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April 2012
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It isn’t all sand!

By now I should have gotten back from Saudi.  When you think of this part of the world, most people think it is all sand.  That is not true.  In fact right here it is a lot of rock and damn hard rock at that.  We had to make a field visit or two and one location was about 70km off any paved road… about 50 miles.  Our average speed on that road was about 20 km per hourfigure that out and it took us 2.5 hours to make that portion of the trip.  The most bone jarring, rough road I have been on.  The driver (we are not allowed to drive here) said it was real easy to ruin tires on that road and we usually have at least one per group of trucks that is blown out due to the “sharp rocks” in the road.  To show what it was like I have a few pictures . 

SAM_0720

A sign of what is to come… but from here the road does not look all that bad, right?

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In the distance it looks kind of rocky?

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A little closer you can see the fine rocks but remove the top layer of that, like for a road

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Then you find a lot of these and they have been “wind eroded” so they are not smooth and rounded but smooth and sharp edged…

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SAM_0745

Some spots you just don’t drive over but go around…

 

REX

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