My Iowa Commute

The point of this thread is to dispel the misconception that Iowa is flat and nothing but corn and bean fields. Parts of Iowa are actually very beautiful. By far, the most pretty is the eastern border, along the Mississippi. I decided to take some pictures along my commute from Iowa City to Cedar Rapids last night, to show you guys where I live.
If you thought driving and talking on the cell phone was dangerous...you'd better appreciate the risks I took for these shots!:eek: [SIZE="1"][COLOR="Silver"](I just put the camera on the steering wheel and kept pressing the button, so actually, it wasn't that bad.)[/COLOR][/SIZE]

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These were taken in Cedar Rapids:

We may not have majestic mountains to look at every day, but we do get some great meteorological shows nonetheless. Here is the backside of a thunderstorm that I took a couple pics of on my way home from Minneapolis this past weekend. They were taken just north of Marion/Cedar Rapids. I was hoping to get a lighteneing strike, since they were occasionally hapening, but no such luck.

Well, that's my little part of the world, what's yours like??

LabRat;351292 wrote:

Here is the backside of a thunderstorm

Always with the backsides, eh? :lol2:

Nice shots... maybe I'll document my commute one of these days.

Nice looking place. I love this time of year. Everything is so green.

Lovely place.... looks a little flat though. ;)

(Relocated to Cities and Travel at LabRat's request.)

LabRat;351288 wrote:

The point of this thread is to dispel the misconception that Iowa is flat and nothing but corn and bean fields. Parts of Iowa are actually very beautiful.

LR, I hope you weren't sensitized by my comment in the Bikes! thread ("I didn't know Iowa had a hill."). But thanks for sharing. It's really quite nice.

I've been considering making a little video of the first 4.5 miles of my ride to work. I want to attach a video camera to the front fender of my motorcycle, or to the top of my helmet. Unfortunately I don't have a video camera.

Maybe I'll try to take some photos.

G'wan, that's flat. Maybe a little wrinkled from the rain, and not as flat as Kansas. but flat as NJ.
When you don't see anything above the trees, it's flat.

Kansas and eastern CO is the flattest I've ever seen. I swear we drove towards a radio tower out there for hours. Creepy. Got a great picture of an entire rainbow though.

I've been keeping a camera in my car, trying to get some shots of the hot air balloons we often see being launched in Eagle. No luck today but Jim took a few pics of my "commute".

jinx, it looks like you have a nice commute.

Is that two dead in the last picture?

HLJ;351685 wrote:

Is that two dead in the last picture?

Looks like a dangerous road. Two lane country roads with heavy traffic like that last picture are statistically the most dangerous per mile driven.

edit: but to end on a positive note, it's beautiful countryside though.

The driveway on the left was probably a factor.

actually, that's jinx's commute...to the gym....

i took pics of mine on the way in this morning....muuuuuch more dangerous.....one of the roads is nicknamed the 'surekill expressway'....so. i'll put them up tonight if i get home before midnight.

as far as what appears to be crosses....i don't think so...i think it's a partially obscured sign...but i'll check next time we go.

Looks like good cycling country LJ and Jinx (bar the prospect of becoming a corpse that is) - no steep hills! I'll try to remember to take my camera with me next week and get a few pics of the route I cycle to and from work during the summer months - the left-hand-side-of-the-road driving should prove interesting/scary enough in itself.

ok..here's my ride in:

1st things first: traffic and transit at the 2's. got in the car at exactly the right time this am....


