Lost camera, major wreck and fire, near death experience
Gas well fire south of Creston Junction, Wyoming
photo by Sharon O'Toole
My entries have been sparse lately, but I have an excuse. I lost my camera! For three weeks! I remembered clearly the last time I had it. In mid-December, we finished the long trail to the Red Desert from the Badwater pasture. Pat and I drove out, in two pickups loaded with men and goods, to put the last of our 2008 lambs on a semi for the feedlot in South Dakota. It was blustery and chill, but not a bad day for this time of year. Our favorite trucker, Dan, was the driver, and he was picking up the last of our "good old ewes" which we were selling to buyers in South Dakota where there are better winter rations. As usual, I was running back and forth, alternating between being helpful and being in the way with my camera.
Bringing in the sheep
Red Desert, Sweetwater County, Wyoming
photo by Sharon O'Toole
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We were loaded in time to get Dan on his way so that he could make the forty mile drive back to Interstate 80 before dark. Since we were nearing the winter solstice, that hour arrives early--around 4:30 p.m. or so. Pat and the guys and I were a little ways behind him.
When we reached I80 at Wamsutter, it had snowed a little and left a dusting on the highway. Pat drove in front of me, pulling a horsetrailer. I followed in his relatively new pickup. A few miles along, we hit glaze ice, so we slowed down a lot. We came upon a wreck. A semi pulling double propane tankers had hit the ice (in the opposite lane), skidded, jack-knifed and run into the median. The second tanker had broken off and was on its side, and the first tanker had knifed around, crushing the cab. An ambulance had just arrived, but nobody was running around. We learned later that the driver had died. I didn't have much time to contemplate this because soon after, I started skidding. I quickly looked back, because the usual cause of fatalities on I80 is being mowed down by a semi-truck.
I was grateful to see no traffic visible behind me. In his rear view mirror, Pat was watching wide-eyed as I skidded first toward the median, then back across two lanes to road's edge. I was thinking. "Thank God there's no traffic. The worst that can happen is that I'll run off the road. And maybe wipe out the side of the pickup on the reflector post." This didn't seem like a bad option at that moment.
Luckily, the edge of the highway is roughed up to alert drowsy drivers, and I was able to gain purchase and regain control. Pat swears that he was only thinking of me, and not the pickup!
I straightened back onto the roadway, and continued on without incident. That is, until I exited at Creston Junction. From there, I could see a giant gas flare just south of the railroad tracks.
"Wow!" I thought. "That is the largest gas flare I have ever seen."
It was hard to pull over, because the road was still a glaze of ice. Finally I did, and took photos. It is common to see wells flaring gas, but this one was really big. I learned the next day that it was an actual well fire, which necesistated major fire fighting.
Then I lost my camera. I searched the pickup, the house, all the other vehicles and my Dad's house. The last thing I could remember was taking pictures of that gas fire.
I had resigned myself to losing my camera and those photos. I decided to buy a new camera, one grade up. Then, the other day, Pat was looking for something in the pickup, and there was the camera, big as life, on the floor of the back seat where I had looked about twenty times. Go figure.
So here, a bit belated, are the photos.
Crossing the Union Pacific line
south of Creston Junction, Wyoming
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Flagging the sheep on Highway 789
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Passing through Creston Junction
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Pat loading the sheep
Chain Lakes, Red Desert
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Comments
Wow, you make shoveling the small avalanche when the barn roof melted today into a sheep pen seem like "no big deal.. climb over the gate and pick up the shovel! I also lost my camera last fall for 6 weeks. It was on the ground in a sheep pasture, I had wanted to take pictures of the butterflies on the thistles I was chopping. I must have left it on the sheep's shed. It was blown off & thunderstorms kinda did it in. I upgraded. From Betsy in upstate new York.
Posted by: Betsy Neal | January 25, 2009 2:01 AM
I am so glad you found the camera---I have been missing the pictures and the information. I knew that the last time you had the camera was for the big fire as you knew you had a picture that we could have used in the newspaper. But the camera was missing.
Posted by: Linda Fleming | January 27, 2009 2:18 AM
thank you for leading me to this amazing site which gives us all a wonderful insight into the life of ranchers....it has been a privilege to read and view... thanks Sharon from Lyndall in Sydney Australia
Posted by: Lyndall Westover | February 18, 2009 11:39 AM