Replies

One morning in December of 2011 I was driving down Highway 18 Somewhere between Eunice and Jal headed to Monahans where we had a rail gang working. The sun was just below the horizon and I looked east and sunbeams were streaming up from below the horizon like I ain't never seen before. I just had to stop and take it in.

Got out of the truck and these sunbeams extended up and up and up and over my head and behind me off into space. It was truly breathtaking.

Then there was the time I was heading north at night and a green fireball streaked across the sky lighting up the entire desert like daylight...

Then the time I was there in late May 2012 and went and sat on the dunes south of Jal and watched an eclipsed sun setting.

The working conditions were brutal... 18 hour days, 7 days a week... my pickup actually took a bullet on the doorpost about 3 inches from my head in Hobbs. Derailments... Uncontrollable contractors... difficult client.... even a grade crossing fatality right there on FM 1232 at the grade crossing at night (guy slammed into the side of a train crossing there at night coming from Wink going out to Highway 18... at 70 MPH)... but all that time out there in SE NM and Western Texas left a permanent mark on me... probably more good than bad.... and there was a LOT of bad... I probably came back here to PA with legitimate post traumatic stress injuries.

I would go back... even if it were to just visit... I would go back. Another time I