Might Be Enough

I've had to go into the city frequently lately, for another big inspection job. Traffic is a fluid thing in a big city. One day, the drive will take you 45 minutes, start to finish. The next day, the identical drive will be estimated at 1 hour and 20 minutes. Having lived here a long time, I know how to get from point A to point B via side streets. Maybe not much time is lopped off the actual travel but it just feels, to me, to be more progress when I'm moving 6 blocks between stop lights rather than creeping along at less than 5 miles per hour in a stream of cars heading east. Plus, it's less wear and tear on my legs.

You'll never know what you can see along the drive.

A whole semi full of donuts? Probably not, but I can dream. That might be enough for my morning commute.

Beverage:  Lady Grey tea

Deb

The Things That I Saw - Part the Sixth

Let's just say two words, "Wide Load". Both of these photos are blurry.

This is heading east on Interstate 70 towards Dayton, Ohio. I wonder how much it would cost to transport a fully constructed ranch-style house and set it up on your lot. This is not something that would probably pay in the suburban/urban setting. I'm thinking that house would take up, easily, three-quarters of my street and then require probably magic to get it situated on my lot. But, if you are rural, I'll bet this is quite cost effective.

This was a storage tank, the middle one of three heading south on Interstate 79 north of Pittsburgh. They were miles apart. It would have made for quite the photo to see them traveling in a convoy.

I saw lots of earthmoving equipment moved by truck. The whole premise of the Eisenhower Expressway system was that overpasses were high enough to move military equipment, some of which was large and tall. If the goods are large and need to be moved great distances, you can't go wrong with the Interstate.

It also makes for interesting speculation on the final destination or, in the case of the tanks, just what are those going to be used for. Ooooh. Maybe they contain cocoons of the species of moth known as...

Beverage:  Irish Breakfast Tea

Deb

Things I Saw - Part the Fourth

Commerce requires the movement of goods and services. The item you order from Amazon has to come from their warehouse to your door and that item had to come from a manufacturer to their warehouse. Bulk commodities are best shipped by rail or by barge. Fast shipments require air. Most shipments are via truck. You can see the life of America on her arteries, the Interstates.

This is a blurry photo, I admit. As I closed in on the truck, I really couldn't tell what those were. From this distance, those are round items, like balls, but what kind of balls are shipped in red-orange string bags and in sufficient quantity to merit a whole truckload? It wasn't until I was passing him that I realized what these were. Onions, a whole truckload of onions in 50 pound bags. Onions don't benefit from being shipped in a refrigerated trailer, in fact, that kind of cold will rot them from the inside out. There was a tarp over the top but they had been merely piled on top of each other and strapped down.

I passed this guy twice before losing him in the hills of eastern West Virginia. It's kind of hard to see his cargo. If you click on the photo, you might get a better view of it.

Transformers for electrical poles, a whole flatbed full of transformers. The way they are placed on the rig and the design of the transformer made them look, to me, like the heads of people. There are fat, curled wires coming out of the top that remind me of hair. There are two dark spots on either side of a metal extension that look like eyes and a nose. Under this extension is the number "10", which looks like a mouth.

I had the thought that if you painted them yellow and used the previous onions as goggles, they would look very close to these.

Can you imagine a truckload of minions? There are no adequate words for that kind of awesome.

Beverage:  Yorkshire Gold Tea

Deb

The Things I Saw - Part the Third

The thing about long distance travel by car, particularly on the Interstate system, is that you can wind up seeing the same vehicles again and again. This is expressly true with trucks.

You pass some truck hauling something and leave him behind. He's driving 65 but you can drive 70. You math whizzes can figure out just how long it will be before you're a good 10 miles ahead of him, assuming a steady state of driving.

Then, you pass a rest stop sign and realize the two bottles of water you consumed are sloshing about in your bladder so you pull over. In the time it takes you to zip up the windows, lock the Jeep, walk to the rest room, use the rest room, dry your hands without wiping them on your pants (See below.), walk back to the Jeep, unzip all the windows, start the Jeep and drive out of the rest area, the truck you passed many minutes before, has passed you. If he's going the same direction you are, this dance can play out several times in the several hours you travel the same road. Gas and food also allow the truck to get ahead of you.

And then you have the trucks that drive 70-75 on the Interstate or you find yourself behind the 1975 panel van which, you swear, has an engine comprised of 6 raccoons on treadmills because they ... just ... aren't ... going ... real ... fast.

I caught up and passed this guy then stopped for lunch. I caught up and passed him again and then found myself in the middle of a stream of cars behind a motor home. He roared past me and I never saw him again.

The first time I passed him, I wasn't sure what this was that he was hauling. The second time, he was stuck in a line of cars, only going 60, so I had the chance to look at the cargo. Ah, I know what this is. When he roared past me the third time, I was ready.

I'm not going to tell you. My mother might know but the only clue I'll give is that some assembly will be required once this reaches the final destination. They also come in green and those are made by John Deere.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb