I believe I was 19 when I traveled with Fred Meng and a few other guys on a summer custom harvesting crew. Fred was the Case farm implement dealer in our small town.
We began harvesting wheat south of Kingfisher OK. When the harvest was completed in that area we came back home and harvested wheat for local farmers before moving on to Syracuse KS, then a stop in Northeastern Colorado before eventually working our way as far north as Wyoming, just east of Cheyenne. After Cheyenne, we came back to the San Louis Valley in Colorado to thrash brewing barley for some farmers Fred knew and who had lived in the Baker community just east of Hooker before moving to the San Louis Valley in Colorado.
Fred had two machines. As I recall one was a Case model ‘1000’ and the other also a Case, was a model ‘860.’ These machines were loaded on the beds of the grain trucks from which the grain sides had been removed. The ‘1000’ had a wider header so the header was removed and it was pulled on a trailer behind one of the trucks. The ‘860’ with a shorter header was just driven onto the back of a truck with its header still in place. The machines were secured to the truck beds with boomers and chains. And that’s how we hauled them around the country from place to place.
We hauled them up and then down Raton Pass on the border between New Mexico and Colorado, and we hauled them all the way to Wyoming. And then we hauled them over La Veta Pass into Colorado’s San Louis Valley and then back over the pass when we headed home.
To get home from Colorado our little convoy traveled over US160 heading east out of Trinidad to Johnson Kansas and then south toward home.
It was quite an adventure for this ole’ country boy. Looking back I feel a sense of pride that as a young person Fred thought I was up to the task. Before long, I would find myself wearing a US Navy uniform enjoying even more adventures.
My “harvest crew” trip came to mind as Joyce and I drove home from Cuchara Colorado over some of the very same roads we had traveled on harvest. While in Cuchara with family, we had spent an afternoon in the San Louis Valley at the Great Sand Dunes National Monument and Fort Garland. Heading home, we found ourselves driving home via US160 eastward from Trinidad, another one of the “harvest” roads.
Great memories…
As we drove east, I took a frequent look in the rearview mirror as the mountains faded with the miles. I wondered what the first explorers and settlers must have thought as they traversed the expanse of the plains only to see high mountains rising in the distance.