Awake in the middle of night with a busy brain…laid there for a while. Highway traffic is at a minimum in the dead of the night, but I heard a train or two pass. Then I must have fallen back asleep because I woke up again just as the sun was popping over the Picacho Mountains. Wasn’t long before I was out walking. Went three electrical poles past the tractor tire…I’m stretching my distances slowly. Kim walked to Nutt Rd again…he doesn’t believe in starting slowly and gradually working up to his goal. He just goes for it. But he did say that he walked a bit slower today.
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When we come to Arizona, I leave sewing behind. Six weeks away from my
sewing machines is just the thing needed to recharge before prom and wedding
season hits. However, I still have a
need to create…that doesn’t go away just because I’m on a break from sewing. So, this year not only did I bring some rocks
to paint, but I also brought my felting supplies to keep my hands busy. Felting is a new creative outlet for me, using wool and needles
. Kathy showed me the basics of it and so far,
I’ve only worked from kits, but my mind has been busy designing things. Will
have plenty of time out here to put some of those ideas into action. Today, I made
good progress on a little penguin who I figure will be the leader of the felted menagerie
that I make.
Before we left, Shelby was urging us NOT to go because she would miss
us. I told her that we had to go because
I wanted to send her some mail and it didn’t make sense to do that when I was
still in Charlevoix. She nodded her head
and said, “I see that. So, could you send me one of the coded thingies because
those are fun?” So I also spent time
making coded messages for the grandkiddos, complete with silly pictures. Just another creative outlet.
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A few weeks ago, we watched the
Charlevoix WonderKids for 3 or 4 days.
When we were buying cereal for the occasion, Kim picked out Lucky Charms;
he said the kids would love them. Not
being a fan of Lucky Charms myself, I picked out Fruit Loops and Frosted
Mini-Wheats, both of which are favorites of mine. This led to a trip down
memory lane about those big, Nabisco shredded wheat biscuits. The kind where
one biscuit could fill a small bowl? Turns out Shredded Wheat was a part of
both our childhood breakfast routines; neither of us had seen them in stores
for years. And he was right, three of the four kids were big fans of Lucky Charms.
Kim mentioned burgers for lunch…all the burger was frozen but the IGA in
Eloy is a quick trip in the truck. While
Kim was picking out the burger, I went to check on the piggy cookies. All out!
Have to wait until Tuesday or Wednesday for a new delivery. Kim was excited to show me what he had found on
a clearance rack: Big Biscuit Shredded
Wheat!! Yes, a trip down memory lane is in order for
breakfast tomorrow.
Side note: A quick check on the expiration date (March 26, 2022)
shows why it was on clearance. So, what
if the biscuits are two years out-of-date?
They’re shredded wheat…only good with milk, doctored with some sweetener. If there’s no mold on them, they’re what’s
for breakfast. Oh, and these biscuits are under the Post brand, not Nabisco.
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After a late lunch I suggested taking a ride to Coolidge…our pantry is
still in the process of getting stocked and there were things needed for the
chicken dish I was planning for tomorrow. Kim was game but said he also thought
a nap sounded good. “Hey! We can do
both. Nap then ride.” Laid down intending to take a quick power nap
like I do at home. Two hours later I woke up.
Two hours! Ding Dang! Too late to ride to Coolidge and back before
dark so we took the truck instead. I hoped the nap was enough to get me past
the usual 7:30 desire to go to bed but not too much that it was going to
interfere with going to sleep when I needed to.
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This has been on my mind for a couple of days now as I’ve been reacquainting
myself with the various noises of Picacho: I haven’t been hearing train
whistles. And, no, it’s not a matter
of needing to have my ears checked. There
are two tracks less than ½ mile away; I can hear and feel the rumble of the trains
day and night, so this is a very active train area. There are many road
crossings in the area; most of them are far enough away from the campground
that we wouldn’t necessarily hear the whistle…but there is a crossing right
across the highway from us that we should certainly hear. Isn’t it a law that a train blow it’s whistle
when approaching a road crossing?? Could
I really be that oblivious to what is a very jarring sound? Is there so much
other noise around that the train whistle just blends in? First, I googled laws about train whistles. Found a fact sheet on railroads.dot.gov that detailed everything a
person would need to know about locomotive horn sounding. Here are excerpts:
Train Horn Requirements
**Under the
Train Horn Rule (49 CFR Part 222, issued on August 17, 2006), locomotive
engineers must begin to sound train horns at least 15 seconds, and no more than
20 seconds, in advance of all public grade crossings.
**Train horns
must be sounded in a standardized pattern of 2 long, 1 short, and 1 long
blasts. The pattern must be repeated or prolonged until the lead locomotive or
lead cab car occupies the grade crossing. The rule does not stipulate the
durations of long and short blasts. The maximum volume level for the train horn
is 110 decibels, and the minimum sound level is 96 decibels.
Quiet Zones
**When the rule
established the requirement for routine sounding of the locomotive horn, a
procedure was also established whereby localities that could meet certain
safety requirements might designate as a “quiet zone” a segment of a rail line
with one or more consecutive public highway-rail grade crossings. Upon
satisfying the regulation’s technical requirements, locomotive horns would not
be routinely sounded within this quiet zone.
**Only a public
authority may establish quiet zones. “Public authority” means the public entity
(such as a city or county) responsible for traffic control or law enforcement
at the public highway-rail grade crossings under consideration.
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So…could Pinal County have
established a “Quiet Zone”? I searched
for Pinal County quiet zones and first hit upon the County’s Noise Ordinance, which
detailed all things pertaining to noise that the county would or wouldn’t
allow. Section 9 lists fourteen Exemptions
with Noises from the normal operation of railroad
trains being one of them. Okay,
so trains aren’t under the local noise ordinance; they should be able to blow
that horn with impunity. Then I dug a
little deeper and found the Pinal County Comprehensive Plan, Adopted in 2020. I
admit that I didn’t read it (377 pages long)…I simply scanned the Table of
Contents to find any mention of railroads, quiet zones, etc. Found this:
4.4.2 Objective: Railroads in Pinal County
are encouraged to have Quiet Zones established in selected locations. Policy:
4.4.2.1 Work with other local jurisdictions to explore funding for Quiet Zone
implementation. Pinal County will establish criteria for the ranking of Quiet
Zone applications in the unincorporated County, including the population
density in the area and the scheduling of trains. Yeah, this doesn’t
tell me much either. I’ll try to remember to go over to the nearby railroad
crossing tomorrow to determine if the whistle blows or not.
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OMGoodness! It’s 10 p.m. and in the clear night air, we just
heard a train whistle!! It was a
distance away but still…it was a train whistle!
Highway traffic noise has decreased significantly from daytime levels so
now I wonder if the whistle is being blown during the day but the
daytime highway noise, as well as the birds chirping in the bushes next to the
camper, prevents me from hearing it.
So, I have a new resolve to visit the road crossing on the other side of
the highway tomorrow. I’ll try to fit it
into my busy schedule. 😉
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Kim retrieved the data from last night’s imaging and thought the outcome
was okay for the amount of data he was able to keep. Some images had to be
thrown out because it had clouded over, and he didn’t get any flats or darks. So, while he didn’t think it was the best, he
did the best he could with what he had.
Tonight he targeted Orion and was satisfied with the amount of data
collected. More data means more detailed
images. I’ll have to wait until the morning
to see the results because I’m tired and need to get to bed.
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