2nd things 2nd. My d&d guy, Jay knows my voice..."Camcho!"...(what's up in his dialect) "maddama!" ( chillin, havin a bud) "eck large coffe, just cream, mirbonni(please)"...."come to window"......"Abar!, Comcho!" (thanks, bye!).


entering the Turnpike at the Morgantown exit:


on the turnpike:



ugh...traffic backed up 3 miles from the turnpike exit at valley forge is a bad sign....



just after getting off at Valley Forge.....this truck reminds me of rich levy for some reason:


down the schuylkill expressway we go...and traffic was much lighter than usual...a glimpse of boathouse row

closer to town...a cool old bridge:


a statue of someone....it's not william penn...he's in center city:


the phila zoo floats a balloon with a big girraffe on it. I assume they give rides...


center city looms:


i take 676 under it, haeding towards the delaware river, and the Ben Franklin Bridge:


the coolest mural at the bottom of the exit for 'the Ben':


this dude is like an old friend i see every day...even though i've never bought one of his pretzels or newspapers:


over the bridge we go:


cherry hill......is flat as a pancake:




on the ride home, there was buku traffic, but it provided an opportunity for me to get a few shots of the new comcast building with it's ever changing light show:
sorry about the zoom blur....but these were the best i got:



they actually are multi colored lights in a psychadelic pattern....first time i've seen it do that.....usually its some basic geometric figure of one color or the other...

Brings back memories. I used to live in Center City.

LJ wrote:

"Abar!, Comcho!" (thanks, bye!)

It's actually abar, howjo.

HLJ wrote:

jinx, it looks like you have a nice commute.

Is that two dead in the last picture?

I've been having a run of bad luck on my commute - there is always some turd going 35 for the whole first part and there are no passing zones. I can take the turnpike instead, but its just as risky (cops, traffic etc)

I'll check the crosses today but I think you're probably right.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And three kisses (one for each of you).

I LOVE seeing unfamiliar horizons, especially if I can relate them to a person I've actually interacted with.

More please. Your local coffee shop, your supermarket, the place you buy bread etc etc. I really get off on the foreignness of the details of people's daily lives :)

I can't wait to see HLJ's set of pics. Probably need to chew gum while looking at them...

Me first for the kisses!! *elbows jinx in the ribs and throws a doughnut to distract LJ* mwa dahhling!

LabRat;352501 wrote:

I can't wait to see HLJ's set of pics...

Then you might be able to track me down.

You should be so lucky.

xoxoxoBruce;352587 wrote:

You should be so lucky.

[Harp music indicates that we're entering a day dream]

I'm in the bedroom on a Saturday afternoon. I'm up on the top of the 20 foot ladder trying to coax the spiders down from the ceiling, when I hear a knock on the front door.

My wife answers it. As I come down the ladder, I hear voices - lots of voices.

"We're looking for HLJ."

"Excuse me?"


"We're looking for HLJ. Hung. Like Jesus."

"I'm ... oh, Jesus, you're Witnesses. I didn't know you travelled in such big groups."

Meanwhile, I've moved out on to the balcony, wondering if I can leap to that big Ponderosa Pine and slide down to the ground. I've seen squirrels do it -- but then I've also seen squirrels run under the tires of a school bus. Squirrels do not make good role-models.
[more harp music]

It's a hot afternoon.
HLJ is up a ladder at the behest of his beautiful wife.

He hears the doorbell, but heck, he's up a ladder. Not being sexist here, but the person not up a ladder gets the door, right?

He expects to hear familiar voices - his wife's certainly, raised in greeting. And whoever has called. So he is surprised when the first indication he gets of other people in the house is when the bedroom door opens to admit a topless woman and it's not his wife...

I guess as this involves real life people, I'll leave it there ;)

jinx;352361 wrote:

It's actually abar, howjo.

oy... duh. howjo!

SG -- I'll post those pictures as soon as possible.

... and PM me the rest of that story. I need to know what happens next!

I like seeing everyone's commutes, so I thought I'd join in as well. These are all on my Flickr page, so you can see larger versions there if you like. My commute will look a little different, because I walk. It's about 1.5 miles of total walking each way.

We start off at my house, where I just took out the recycling:


Then I go down the street. There's a mixture of small older houses, and silly enormous McMansions. See the tall building in the distance? I'm walking about three blocks past that to enter the MetroRail system:


I cut through the playground of this elementary school, but it's OK since no kids are here this early:


This street of older houses hasn't seen any new McMansions pop up because the houses are all duplexes. To tear one down, you would have to buy out two families, and I guess the developers think it's too much effort:


I walk along this bike path for a short distance. You can see I'm starting to get into a built up area around the metro station:


It looks like I'm in the city here, but I'm still in the suburbs, just a few blocks from my house. The metro station is three blocks ahead:


Here's the elevator down into the ground to catch a train:


This is my Metrorail station. I just missed a train, so the platform is pretty empty. It will be packed like sardines in just a minute or two. The glowing sign on the left says the next train will be here in 4 minutes:


The train! You can see it's become more crowded on the platform:


I know where to stand on the train so I'm one of the first off and through the gates. This is coming up out of the ground in downtown Washington D.C. There's a huge mob of people right on my tail, so I take a quick picture and head up the escalator:


Have any of you seen one of these R2-D2 mailboxes for the Star Wars 30 year anniversary?


I cut through Franklin Square Park:


Go past this old stone church and a new construction site. There's construction everywhere in this city.


This is the Washington D.C. International Youth Hostel. It's right next to an abandoned building being used as a billboard, and on the other side is a brand new building that is going to be a hotel or condos or something.


I bought a Christmas postcard from this place to send to Billy. It's right across from my building.


And here's my building! I actually went across the street to take this shot. I don't normally arrive from this direction. I normally come in a back way and sneak through the loading dock:

glatt;353966 wrote:

There's a huge mob of people right on my tail, so I take a quick picture and head up the escalator:

You're lucky nobody thought you were trying to take an inappropriate photo of that woman!

glatt -- it must be nice to be able to walk to work.

I really like this picture:

This is my Metrorail station. I just missed a train, so the platform is pretty empty. It will be packed like sardines in just a minute or two. The glowing sign on the left says the next train will be here in 4 minutes:

HLJ;353995 wrote:

I really like this picture:

Thanks. I knew I had 4 minutes to kill, so I took a moment to actually compose a shot instead of taking snapshots like I did for the rest of them.

SteveDallas;353984 wrote:

You're lucky nobody thought you were trying to take an inappropriate photo of that woman!

I know which websites you visit. :D

When I visited DC I was very impressed with the effectiveness of the Metro system. Our only public transportation system in Austin is buses, and they suck harder than you could possibly imagine.

I really like this thread! I don't have a true commute, but I'm going to try to remember to take pictures the next time I drive into the office for a weekend recording session.

I wish I could use the Metro for my commute.

But here are a couple of pics from my daily drive:

A church on top of a gas station:




And the exorcist stairs:

Wow - glad I stepped by to check this out again!
HLJ - I do promise my next creative writing session will include something naughty ;)

Glatt - fantastic. You live in such a beautiful area, the walk must set you up for tackling the Metro. It looks head & shoulders above the dirty old Tube, but no commute is ever going to be ideal when you're sharing someone else's morning breath, right?

Happy Monkey - you're not kidding about the stairs :worried:
Having seen them, I'm now going to worry if you ever go AWOL.

I literally am not kidding- they are the actual stairs from the end of The Exorcist.

OK - contryside time! - all this concrete reminds me of the 30-odd years I travelled up to London and back each day, and taking 3 hours in total out of the day to do it. So that's 3 hours x 200 days x 30 years - jeez, that's 18,000 hours, or 2 years of my life (!), just standing on a platform or sitting/standing inside a train....!

Now it's a local job - in the winter I drive there but once the daylight improves I cycle for 2 or 3 of the days in the week. When using my bike, I try for quieter roads - sure, 19 out of 20 cars and trucks give you a wide berth when they overtake, but it's the 20th that's the problem. So I keep bsuy roads to the minimum.

The other thing is, well, most of you won't know where I'm talking about (or showing you photos of) - so here's a map of the route I take to start with - red marks the way (plus a bit of pinky-mauve color on the way back where I deviate from the morning route). So here we go...

First picture - out of the driveway and across the road past Headley Court Ministry of Defence Rehabiliation Hospital (used for many of the Gulf War and now Iraq War trauma victims) - no photos though, not permitted - teh guards would be on you like a shot - a fantsatic building as well. Still never mind - I'm soon turning into the Tyrells Wood Golf Court and residential area (grand houses - the ones here in the second picture are the old stables that have been converted...

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I await photos of the sewage works with bated breath!
Joking aside - how wonderful is the Ordnance Survey? I love it for it's pedantry.

Then it's past the Golf Club - the original manor house to the estate and as always there are alsways a few people there preparing to tee-off - no need to go to the office then....? The journey to work takes 35 minutes max - but it takes agood ten to fifteen minutes more to get home - why so much quicker in the morning - more downhill stretches - like the one in the second picture that runs through Tyrells Wood...

.

Have to disappoint you with the sewage works SG - and I must get on if I'm to do this in 35 minutes - already 7.30 am and I've hardly started! Now it's out of Tyrell's Wood, down the rest of the hill and then across the A24 into that little turning opposite in the first photo. That takes me down and towards Leatherhead - wher there are shops (of sorts...)

.

One good thing about the bike is that I can cut through the pedestrianised area in photo 1 and save aabout a mile of skirting around the town as the cars do - then I rejoin the road that takes me out towards Stoke d'Abernon and Cobham and mix with the traffic...

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Still this road's not too bad - a few cars , but not so many that they have room to give me a wide berth - I can stay in top gear for a good mile or so (the first photo, which confirms I'm going in the right direction, is just past the sewage works - just for SG that one!) and then it climbs a bit under the M25 (second photo) so I have to drop down a couple of gears...

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until I get past the Woodlands Park Hotel (back in the early 1900's it used to be the house where Edward the 7th took Lily Langtrey (his mistress). Now I'm well over halfway and after a bit of a drop, another climb and another downhill stint, I turn right and head through Stoke d'Abernon....

.

I am swooning with delight at all the green
Much as I loved Ali's pics of her father's house, this is why I love this drizzly isle.

I'll come back to these when I'm faced with grey London in the Winter.

Another turn and then I'm on the final stretch, enjoying the opportunity to pass all the cars that have to queue for ten to fifteen miutes to get through the traffic lights - another bikey bonus! A treat for my American friends as well here at the end of this road, just to the right on the far side of the road, is the American International School where US workers living in this area send their children - you'd have never guessed that now, would you...



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But I have to turn left at thos lights - then it's just a few yards before I reach the office - 33.50 minutes - not bad - almost a record. maybe tomorrow I'll show you the route home....

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Cheers Madeira

Enjoyed that as much as the overseas commutes - possibly because the familiarity is offset by some lovely scenery.

Cyclefrance, that's a great commute.

Did you take the pictures while moving?

If this was a competition, Cyclefrance would win.

But it's not a competition, so keep on posting everyone.

glatt;354237 wrote:

If this was a competition, Cyclefrance would win.

Although I really enjoyed it, I'd always vote for something I have little chance of seeing. Like big buildings and weird crazy people driving on the wrong side of the road, and locations from horror movies. I agree CF gets an honourable mention of course.

glatt;354237 wrote:

But it's not a competition, so keep on posting everyone.

Now that I can agree with.

Sundae Girl;354242 wrote:

I'd always vote for something I have little chance of seeing.

I agree completely. Which is why I like Cyclefrance's so much.:)

HLJ;354233 wrote:

Cyclefrance, that's a great commute.

Did you take the pictures while moving?

Did a few - but roads too bumpy to get a decent picture most of the time - if there's one thing the Brits are good at it's making lumpy, bumpy road surfaces!

glatt;354237 wrote:

If this was a competition, Cyclefrance would win.

Not really - I can't take the credit when mother nature's the artist - just lucky to live and commute amongst all this greenery. And variety is what makes our separate journey's interesting - to be honest I find the chance to see the journeys made by other people more interesting than my own - I do mine so often it has become too familiar (and I know when the hills are going to hit!) - seeing something new is more interesting for me. Difficult to see it as a competition when each contribution brings something new and interesting to everyone else.

glatt;353966 wrote:

Have any of you seen one of these R2-D2 mailboxes for the Star Wars 30 year anniversary?

