Puerco Pueblo

2005-06-01

Feeling a bit on the cooped up side, I grabbed my camera out of my "grip" (Railroad slang for an overnight bag) and climbed down off of the locomotive. We were enroute from Belen, New Mexico to Winslow, Arizona and due to the maintenance gangs working on a bad section of rail, the dispatcher was having to single track his trains for a while. We drew the short straw on which direction the traffic was flowing so we were stuck for at least an hour, smack in the middle of nowhere, AZ!

Actually we were stopped just east of the over pass that allows visitors to the Petrified Forest National Park to cross the tracks as they move north to south or vise versa as they visit the park. I was stopped just down the hill from Puerco Pueblo and after hopping the fence I headed south across the flat river bottom towards the Rio Puerco.

The sage brush, yucca and a bunch of other things were all in bloom so I just started shooting. I didn't make it all the way up hill to the Pueblo before my conductor blew the horn to let me know that we were going to be able to move soon so I headed back to the train with a much better attitude and a bunch of springtime flower photos to enjoy later.