Insights from the long vacation

[Cancer]

13.  When we got to the Garden of the Gods, standing placidly atop the nearest rock pinnacle was a creature we had trouble identifying.  Walking around some and observing it from multiple angles enabled us to figure out what it was.

 

So, whatever deities it was that oversaw our welcome to their garden, they arranged for our first view there to be looking directly up a large Canada goose's butt.  

 

Clearly an oracular portent of some sort, but unusually difficult to parse.  The more so because a few minutes later the SD card in my camera hiccuped so the pics on it may be lost (the camera could no longer read or write that card; I swapped a fresh one in that lasted the rest of the trip), which reinforces the aura of oracular vision.

[Cancer]

14.  McNary Dam had water going through all spillways when we saw it.

[Cancer]

10 hours ago, Pariah said:

Wish I'd known you were passing through my city. I would have waved in your direction or something.

 

Unlike Denver or (forward reference) Boise, SLC's freeway system (explicitly its express lanes) worked for us.  Once we parsed from the signage that 2-occupant cars owed no toll and were therefore was not subject to the draconian fines also mentioned in the signage, we cruised the length of the 'plex at speed (admittedly near midday on a weekday, but it worked well).  The usual dipwads in full-size pickups playing their dick-size games, of course, but as freeways in major metropolitan areas go, great stuff.

 

We had five points we had to visit on the trip, three fixed by people (Colorado Springs, ABQ, Las Cruces), two by site (Sonoran Desert Museum, Grand Canyon).  A number of hoped-for thing didn't happen (Chaco Canyon, Blackwater Draw, Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, Royal Gorge, ...) but  it was a vacation, not a mission, and we spent time relaxing like you're supposed to.

[L. Marcus]

... There's a Sonora desert Museum? What's in it -- displays of sand and rock?

[Cancer]

There are mineral and fossil exhibits, but it's better known for its animals and plants.  One of the few places where they recommend you being there at opening, which this time of year is 0730.

[Cancer]

15.  Boise's freeways have an inexplicable Utter Fail built into the system.  Just west of town I-84 shrinks from 4 lanes to 3 ... by losing the left-hand through lane.  Just, you know, to make sure those vehicles just passing through get mired in their 5 o'clock daily jam.  Otherwise the freeways there work decently, once all the tractor-trailers get out of the left lane, which takes a while since I-84 enters the area at the top of a 2-lane uphill grade, and the truck in the left lane moving 43.75 mph has to finish passing the truck in the right lane moving at 43.50 mph.  'Cuz, y'know, trucks gotta pass each other on hills.

[Cancer]

Mind you, Seattle area freeways have several appalling imbecilities built into them also, but that's my humdrum daily life, not my vacation.

[Badger]

11 hours ago, Cancer said:

13.  When we got to the Garden of the Gods, standing placidly atop the nearest rock pinnacle was a creature we had trouble identifying.  Walking around some and observing it from multiple angles enabled us to figure out what it was.

 

So, whatever deities it was that oversaw our welcome to their garden, they arranged for our first view there to be looking directly up a large Canada goose's butt.  

 

Clearly an oracular portent of some sort, but unusually difficult to parse.  The more so because a few minutes later the SD card in my camera hiccuped so the pics on it may be lost (the camera could no longer read or write that card; I swapped a fresh one in that lasted the rest of the trip), which reinforces the aura of oracular vision.

 

You're lucky the goose didn't poop on you, they like doing that  (which would be a quite interesting metaphor from the gods)

[Badger]

10 hours ago, L. Marcus said:

... There's a Sonora desert Museum? What's in it -- displays of sand and rock?

 

Hmm, I imagine they could put tools found from old Native American settlements too.

[Cancer]

16.  Shoshone Falls (one of the waterfalls for which Twin Falls, Idaho is named) is quite impressive when seen in late April.  I imagine it's less so in September, but it was well worth the side trip.  It is still in the familiar (to me) strictly igneous geologic province, and the rocks are all the brown-black basalt, through which the water had cut a canyon.

[Cancer]

17.  In the Four Corners states drivers have a nasty habit, no, obsession, on freeways with 2 lanes in each direction.  If you are in the right-hand lane closing up on a slower vehicle in your lane, drivers of passenger cars and pickup trucks initially behind you will do their utter damnedest to zoom up in the left-hand lane and pinch you in behind the slower vehicle, and then actually slow down once they've achieved pinch position to increase your annoyance.

 

This is not a habit I'd ever encountered here in Washington; admittedly, though, there aren't many freeways on the west side of the Cascades with only two lanes on upslopes.  However, east of the Cascades that's the rule, and I cannot recall a single instance of that trick happening to me on either I-90 east of Snoqualmie Pass or on I-82, the northernmost 30 miles of which is nothing but three consecutive long upslope/downslope stretches as the road crosses over Manashtash Ridge, North Umtanum Ridge, and South Umtanum Ridge (in that order, north to south).  I've driven that last many, many times, and the zoom-and-pinch has never happened to me there.

 

After two weeks (about half of which was not spent on freeway driving) I learned to recognize the phenomenon, and altered my own driving habits in defense.  When in Rome, do as the mofo a**hole Romans do.

 

That said, there are other ramifications as well.  While I had never considered those directions of particular importance before, I have had to revise the design of my ideal vehicle to include vastly augmented weaponry facing left side and left rear.  Increasing the number of burned-out wrecks and partially-incinerated corpses on the freeway medians of those states might improve the driving habits there.