Yup! There's one in the touristy Harbor District in Baltimore. It's the background on my phone... If I remember my camera I'll take a picture when I'm down there tomorrow (and some others, and post them to another thread).

Americans in Britain send their kids to American school??! Offensive!

Hey, stirrer :)

We're used to US Bases over here, no-one bats an eyelid. After all, we live secure in the knowledge our schools prepare our children for the oldest most venerated Universities in the world...

You don't want those kids coming back British, do you? ;)





Pete rode to work this morning. A car was right up close behind her and she's thinking, Here we go another driver/cyclist confrontation. Then he pulls up beside with a grin, "Hey, you were doing 45 (mph) in a thirty!"

Yeah! Keep them coming!!!! Thanks!! --We should change the thread title to Cellarite Commutes or something...

I had the best intentions this morning. I brought my camera and started taking pictures. About half a mile from home the battery died, just as a baby deer walked in front of my car.

We'll be seeing the pictures tomorrow then, right after you charge the battery.

HLJ;354523 wrote:

I had the best intentions this morning. I brought my camera and started taking pictures. About half a mile from home the battery died, just as a baby deer walked in front of my car.

Did you kill Bambi? For want of a battery, the baby deer was lost? :eek:

Shawnee123;354529 wrote:

Did you kill Bambi? For want of a battery, the baby deer was lost? :eek:

I was so focused on taking pictures, that if the battery hadn't died when it did, I might have -- though it probably would have done some serious damage to my car -- the hood is aluminum and thinner than a Pepsi can.

I'll download the ones I've taken and see if any are post-worthy. The camera was set for 6MP, so I'll need to shrink the pictures before posting.

What are the size and format restrictions for posting pictures?

When you go to post a picture, it will tell you the restrictions if your pic is too big. Keep in mind that not everyone has superspeedy connections, and UT is footing the server space bill.

What I do is open the pics (however big) in Photoshop, resize the image to be 300-750 pixels wide (depending on subject, usually about 500, but that sometimes is even big) then there is an option to "save for web" I do that, which gives the options of high-low image quality. Low seems to give perfectly fine pics once on the Cellar, and has a small file size.

YMMV

Edit, because there are restrictions, i'm a doofus.

LR, thanks for your help.

This is a view looking down our driveway in December (actually, it looked like this from October through about May, this year).

The snow makes for some good exercise. Shoveling is my wife's job.

I'll post more pictures tomorrow after I recharge my camera battery.

[How do you post the pictures so that you can insert text between them, as others have done?]

HLJ;354580 wrote:

[How do you post the pictures so that you can insert text between them, as others have done?]

You need to host your pictures on another website and link to them with the image button when composing your post. I used Flickr to host mine.

When you do it as an attachment like you did, you can only post two, and they go at the bottom. They are hosted by the Cellar then.

What he said. That's how I do it, (Cellar host's) which is why I have to use multiple posts to get more than 2 pics in.

Beautiful snow pics! Great on a stink-o hot day like today...

LabRat;354587 wrote:

Beautiful snow pics!

Yeah. I should have commented on them too. That's a long driveway, and you appear to get snow often. Was the snowblower broken? Was the truck with the plow in the shop? You don't shovel every time it snows, do you?

glatt;354594 wrote:

Yeah. I should have commented on them too. That's a long driveway, and you appear to get snow often. Was the snowblower broken? Was the truck with the plow in the shop? You don't shovel every time it snows, do you?

HLJ;354580 wrote:

The snow makes for some good exercise. Shoveling is my wife's job.

The driveway is 200 or 300 feet long; the top picture shows the narrower end toward the street. The part nearer the house is twice as wide.

The biggest problem we have, after a few days of snow, is finding a place to put it. Up by the garage there is a hill on one side, the house on the other and the garage in front. Here's a picture I took this morning. All the snow has melted.

Wow - I've only seen snow like that on skiing holidays [envy].
You live in a wooden house! That's well foreign to me!

I can't wait for your commute. Please can I also have pictures of your kitchen, your bathroom, your weekly food shop etc ;)

HLJ;354580 wrote:

Shoveling is my wife's job.

