Hobo Jungle

[sarge]

John:

I'm certainly no Sterling Moss!

I'd bet you'd love the B-roads here. Just exploring them and laying out routes for an evening's decompression has been a lovely summer's activity.

Pop over to Roxbury and then grab 641 over the Timmens to Spring Run someday. I'll meet you there for dinner.

I'll map it out and we'll do that then.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

John:

I'm certainly no Sterling Moss!

I'd bet you'd love the B-roads here. Just exploring them and laying out routes for an evening's decompression has been a lovely summer's activity.

Pop over to Roxbury and then grab 641 over the Timmens to Spring Run someday. I'll meet you there for dinner.

I'll map it out and we'll do that then.

You'll like the drive over the Timmens. I do it every so often just for the scenery and fun.

[John Webster]

Sarge, I bought the silver bolide in my avatar specifically for trips on the B roads to Cass, WV and Orbisonia, Pa (it's a big town, it has a traffic light). It did not dissapoint me. Unfortunately, most of those roads have been replaced by divided 4 lane snoozeways.

[sarge]

John:

I have to laugh at "bolide" and tell a story on myself.

I assume you mean a significant meteor as in astronomy, as an accepted slang of some standing for a good, hot, and highly capable car.

I had interesting interactions during the engineering part of my career with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute folks. Being somewhat polluted by my preconceived ideas of a bolide, imagine my whimsical reaction to being informed that in their world a bolide is a body that has impacted and made a significant crater.

Don't do that.

Back to the subject at hand. As long as I was still commuting, driving meant great distances in a sit-up-and-beg; my world was snoozeways and numbmobiles. We'll have been here now ten years in October, and it has only been very recently, since I "came home" to cheap little sportscars again, that the joys of driving for driving's sake have returned and the explorations have begun in earnest.

We have motorways like US15 and US30 here, and A-roads like US34 and such. I use them only as transport, either for the day's business or to get me to a new skein of B-roads to explore. Snoozeways (I love that!) are transport, not driving, but they can transport us to where the driving is.

Get the bolide out and seek; the B-roads are still there waiting for you. Your mission? Find them (This tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds).

[Rufus T. Firefly]

We have motorways like US15 and US30 here.......

Still parts of these are the old 2 and 3 lanes roads that have been in place a very long time - parts of 522 going up to Orbisonia are ridiculous 4 lane expressway like sections through Shade Gap and then it's back to 2 lanes threading through to where the trolley line terminates these days over the old right of way.

....the B-roads are still there waiting for you.

PA is full of B-roads.......just be careful not to end up taking a left into some corn field,

[healey36]

Farmer's Almanac is out...predicting a colder, snowier (sic) winter for New England, Mid-Atlantic and Mid-West.

Oh boy...can't wait:



Healey

[healey36]

...and hey, don't leave out the D(irt)-roads...that's where things get really exciting.

Here's a pic I've posted before, one of our last Bailey Bridges in the county:



This was constructed as a temporary fix for a washed out bridge resulting from Agnes in '72 (hey, we take our time getting things sorted). I think the real problem is finding some Royal Engineers to come and disassemble it.

A good discussion of the Bailey Bridge is in order, but I defer to Sarge for comment on all things British. In the meantime:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFGh97Bg3cc

Damn fine...

Healey

[sarge]

At least the Americans got a license to build Bailey's bridge before they made them by the tenfold over the British- Grin!

The other bridge building system in that film, the Americans did shamelessly rip off and market as Erector. All that codswollop about the loving philanthropic Gilbert thinking it all up looking at bridges whilst riding the New Haven; did he now!

I smile when I remember that Erector is now owned and marketed by the victims of that little transatlantic crime, Meccano.

[webenda]

That is totally awesome. You store the pieces and just use as many as needed for emergency bridges.

[sarge]

Healey:

We might be ready for that winter scene here. Today saw a fluke storm which lasted 2 hours and dropped 5.5" of rain between 1130 and 1330 today. The 5.5" measure comes from our rain-gage. I decided pictures might be impressive so I took a drive at 1345 around town.

Here is our little bitty park stream.




Here's the access road, or it was. There is no macadam beyond what you see, just a fresh new streambed where the road was. Could use that Bailey Bridge here. Top tip: if you can't see the road, it might not be there at all.




A stream over a stream. The walk is now a streambed and flows over a culvert through which flows another stream.




These last three views are of the stream that flows under Main Street. Usually its a duck-paddle but the ducks bailed pretty quickly. Even I can jump it when its in the banks. Here it's 80' across and the truck trailer (probably empty) shifted a good foot when it crossed the deepest bit.







Not a common occurrence!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

We might be ready for that winter scene here. Today saw a fluke storm which lasted 2 hours and dropped 5.5" of rain between 1130 and 1330 today. The 5.5" measure comes from our rain-gage.

We got a lot of nothing, but it's turning black outside and there's a lovely orange and red band of weather approaching.

Off the computer for a while, and it's time for dinner anyway.

[webenda]

We have a storm alert here also. I went out to take a look and saw this:

[healey36]

Wow Sarge, you hear about flash-floods but I can say I've rarely seen them in my fifty-eight years. Often they are exacerbated by poorly designed drainage as much as by sheer volume. I should drive out to the western part of the county and take a look at the Monocacy...even with it being as dry as it's been, she'll be up over her banks in a few hours after all of that rain washes down into the basin.

Healey

[rogruth]

We have had little rain this summer and seldom a down pour in our town. Areas around us will get a lot and flood.
Rather flat in this area with very poor run off. Several inches of surface water will often be gone in minutes after
the rain stops. I'm not sure where it goes so fast.

Please keep those scenes pictured above where they are and don't send them south.

[sarge]

Roger:

The South is where the moisture came from! You seriously think you can export your moisture up here and expect me to promise not to send you the same?

And don't tell us how lovely and warm it is come winter either!