Well, it wasn’t summer but it was vacation. I had less than two weeks of vacation left so decided to maximize it by leaving before Veterans Day ( bank holiday) and returning after Thanksgiving. Ten days for the price of eight! This was a driving vacation so we had flexibility. We ended up leaving Friday the 9th as soon as work let out.
We headed for New Mexico first with four goals in mind. We drove through Wichita Falls and on into Amarillo. It was pretty cool to see the fields of wind turbines. I had driven past many tractor trailers pulling the enormous blades and supports for these things but until now had never seen one up and running.
Night fell as we continued our drive. We decided to drive until we were too tired to continue on.
We saw the first beautiful sunset of many to come. I appreciate them all but when you get into wide open spaces they have a different beauty.
After nightfall we began seeing rows and rows of red flashing lights. At first we wondered if we were near an airport, after driving miles and miles we had considered a very coordinated Christmas light display, a country club community. After seeing this for many more miles I consulted my friend Google. I learned that all those windturbines are marked with a red flashing light so that airplanes know they are windturbines. They flash all in synch (mostly) to make them identifiable. When I first saw the lights they were much denser than this picture shows.
We finally stopped in Tucumcari, NM. The only bad thing about night driving is that you miss the changes in the scenery. When we got up in the morning we were greeted by the first of many mountains to come.
More about New Mexico in my next post.
Swooze
We used to go by those wind turbines when we lived in PA. It seemed that at least one was inoperative every time we drove by. Did you notice the hum they make? I'm looking forward to seeing where else you are traveling (-ed) to.
ReplyDelete