I saw that before. You wife has quite a job then. She must be able to beat you at arm wrestling by the time Spring rolls around in June.

Sundae Girl;354606 wrote:

Wow - I've only seen snow like that on skiing holidays [envy].
You live in a wooden house! That's well foreign to me!

I can't wait for your commute. Please can I also have pictures of your kitchen, your bathroom, your weekly food shop etc ;)

The cedar siding is nice, but it has drawbacks, primarily because the woodpeckers and the pigmy nuthatches think it's a big dead tree. They drill holes in the walls to make nests, some of them 4 inches in diameter, and pull out the insulation.

The other problem is that we live in an area with occasional large fires (10,000 to 120,000 acres) and this house would burn fast.

I can see by that picture that it's time to stain the front door.

glatt;354607 wrote:

I saw that before. You wife has quite a job then. She must be able to beat you at arm wrestling by the time Spring rolls around in June.

Yes, and she still hasn't split that pile of firewood on the side of the driveway.

HLJ;354624 wrote:

Yes, and she still hasn't split that pile of firewood on the side of the driveway.

It's hard to get good help these days. ;)

HLJ;354622 wrote:

The cedar siding is nice, but it has drawbacks, primarily because the woodpeckers and the pigmy nuthatches think it's a big dead tree. They drill holes in the walls to make nests, some of them 4 inches in diameter, and pull out the insulation.

My folks had the woodpecker problem. After many years of replacing wood and cursing the little peckers, they stoped staining and painted the house. That did it.

xoxoxoBruce;355013 wrote:

My folks had the woodpecker problem. After many years of replacing wood and cursing the little peckers, they stoped staining and painted the house. That did it.

This year I finally bought an air rifle. I shot two of the pygmy nuthatches but they just fell to the ground, got up and flew away. They've since come back and are living inside the walls.

HLJ;354580 wrote:

The snow makes for some good exercise. Shoveling is my wife's job.

Now that's some mean job you get her to do - no sooner has she cleared it away than it's back again - what's that saying? - a woman's work is never done...?

Have I misssed something, though, whereabouts are you with all that countryside around you?

I caught that bit about the nuthatches. We regularly have blue tits and coal tits nesting - usually in the specially made boxes, but a few years back when we were converting the garage into a studio for my older son, I left a gap in the outer brickwork where the cabling for the external electrics fed to the consumer unit. We noticed around late spring that our cat was showing a lot of interest in this opening (luckily it was about five feet up the wall) - it turned out that a family of tits had made their nest inside the cavity. WE let them stay, but once they had gone I cemented up the opening.

Not so much trouble as you have though. Must remember to make a note of the bird down-side in case Mrs CF ever gets turned on to buying a timber-clad house.

We do get a lot of woodpeckers arond here - usually the green variety - they can be seen in the summer when the ants are hatching from their nests in the soil as they spend a lot of time on the lawn feasting on the eggs and newly hatched ants swarming around below the lawn's surface.

I'm not going to bore you with the full trip home, but there are one or two photos of passing interest I'll add here.

First, for all you soccer fans, how on earth could I go through Cobham without taking a picture of teh entrance to Chelsea FC's training ground. It;s the reason we have Chavs and Wags shopping in the local Waitrose and crusing down Cobham High Street in their 4x4's, Cayennes and Bentleys

.

Dog wants his walk - to be continued in an hour or so....

Cyclefrance;355036 wrote:

... Have I misssed something, though, whereabouts are you with all that countryside around you?

We are about 30 miles west of Denver Colorado, at an altitude of 7,800 feet. Denver, which is around 5,000 feet, is quite a bit warmer and dryer than we are.

Cyclefrance;355036 wrote:

... I caught that bit about the nuthatches. We regularly have blue tits...

I was going to make some connection between snow shoveling and blue tits, but I decided that would be too rude.

Cyclefrance;355036 wrote:

... We do get a lot of woodpeckers arond here - usually the green variety - they can be seen in the summer when the ants are hatching from their nests in the soil as they spend a lot of time on the lawn feasting on the eggs and newly hatched ants swarming around below the lawn's surface.

