As a young Midwestern kid that used to daydream about finding California insulators, that dream would come true big time about 25 years later when I found a good pole line along the Union Pacific Railroad in eastern Washington State back in June and July of 1999. Between my friends and I, about 350 California insulators in the CD's of 161, 162, and a few 152 were picked from the abandoned communication lines on the bottom crossarms. Besides the sage green 152's, 161's were found in green and blue aqua to blue, and 162's in different shades of aqua, green, blue, light smoky purple, and gray.

This here photo and the only photo I took along this pole line, is the very first California insulator I found being a CD 161 in green west of highway 23 near Sprague, WA. At this time I was big into taking video, which I do have lots of footage of me picking this line. Now I wish it was the other way around with more photos. Many trips were made from Seattle picking this line at different locations. Some crossarms had six Cailfornia insulators on them, especially the ones with the four pin transposition brackets.

Scanned from a 35mm negative using a Pentax PZ-10 camera, Pentax FA 28-80mm f/3.5-4.7 lens.

June 18, 1999