Well, the Colorado harvest is now in the history book. The activity that comes along with harvest each and every day is over for our farmer and his wonderful family. Unless you’ve been through this flurry of activity, you just can’t understand the let down that is experienced once it’s over. The daily push to cut as many acres as possible in the time frame of a day is over. The thrill of finishing a field and moving on to the next is done. The time that is spent putting that crop in the ground and watching it grow to maturity and harvest is complete for another year.

Taylor was resting a bit from her clean-up duties.

The Beast’s belly.

The combines seem to be saying, “please, just let me rest for a while”.

Last night, as the storm clouds rolled in, the sun was making it’s last brilliant colors of the day.

Linda made the comment to me this morning that the end of harvest was a let down. I was so glad she said that. I thought I was the ONLY one who felt that let down once the final steps of harvest were complete.  The thing that I’ll miss the most with the Colorado stop is the farmer and his wonderful family. It’s so awesome when you can cut for people who make you feel like you’re part of their family. I will miss the activity of the days, as well. It will be just us again – on our own. We’ll adjust but it won’t come without thinking about what we just experienced.

We went to Jack and Linda’s this morning to settle up and to say our goodbye’s. It wasn’t easy. It didn’t come without a few tears (on my part).  By the way, I was right on the money for the final yield – 50 bpa. There were 154 semi loads of wheat hauled from their fields (and lots and lots of miles).

From there, we made our way to the combine and Frank. Because the wheat is ready in Jordan, we needed to try to get up there as easily and without the additional miles and days it would take doing it on our own…if we could. Chanse agreed to make the trip with us. This will get us back in the field much faster than if we had to make the trip twice (which is what we always have to do). So the entire fleet will going down the road at the same time. Crazy!

The girls “tore down” the trailer while we were settling up and getting Frank and the Beast.  When we got back to the Limon KOA, they were ready to go. Jim finished the last of the details and we made the brief trip to the truck stop parking lot to join the rest of the equipment. The next step was lunch. We walked to Wendy’s, ate and then jumped back in our vehicles. It was nearly 2:00 before we began our trek northward.

An uncommon sight – all the pieces of our train are together going down the road at the same time. 

The drive is long – really long. I fought sleep most of the time we were on the road. I shouldn’t have stayed up so late last night but it was necessary. Bills needed to be paid and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do anything for the next several days. Jim made the decision before 6:00 this evening that we’d spend the night in Scottsbluff. We even did something we don’t usually do – we pulled the Cottage into an RV park and hooked it up for the night. I’m hoping for a good night’s sleep tonight to help with the long day tomorrow.  Barring any problems or breakdowns, we should make it into Montana easily tomorrow. Maybe even Jordan.

Waiting for a train near Brush, CO.

Our train waiting for the train.

We were able to bring the header trailer to the RV camp with us. The clouds were quite stormy looking to the south.

Done for the day!