot in the area, since I am mainly a railroad photographer, and since this essay is already short on railroad content, the picture that I will present from this date is from Spokane, a railroad picture, and not a very good one, but, still, as of this date, one of very few railroad pictures that I have made from the State Of Washington.
Before I got this shot, I did photograph some Northern Pacific Railroad woodchip gondola cars moving through Spokane. After I got that shot, I saw a caboose, BN 12518, in the large yard in Spokane, and, then, after that, I photographed BNSF 2721 and BNSF 2088 and some cars in what I think is that same yard.
Saturday, The 15th
This was the day to fly back home.
I stopped at the Spokane Farmers Market along the way! No, I don’t remember what, if anything, I got there.
Saturday, The 22nd
After a week back at work in my new construction job in New Orleans, I was in Hammond on this date for a gathering of railroad enthusiasts.
Here is Canadian National Railway train M-319 passing John Fortner and Shawn Levy north of the Hammond railroad station.
Sunday, The 23rd
On this Sunday morning, I caught a New Orleans Public Belt Railroad job working its way eastbound in Jefferson.
I think that this train was going to Canadian National Railway’s Mays Yard and consisted entirely of CN interchange traffic.
Sunday, The 30th
I went visit Saint Jude at his father’s place on this date, as his (Saint Jude’s) (first) marriage was falling apart at the time.
I guess that bees are an appropriate analogy here.
Epilogue
In the process of researching for this essay, which means researching my own past, I had to research where I was in pictures for places that I had visited but with which I was unfamiliar. That also meant looking up names of persons I met on that trip, but, of course, in many cases, I did this just out of curiosity, to see what ever happened to the people whom I met on this trip.
One of them was Saprina Schueller, a young teacher from Idaho, and I think from that part of Idaho. I learned in the process of this research that her then husband died by suicide and that she eventually went public about this story, which must have been so difficult.
The part that she mentioned of dying of shame is devastatingly, painfully relatable. I get it. I have realized that I am a lifelong trauma sufferer, and it is evidence in how I present all that I present here.
Four years later, four years after this summer in which I met Schueller, I suffered a precipitous burnout that destroyed my professional career, but it took me many years to realize that that was what was happening. It was almost a decade after this summer of 2006 that I realized that I am autistic and that that explains my whole life and everything that you read here.
As Schueller said, people have to be uncomfortable for needed change to occur.
Stay tuned for the August 2006 Sampler, with scenes from back home.
Jim
