Western Texas Sunset - very Pic Heavy!

[elbert]

Life on the road furnishes a number of fringe benefits, and I'm ashamed to say that after 9 months I am perhaps beginning to take some of them for granted.
So it was that I found myself near a little town called Van Horn, Texas on Interstate 10, scrambling out of the freightliner to stand in awe of the most numinous sunset I'd seen in years.

I see sunsets in nearly every state, but this evening was just incredible. A constant slight breeze, a stunning landscape, a train rumbling away into the west, fireworks visible in the town a few miles distant. (Burn ban notwithstanding...)
Happy 4th. Keeping it smoky with SWRA in a MM cob. ::
-josh

 

[alaskanpiper]

Awesome. Sounds like a serene smoke.

 

[didimauw]

Things like that, make the smoke so much better! Thanks for sharing!

 

[jaytex1969]

Gorgeous! Thanks for the new desktop background!

 

[georged]

Elbert -- I drove a live-load flatbed & stepdeck rig through the lower 48 + Canada for several years, and appreciate what you're seeing and doing out there. I was probably the only guy on the road who travelled with 30 pipes and a couple pounds of "artisan" (as opposed to OTC) tobacco. :lol:
Please keep your road pics coming. There's a lot about the life to like. :D

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

@Elbert, Thanks for sharing,my favorite landscape,just beautiful, so keep them wheels rollin' >PeterBuild with 13 Eaton Fuller

@Georged,I was more than astonished to learn this, we've gotten something in common then.Same way

 

[elbert]

Now that's real truckin', George! I have a lot of respect for flatbedders. Paul, my driving school had a 13. I never did get entirely comfortable with it. Drove a 10-speed for six months, but my company (Crete) put me in a brand new truck in April and they're only buying "autoshift" now. I've decided I'll stick with them for at least two years while I learn the ropes. By then I'll probably have to re-learn shifting!

 

[autumnfog]

Pipes and nature... what more do we need?

 

[elbert]

Sunrise following

 

[kcghost]

Great pictures. I just love shots that has country side like we imagine the Old West has.

 

[georged]

...my driving school had a 13. I never did get entirely comfortable with it. Drove a 10-speed for six months, but my company (Crete) put me in a brand new truck in April and they're only buying "autoshift" now. I've decided I'll stick with them for at least two years while I learn the ropes. By then I'll probably have to re-learn shifting!

I went from the Montana outfit shown above to hauling coal and chemicals in Wyoming on (mostly) private roads that had no weight limit. A 110 foot long B-train that weighed 155K lbs was the standard rig, pulled by a KW900 / 550 Cummins with an 18 speed. An exciting business in the winter, since many of the roads were steep, snow & ice was part of the package, and the cargo had to be delivered 24/7/365.
I doubt auto transmissions will ever be used for stuff like that or specialized/oversize work. So if you ever get bored running the Interstate between distribution centers, there you go. There's really no limit to how challenging driving jobs can get if difficulty is what flips your switch.

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

Here our log haulers are favoring 18 speed Eaton Fuller gearboxes with total loads weighing up to 127868Lbs(58 thousand kg) nonetheless in the recent years auto shifts' are steadily gaining popularity and are mainly used in trucks doing interstate motorway runs.

 

[lightmybriar]

Wow.......that’s less than two hours from my hometown of El Paso. I sure do miss the scenery, but, unfortunately, I’ve heard it’s no place to live. Thanks for the pictures!

 

[elbert]

Wow.......that’s less than two hours from my hometown of El Paso.

I'm in El Paso now. 102° and sweating bullets!

 

[lightmybriar]

That’s too cool...or...I guess not! Haha! We left when I was 7, so I only have neat childhood memories of the place. My adult family had very different opinions haha.

 

[hawky454]

Ugh, El Paso, I lived there when I was in my teens, it’s one hell of an ugly city, graffiti everywhere but the Mexican food is to die for! (Literally, in some cases) Loved the eating there hated pretty much everything else. The Franklin Mountain are somewhat attractive, I guess. The west side is the cleanest part of the city but if you go to the south, southwest or northwest it’s just ghetto!

 

[puffy]

Really Beautiful

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

@Hawky454, how bout further south Laredo-Brownsville area?