The Legend-News

Monday, 2000 November 20 : Volume 3, Number 41

What We Got Here

Fan mail, and a look at the area around Ouray.

Another Satisified Reader

One of these days, we've got to take a short course in big rig handling. Until then, we'll just publish truck pictures from our readers.

My name is Katie Kimball. My husband, Dan, is an owner operator and comes from a family where all four brothers and his father are owner operators. All of us take pride in our profession and equipment including by participating in truck shows throughout the country. (We've done really well at them also.)

Welcome to the fan club, Katie! By the way, you're not too far away from me: I'm a bit to the southwest, in McHenry, Illinois.

Surfing With The Rubber Duck

Most of you haven't yet visited Ouray and its environs, so here's some information about the area.

A Bird's Eye View from the clouds, courtesy of TerraServer.
And what's in those clouds? If you remember the lesson of "Silver Iodide Blues", you'd know.
You may have thought that the efforts of the Colorado Department of Transportation were limited to clearing snow from the road. A few weeks ago they were working to prevent the next "Riverside Slide".
And for live pictures of some Rocky Mountain tundra, check out the Tundra-Cam of the University of Colorado. While this isn't near Ouray, it does look at the Continental Divide, which is mentioned in "Wolf Creek Pass". Now, if we can just find a connection to Kevin Bacon...

Song A’ Th’ Week

The month is November, and this morning will be cold. Well, maybe not in Australia, but here in the upper half of the U.S. of A. it sure will be.

The Gallopin' Goose
(Chip Davis, Bill Fries)
From the album Roses For Mama

On a cold November mornin'
Back in nineteen-thirty-seven
With an early snow a-fallin'
On the three-foot tracks at Ames
Came a mighty strange contraption
Known to trainmen as a motor
But to folks in Colorado
She was known by another name

Up the canyons south of Sawpit
Past the red Cathedral spires
'Cross the yellow mountain switchbacks
And the rapids far below
On the high and lofty trestles
Near the fabled mines of Ophir
In the silver San Juan Mountains
Came a goose a-plowin' snow

[Chorus]
With a Pierce-Arrow engine,
Runnin' hot and on the loose
Came the Rio Grande Southern
The Gallopin' Goose
With a Pierce-Arrow engine
Runnin' hot and on the loose
Came Number Five, The Gallopin' Goose

'Twas a four-door auto-mobile
On a dozen wheels of iron
Sixteen feet of rockin' boxcar
Spot-welded to her tail
Loaded down with mercantile
Ten bags a' high-grade ore
Two mothers nursin' babies
Seven miners an' the mail

Up the side a' Sunshine Mountain
By internal gas combustion
Eight Pierce-Arrow pistons pullin'
Fifteen thousand pounds a' lead
At the snowshed on the summit
The conductor said his prayers
He'd acquired a busted driveshaft
On the pass at Lizard Head

[Chorus]
With a Pierce-Arrow engine
Runnin' hot and on the loose
Came the Rio Grande Southern
The Gallopin' Goose
With a Pierce-Arrow engine
Runnin' hot and on the loose
Came Number Five, The Gallopin' Goose

[Musical interlude here.]

Down the three-percent to Rico
In the valley of Dolores
They still talk about the Southern
An' her flock of flyin' geese
From the roundhouse at Ridgway
To the depot at Durango
All the tracks are gone for scrap iron
And the ganders rest in peace