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, Cancer said:

 

That said, there are other ramifications as well.  While I had never considered those directions of particular importance before, I have had to revise the design of my ideal vehicle to include vastly augmented weaponry facing left side and left rear.  Increasing the number of burned-out wrecks and partially-incinerated corpses on the freeway medians of those states might improve the driving habits there.

 

When autoduelling in arenas, turrets are not usually worth the penalty in weight and space, but on constrained terrain like roads and city streets they can be well worth it.  Also take a close look at side-mounted dropped weapons; certain ones (like flaming oil jets) can be very effective at dealing with threats to the sides.

[RDU Neil]

On ‎5‎/‎13‎/‎2018 at 4:04 AM, Old Man said:

If only we could have crashed them together...

 

Bring a bucket of biting and stinging insects and a pocketful of radioactive isotopes and you are well on the way to super powers!

 

 

[Old Man]

Is that all it takes?  What does a tankerful of hydrofluoric acid cost?

[Cancer]

18.  A pair of American avocets in a brine pool right along I-15 just north of Ogden, UT.  And a white pelican sitting alone next to a beaver pond on the little stream that runs alongside US 6 as it descends west from Soldier Summit into the outskirts of Provo.  Seems obvious in retrospect, but it had not occurred to me earlier that that part of Utah would be a bang-up place to see shorebirds.

[Cancer]

19.  It is somehow unnerving that two of the towns in Wyoming that we drove past each had a single point of interest marked on our map, and those highlights were "State Prison" and "Site of Territorial Prison".  We decided not to check out either place.

[Cancer]

20.  I heartily recommend going to the Santa Clara Pueblo Welcome Center in northern New Mexico, and getting directions to the Puye cliff dwelling ruins.  Google's map database was inadequate to find the place.  The tour is excellently led by tribal members, descendants of those who abandoned the site about 700 years ago when the water source failed, and having the history told by a voice using "we" is far more compelling than many comparable tours I've had.

[Cancer]

21.  We did our best to corrupt the daughters (ages 13 and twins age 11) of my ex in Albuquerque, giving them copies of several Terry Pratchett books (Colour of Magic, Light Fantastick, Monstrous Regiment, and Gaiman & Pratchett's Good Omens), to which they had not been previously exposed.  There is hope for them yet.

[Cancer]

22.  Sadly, the US Mint in Denver was closed the only day it was possible for us to get up there to see it.  It might have been instructive to see the place where people make money in the most literal possible interpretation of that phrase.

[Pariah]

We took a field trip to the Denver Mint when I was in elementary school.

 

It pains me to think about how many years ago that's been.

[Old Man]

Had they even invented money then?

 

i’m jealous that Cancer made it to Albuquerque. I miss visiting there. 

[L. Marcus]

It's apparently hard to get the directions right.

[Starlord]

You have to take a left turn when you get there.

[Badger]

On ‎5‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 2:26 PM, Cancer said:

17.  In the Four Corners states drivers have a nasty habit, no, obsession, on freeways with 2 lanes in each direction.  If you are in the right-hand lane closing up on a slower vehicle in your lane, drivers of passenger cars and pickup trucks initially behind you will do their utter damnedest to zoom up in the left-hand lane and pinch you in behind the slower vehicle, and then actually slow down once they've achieved pinch position to increase your annoyance.

 

This is not a habit I'd ever encountered here in Washington; admittedly, though, there aren't many freeways on the west side of the Cascades with only two lanes on upslopes.  However, east of the Cascades that's the rule, and I cannot recall a single instance of that trick happening to me on either I-90 east of Snoqualmie Pass or on I-82, the northernmost 30 miles of which is nothing but three consecutive long upslope/downslope stretches as the road crosses over Manashtash Ridge, North Umtanum Ridge, and South Umtanum Ridge (in that order, north to south).  I've driven that last many, many times, and the zoom-and-pinch has never happened to me there.

 

After two weeks (about half of which was not spent on freeway driving) I learned to recognize the phenomenon, and altered my own driving habits in defense.  When in Rome, do as the mofo a**hole Romans do.

 

That said, there are other ramifications as well.  While I had never considered those directions of particular importance before, I have had to revise the design of my ideal vehicle to include vastly augmented weaponry facing left side and left rear.  Increasing the number of burned-out wrecks and partially-incinerated corpses on the freeway medians of those states might improve the driving habits there.

 

Don't ever visit the South, we live for those 2 lane road situations, so you and the another car can go the exact same speed next to each other and completely block the traffic behind you.  NFL teams can learn from it.  (Colts, Seahawks look at it)

 

On another note it is a good way to get Northerners to "wave", or that is what we assume they are doing.

[Cancer]

4 hours ago, Badger said:

 

On another note it is a good way to get Northerners to "wave", or that is what we assume they are doing.

 

That "waving" is usually expressions of annoyance that you've already used up all your antivehicle munitions.  That's why so much effort is going into directed energy weapons now.

 

I've driven in the South, but no further east than Memphis, aside from a largely freeway-less vacation in northen Florida, which has no relief whatsoever so they cannot be expected to know how to pass on hills.  Heck, I've even driven in WV once, but probably an in-and-out overnight trip to Morgantown might not count.