Insights from the long vacation

[Old Man]

10 hours ago, Badger said:

 

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)

 

Here these are called "Portagee roadblocks". 

[Cancer]

20 hours ago, Badger said:

 

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.

 

Actually, on this trip I think I annoyed lots of people by (1) using my cruise control on most of my freeway driving and (2) having it set for one or two mph below the speed limit.  Even in the 80 mph zones, this seemed to greatly vex many locals.  It would be interesting to know if there are folks harboring grudges against WA plates or my "EVIL GENIUSES FOR A BETTER TOMORROW" plate holder.

[Cancer]

23.  Laramie, Wyoming is a nice little college town.  Emphasis on "little".

[Lucius]

3 minutes ago, Cancer said:

23.  Laramie, Wyoming is a nice little college town.  Emphasis on "little".

 

My former wife moved there. She seems to like it.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary hasn't been there

[Badger]

11 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

Here these are called "Portagee roadblocks". 

 

Well, on 2-lane roads, we seem to often have mopeds going 25 MPH in a 45/55 zone.  Especially during work traffic where you have to sit behind them for a mile because cars keep coming on the other side.   Makes me wish mopeds were illegal.

[Badger]

54 minutes ago, Cancer said:

23.  Laramie, Wyoming is a nice little college town.  Emphasis on "little".

 

I keep hearing "The Man From Laramie" in my head.  Might have to check the Western channel to see if Jimmy Stewart is on.

[Badger]

Yeah, I think my WV travels consist of about 20 miles of road to get from one state to another (when visiting Gettysburg)

 

 

[Old Man]

15 minutes ago, Badger said:

 

Well, on 2-lane roads, we seem to often have mopeds going 25 MPH in a 45/55 zone.  Especially during work traffic where you have to sit behind them for a mile because cars keep coming on the other side.   Makes me wish mopeds were illegal.

 

The noise alone is reason enough to ban them. 

[Cancer]

24.  In the hummingbird exhibit at the Sonoran Desert Museum, you could get within about 5 feet of a momma hummingbird sitting on the nest.  I tried getting pictures, but you certainly are prohibited from using a flash there, and the light level was too low to avoid blurriness.

[Cancer]

25.  Saguaro forests look like the mountains have stubble.

[Cancer]

26.   A corrolary of item #12 above, the juxtaposition of Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs, with reference to the Manitou in the published Deadlands RPG setting: NORAD headquarters and Cheyenne Mountain are also in the immediate area.  Contemplate a one-off hybrid modern-day plus Deadlands RPG session where that spatial proximity ... is not accidental.

[Cancer]

27.   On our way from Colorado Springs to Santa Fe, we nipped off of I-25 onto US-160 and went over La Veta Pass (9413 feet) and turned south at Fort Gardner, sneaking into New Mexico on state and county roads.  Probably not something you want to try in winter, but in late April it didn't cost us any time (we did stop for an hour or two in Taos), the scenery was better, and far less traffic.  The only real issue is a total absence of rest stops on the less travelled roads.

[Pariah]

On 5/16/2018 at 7:57 AM, Cancer said:

Heck, I've even driven in WV once, but probably an in-and-out overnight trip to Morgantown might not count.

 

I lived in the state for two years. Driving in West Virginia is...interesting. Of particular notoriety is a maneuver that we out-of-staters referred to as 'The Swerve'. It consists, essentially, in swinging wide to the right before making a left hand turn (or vice versa). I was confused by it at first, but then I realized it is a necessary adaptation to the fact that there are practically no 90-degree intersections anywhere in the state.

 

Four-way stops in West Virginia are also interesting because, contrary to my own experience in other places, the first person to arrive at the intersection does not go through first. They direct everybody else through, and then they go. Quite polite, once you think about it, but it takes some getting used to.

[Xavier Onassiss]

On 5/14/2018 at 1:26 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.

 

It's an all-too common occurrence in some parts of the country. I keep getting questions about my curious driving habit of activating my turn signal blinkers exactly once, about a half a second before changing lanes, and then doing so, shall we say... vigorously. I learned it's pretty much the only way to get the drop on the "blinker assassins." Yes, there's actually a name for these miscreants. They're the jerk-wipes in the adjacent lane who stomp on their gas pedal the instant they say a lane-change signal, as if they're on a crusade to prevent any and all would-be encroachments against the sanctity of their precious lane.

May they all crash and burn.

[Badger]

3 hours ago, Pariah said:

 

I lived in the state for two years. Driving in West Virginia is...interesting. Of particular notoriety is a maneuver that we out-of-staters referred to as 'The Swerve'. It consists, essentially, in swinging wide to the right before making a left hand turn (or vice versa). I was confused by it at first, but then I realized it is a necessary adaptation to the fact that there are practically no 90-degree intersections anywhere in the state.

