Day 301: End of the Beet Campaign

I wanted to get some photos of the beet trucks traveling through town, preferably crossing the bridge, and at sunset. This turned out to be harder than I thought, and it shouldn't have been!

Today was the end of what is known as the "beet campaign"; an army of trucks transport the sugar beets, 24 hours a day, to the processing plant, American Crystal, in East Grand Forks, where these big, ugly, beets are turned into sugar. For days, these trucks take over the roads, sliming them, and I always tried to be wary of the beets that might fly out at my windshield, or one of the very sleep-deprived drivers swerving suddenly. It's a hard-worked way of life in this community and today was the end of it for the season. It generally ends very abruptly, not necessarily because all the beets have been harvested, but because the plants are at capacity, and the temperature has changed. The temperature of harvesting is critical, or that sweetness you'd expect from sugar, won't be there.

Anyway, with such an army, a photo should have been easy. But not for a novice like me! I sat at the bottom of bridges. . . that were the wrong angles for the sunsets. And I started too late, so the army was no longer an endless processing but a slow trickle of stragglers.

I watched the "whens" of sunset (with my little gadget above the weather pixie), but there surpisingly few sunsets that I could head out. And those crucial moments between the perfect sunset, a truck passing, and adequate lighting, were rarer than I expected.

And I got cold. Just when I'd give up, and go sit in my car, two or three trucks in a row would pass faster than I could jump out and get in position again! So here are a few attempts this year, and I'm forewarned now for next year!