HUERFANO — Around here, we have a rather unexciting history of foods that get dumped while being transported through Huerfano. Most of the time, the dumping is from a train car that momentarily forgets what it was doing and tries to head south for the winter. Sometimes there are potatoes. Sometimes there is grain. And that’s about it. When is the train going to start carrying something we can really enjoy scrounging from a food spill? Like corn dogs for instance. Last week a truck carrying 75,000 corn dogs upset on a freeway near Shreveport, Louisiana. Now, a wheelbarrow load of corn dogs is something we would go the extra mile to scrounge, right? I mean, who doesn’t like corn dogs? And for you foodies out there who are on the health-smoothie kick, in addition to the kale, spinach, blueberries, yogurt and tuna fish that you normally put in your smoothie, try adding a corn dog. I’m telling you, you ain’t lived ‘till you’ve had a corn dog smoothie (not that I’ve had one, but it certainly would cover up the flavor of the kale and spinach). Now, imagine,
instead of adding a corn dog, you add a potato. See? There’s no excitement there. There’s no anticipation. And it wouldn’t cover up the flavor of anything. Instead of a potato, how about a handful of barley? Nah. Huerfano food spills are about as mouth-watering as a turkey made out of tofu. Whether you like goat cheese or not, you’ll have to admit it has infinitely more flavor than potatoes or grain. A trailer load of goat cheese spilled on the highway in a Norway tunnel in January 2013. After it was dumped, it caught on fire. So the Norwegians had a giant fondue in that tunnel which lasted for days. As long as no one gets hurt, I would be happy to settle for a trailer load of Jell-o Snack Packs, like people in Florida had the chance to scrounge in April 2008. Even higher on the scale of scrounge-ability would be 40,000 pounds of hamburger patties, like the spill up in Washington in February 2009. And I imagine that Denver locals were fairly interested in the myriad cases of beer that were dumped on I-70 in May 2008. Think about what an impact it would have on us Huerfanos if we had a load of garlic end up on the side of the road, like they did in northern California in 2006. There would be garlic galore, enough to supply every Huerfano household for a full year. Plus, as a bonus, we could have won the prize for the worst regional breath in Colorado AND we would still be blacklisted on the Vampire’s Guide to Vacation Destinations. Yet, as I ponder this, my two favorite foods to end up dumped in Huerfano – this is the combination a true sugar junkie might dream about – would be similar to the October 2011 spill of 20 tons of chocolate cake, donuts and cinnamon rolls in Illinois, combined with Indiana’s December 2011 dumped load of 20 tons of gourmet ice cream, still in half-gallon cartons. In that case, forget the corn dogs. Grab your lawn chair and a spoon! It could be the biggest ice cream and cake social in Colorado history!