 

Four-way stops in West Virginia are also interesting because, contrary to my own experience in other places, the first person to arrive at the intersection does not go through first. They direct everybody else through, and then they go. Quite polite, once you think about it, but it takes some getting used to.

 

They do the fake right and turn left (and vice-versa for that matter) a lot here in VA too.  Not really sure there is a reason for it though. (other than to aggravate me)

 

Also another favorite is drive slow in the left lane, forcing me to get in right lane to pass.  As soon as I pass they get into right lane to make a right turn.  (I really don't care what lane they are in, I often stay in the left lane if my next turn is a left one, but to be in a left lane when your next turn is right and going slow seems annoying)

[Badger]

9 minutes ago, Xavier Onassiss said:

 

It's an all-too common occurrence in some parts of the country. I keep getting questions about my curious driving habit of activating my turn signal blinkers exactly once, about a half a second before changing lanes, and then doing so, shall we say... vigorously. I learned it's pretty much the only way to get the drop on the "blinker assassins." Yes, there's actually a name for these miscreants. They're the jerk-wipes in the adjacent lane who stomp on their gas pedal the instant they say a lane-change signal, as if they're on a crusade to prevent any and all would-be encroachments against the sanctity of their precious lane.

May they all crash and burn.

 

Heh, I sometimes late blink when driving at night. At least when I got a high-beamers (or in this day and age a really bright low-beam, maybe) behind me, in some paranoid effort, in thinking that if they know my next move they will parrot it for spite

[Cancer]

28.  A number of coffee-and-bakery places claimed to have sticky buns, but none of them did.

[Cancer]

29.  Altitude is a funny thing.  I'm OK at 9000 feet and some.  But at 10375 I really felt it.  Walking around got me woozy, though I could fight that off if I stood still and breathed deeply for 20-30 seconds.  Just sitting down didn't do it.  I've been living within 200 feet of sea level for too long.

[Cancer]

30.  Road vacations in April-May are better than ones in August.  Not only is it cooler (thermally), but you don't have random chunks of the road net blocked off by wildfire hazard.  (Or, in a different quadrant, violent thunderstorms/tornado tracks, or even hurricane landfall.)  The "cooler" bit may not matter if you're in, say, North Dakota, but that isn't a big piece of the country.

[dmjalund]

1 hour ago, Cancer said:

29.  Altitude is a funny thing.  I'm OK at 9000 feet and some.  But at 10375 I really felt it.

I was at Lahsa (11990 ft) - there's a reason you should take altitude pills - at least at first

 

I was able to go up the steps at the big temple there, but not all in one go.

[Old Man]

Haleakala summit is 10023'.  Made the mistake of walking about 100 yards down into the crater.  Had to take a knee for fifteen minutes I was so lightheaded.  Then I had to shuffle back up to get out.  The whole time hikers twice my age powerwalked past me while looking at me funny.

[Cancer]

Yeah, I didn't try anything at Haleakalaa the time we went there.  I was fascinated by looking at the crater thru my polaroid sunglasses; all the little bits of volcanic glass made for enough polarization in the reflected light that it was obvious.  Though perhaps I was hypoxic enough that I was just seeing the pretty colors, mon.

[Cancer]

31.  I pulled the pics off one SD card from the vacation onto a box with a large-format monitor this last week.  The Grand Canyon transcends all attempts to record the splendor, but one cannot be faulted for trying.

[Cancer]

32.  The side trip to Kitt Peak National Observatory was powerfully nostalgic, and nipping into the domes of the 4-meter and 84-inch telescopes (both of which I used back in the 1980s) even more so.  The view looking south out of the 4-meter across the vista of the domes on the mountaintop, and Baboquivari Peak in the background, has a certain surreality to it that might be inspiring for someone writing up an RPG scenario (or campaign) with a collision between high tech and ancient mountain spirits.

 

One view

[Cancer]

Found the notebook in which I'd scribbled some very brief notes!  I had left it up in the campus observatory dome back in August the day the Blue Angels were showing off here.  Only rediscovered it Friday night when we opened up to entertain the guests at our annual recruiting event.  The posts I made in December came from looking at the pics off my camera after having to clear off the SD cards after accumulating holiday pics on them.

 

33.  In San Antonio, New Mexico, is a rather ... interesting ... little bar called the Owl Cafe, with really good burgers with a wide range of possible preparations.  It is locally famous.  We got a late lunch there after going to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, which is adjacent to the Rio Grande in south central NM.  The atmosphere might strike those from genteel urban settings as a little rough and hazardous, but if you tip big and pay cash you're in no danger whatsoever, aside from that of eating way too much.