The Long, Long, Trailer

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Sunday March 23, 2014

Today when we woke up, we couldn't help but notice that a behemoth had parked just outside the gates of our RV park last night.

I can't begin to describe how huge this tuck and trailer combination is.  The rig consists of a semi-tractor hooked to a 32 wheel dollie- bridged to another 32 wheel dollie, both dollies supporting one end of a gigantic truss.

The truss beams support the, presumably very heavy load suspended in between.  At the other end of the truss is a similar combination of dollies.

If that weren't enough there are tow/ pusher bars connecting two more semi- tractors in the rear.  If I've done my math correctly, there are 128 tires supporting the load and another 30 tires on the associated pushing/ pulling/ braking tractors.

Pretty cool rigging.  We were watching TV on Monday night and at 10:20 PM we heard them start to move out- down AZ highway 82 heading east.  We bailed out of the motorhome and watched in fascination as the whole rig slowly moved into the roadway.

Sorry, my night vision camera is on the fritz- this is all I can show you of the procession.  The police escort closed the highway for the transit.

Monday 3/24/2014

We took a drive down to Naco, Arizona with good friend Barb Cowger to retreive a chain-link dog run that she has stored at an RV park.  The trip down Hwy 90 was uneventful and we got the dog run dissassembled and packed into the Honda CRV in no time at all.  On the way back, Barb took us on a tour of the small border town of Naco.

Once a prominent frontier border town, Naco, AZ lies just north of Naco, Mexico.  This (picture above) was once the main portal from country to country- right on Main Street.  Now it lies quiet and unused as the border crossing has moved east and to the outskirts of town where it could be more heavily fortified, as well as not back up lines of traffic into down town.

As we were leaving Naco on the west edge of town we came to historic Camp Naco, originally built here on the border in 1919 by the US War Department for border defense.  It is the only surviving fort of the 12 border forts built in the early 1900s that extended from Brownsville, TX to San Diego, CA.

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After being decommissioned, this camp was also used as a base for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s and later a base for Arizona National Guard, before being abondoned entirely, and left to fall into disrepair.

As you can see here, restoration has begun on some of the adobe walled structures, and locally there is an active movement to retore the buildings and the grounds to it's former glory.  Someday soon you may be able to tour this historic site- for now we must be satisfied to view it through the chain link fence surrounding it.

Your Traveling Friends

Jeff and Joan