Day 3- March 15, 2009

A few more things I forgot to mention about the Amarillo Fire Department yesterday. There are actually five ladders (two being at “Quint-only” stations). Stations 1, 7 and 9 have a pumper and ladder truck. Stations 2 and 6 have only a Quint. Station 3 has two engines (3 & 11). When the new station on the north end of town opens, it sounds like Ladder 7 will leave Station 7 and become Quint 12.

All Amarillo companies operate with four men. Quint 2 (at Station 2) cross-mans the Wildwoods rig and the HazMat rig with the four firefighters that are at the station. Ladder 9’s ALF/Southern Coach/AI rig is only 9’ 1” tall and ride likes a flopping fish (so the driver told me). They had to make a bunch of concessions to fit the rig in Station 9’s door and one of the problems created was a very uneven and bobbing ride.

Last night when I went to send you the Day 2 report, my Pop-3 e-mail program refused to work. I tried everything I could think of. The Ethernet worked fine for access o the internet, but would not work to receive or send any e-mails. I decided that I’d send the Day-2 report when I arrived in Albuquerque tomorrow morning.

I got to bed early last night and got up on my own around 0600 hours. I had Continental breakfast at the motel and checked out around 0700 hours. When I checked out I told the clerk that I had all kinds of trouble trying to send e-mail. He asked if it was “Outlook Express: and I said yes. He said Outlook Express will not work with most motel Ethernet systems for security reasons.

It was a very cold 40 degrees when I left Amarillo in the dark. Around 0800 the sun finally broke through the horizon behind me and blinded me with an orange fireball in my rear-view mirror. It was actually rather annoying, but at least the sky was clear for a change. I gained an hour at the New Mexico border. I gassed up in Tucumcarri, NM and made pretty good time on I-40 through New Mexico as the speed limit is still 75 MPH.

I turned on the scanner about 70 miles outside of Albuquerque as I know their tower is on a huge mountain and carries a good ways. Sure enough, when I was a bout 60 miles east of the city I started hearing fire traffic. I got off I-40 at Central Avenue on the east side of town around 10:30 and stopped at McDonalds for an Egg McMuffin and to send Day-2’s report. I dug my computer out of the truck and used my cell phone to send the report and acquire my e-mails from yesterday while eating breakfast in the front seat. It was only 45 degrees in Albuquerque, but bright and sunny.

I left the McDonalds parking lot around 1100 hours and headed in I-40 until it intersected with I-25. I headed south on I-25 for either Las Cruces or El Paso, depending on how I felt later in the day. It warmed up 15 degrees in about fifteen minutes travel south of Albuquerque (a nice comfortable 60 degrees). I know I’ve raved about driving I-25 along the Rio Grande River before, but it’s still one of my favorite driving segments. There are very few trucks (as opposed to “trucker city” along I-40 into Flagstaff) on I-25 and you don’t have to worry about snow or detours like you do in the Flagstaff area. Duane and I were caught there twice trying to go through Flagstaff and down I-17 into or out of Phoenix at this time of year and had miserable detours. It’s a little longer going the southern route along I-10, but a much preferable drive to me.

I drove through Las Cruces around 1630 hours and didn’t hear any fire radio traffic. As I didn’t have a map of the area, I decided to go the 35 miles further into El Paso. I was running low on gas as I neared El Paso, so I got off about five miles north of town and ran into two fire trucks that had just pulled into the service station ahead of me. I was stopped at the red light, so I couldn’t stop the crews before they went into the restaurant of the huge service station. I gassed up and then pulled over by where the rigs were parked. I took a few photos and waited for about 10 minutes, but then decided to go on without getting the serial # and other info on the rigs. I didn’t want to open the rig doors without permission when the crews were inside of the restaurant.

I got back onto I-25 and got off near El Paso Station 2, the northern-most station on the west side of the city. I got photos of their rig and was told that Pumper 27 had the newest rig in the department- only a couple months old. I headed to nearby Station 15 first and caught a shot of Pumper 31 (Pumper 15 was downtown at training and is identical). I drove up the hill to Station 22 and caught a photo of Quint 22 just before they got a run. They took off with the Rescue rig before I could find a serial number on it (I had if already anyway). I headed north to Station 27, but they had a reserve piece (the engine light had come on and they needed to have it checked by the shops). I was not receiving anything on the El Paso trucked system in my scanner. I feared that they had changed systems yet again. It was a very welcome 69 degrees and sunny today in El Paso. About time it warmed up a little.

It was already after 1700 hours, so I decided to find a motel nearby and get something to eat. I checked into a motel and checked Radio Reference on the internet, sadly finding out that El Paso had recently switched to an EDAC’s Pro Voice (so far un-scannerable) system. Dang! El Paso Fire was interesting to monitor as they had a fair number of working fires. I’m going to miss listening to them tonight.

Tomorrow morning I’ll head off to the Phoenix area for a three nights stay in Mesa. My nephew, Keith Bateman, is the baseball coach at Augsburg College and his team and family are down for a week to play college-break games with other college teams from around the US. I plan to do some fire buffing each day while in the area. I’ll be staying in east Mesa, only a mile from the Mesa FD shops. Mesa has been fairly busy with working fires the last couple of times I have visited. I might make a brief stop at a couple Tucson stations on the way into Phoenix.