Re: June 1964 followup

Re: James Parfrey's comment about Leo likely thinking train chasing was crazy - I suppose maybe so, but that didn't keep him from joining me on more train chases, such as to the Magma Arizona Railroad, as shown in the photo below near Superior, Arizona. Leo is the one on the left. Of course I can't rule out that visiting a girl friend in Tucson on the way back may have been a significant inducement.



Leo and Khus, the other Cambodian student at NMSU, joined me on another expedition a year later, in June 1965. The plan was to go to Yellowstone in my newly acquired 1964 VW Beetle, naturally making some slight detours via the narrow gauge. The first day we drove north from Las Cruces and camped in a Forest Service campground near Antonito. The next day we chased the Illini excursion from Alamosa to Antonito when near Antonito trouble started again, the engine making a banging noise in sync with the engine speed. We needed to get the engine checked out before going on, and determined that the closest VW shop was in Durango, so we diverted there. In the morning the VW shop told us that we would have to leave the car there for the day, and they would see what they can do. This was fortuitous news, as this day the Illini group was making a run to Farmington. Leo and Khus decided to entertain themselves in Durango, and to pick up the car when ready, while I rode the Illini excursion to Farmington, a rare treat, and the only time I ever rode that branch. Returning from a great day on the narrow gauge, Leo and Khus had the car ready, but we decided that by this time it was too late to make it to Yellowstone and back, since I had another summer job lined up with Mobil Oil, this time in Hobbs, New Mexico. As it turned out, the VW people had merely tightened up one of the valves. By the time I got to Hobbs, the noise was back, and the problem was finally determined to be a broken 75 cent push rod.

This turned out to be our last long trip together, with girl friends taking center stage, as here in Durango with 497 in August 1967. Helen, the girl in blue,
and I were eventually married for 28 years until she passed away from cancer in 2000. But in the intervening years we had many wonderful adventures, including steam trains of course.

As for Leo, I am afraid the odds were not good. The last I heard of him he was on his way back to Phnom Penh, stopping over in Tokyo to visit our mutual friend Hiroshi Saikachi (whose cousin Mineo was my railfan guide chasing narrow gauge steam in Hokkaido). Leo got back just in time for the Khmer Rouge take-over. Wearing glasses and having a masters degree in mechanical engineering from an American University would have been extremely dangerous. Letters mailed to his old address simply vanished, but I still hope that he survived somehow.



Well, here are a couple of happier pictures from 1967





As for the 1949 Mercury, it ran well until my 21. birthday in September, 1964, when it threw a rod after cresting St. Augustine Pass on the way back to school. The day before my brother and I had laboriously removed the bent front fender (about 50 bolts!) and had replaced it with a fender from another Merc in the salvage yard. This photo illustrates my feelings for that car after we had towed it back to Alamogordo