We have two kinds of woodpeckers that we regularly see. The Flickers are the trouble makers, but they've mostly left us alone this year.

Dog (Oscar) is exhuasted - he has his 'running-barking' game he plays with a labrador called Buzz. The house is pictured below - it's on the way home


.

So they run the length of the fence shown in the picture above - Oscar on te outside and Buzz on the inside. When they reach the end of the fence, they skid to a halt, bark at each other for a few seconds and then repeat the exercise in the opposite direction. Picture of Oscar in full flight and Buzz through the fence (resting) taken on phone camera tonight:

.

Another landmark on the way home. This is the building that was once the offices of the Royal Society for the Blind in Leatherhead and is now converted into apartments. They are rather nice! The building also used to house one of the Society's departments called 'Seeability'. I cycled for them last year - the '100 miles around Dieppe' charity run. This year it's Leatherhead to Le Mans - you can also learn more about it here (I even qualify for my photo on their site!

.

And lastly for a certain young Cellarite lady who seems to have a penchant for such places...

.

In case you can't see, it says 'Leatherhead Sewage Treatment Works'!

So the Chelsea FC entrance is wide open but the sewage plant has a gate. Hmmm, strange these Brits.

That's because terrorists might poison the sewage.

Turns out I got unexpectedly called into work today, so I humbly submit this commute for general perusal.

First, we start in the neighborhood, with the local water tower. We're not on the main city water system, unfortunately. Within just a mile or so we enter the highway. The trip is almost all highway--fast, but not pretty.

A lot of construction in this area. The highway I'm on will be a tollroad when it's finished, but is free until then.

This overpass is insanely high, the picture really doesn't do it justice.

Holy shit, that is high.

I exit one early and take the frontage road because the supposed exit for my turn is incredibly dangerous. No way to merge when there are cars waiting at the light. I'll take it during off hours, but it's lunch time right now, not happening.

Finally we get to some nicer scenery.

Most of the rest of the way there is cut into the hills, with these rock walls on both sides.

And we're there!

Clodfobble, for some reason that last shot reminds me of Office Space.

What a great thread! It's fun to see everyone's different surrounds.

I now know that Lumberjim's commute takes him within 3 blocks of where I work, glatt lives a mere couple of miles north from where I used to live in Arlington (on Four Mile Run Drive, near Columbia Pike), and Happy Monkey works practically next door to where I used to work in G'town (if the Exorcist Stairs are close by to him).

If I can find new batteries for the camera tonight, I'll be able to contribute some pics of my 5-10 min. walking mini-commute.

I don't live or work all that near the Stairs, but I pass them on my commute.

That opening shot of the water tower will stay with me - cyclists have a natural aversion to water towers - they just have to be on top of a very high (and usually either steep or grindingly long) hill! Still, there is always the trip down afterwards!

Any chance of a map? - it's interesting to here BC recount how close some of you are to each other but, for us Brits, it's hard to picture where these places are in relation to each other (let alone work out where the sewage works are!). I know, we are a pain (make that 'we are' an 'I am').

rather ordinary, this route, but i share it anyway

Cyclefrance;355248 wrote:

That opening shot of the water tower will stay with me - cyclists have a natural aversion to water towers - they just have to be on top of a very high (and usually either steep or grindingly long) hill! Still, there is always the trip down afterwards!

Lots of water towers here -no hills. Flat as a pancake.

Am off to the Kids' school in a minute to get them (last day, they are done at 10:30!!!!) have put new batteries in camera.... that's the closest I get to a regular commute.

This is a great thread.

Cyclefrance, that building! It's gorgeous. I'm a freak for old buildings. I would love to see what the apartments are like.

Hey UT, I thought only two pictures fit on a post. How'd you do that?

Uh, hello? He's GOD of the Cellar!

You mean Overlord Undertoad?

Yes. Him!

Shawnee -- I think your posts are stalking my posts.

And I'm stalking both of you!

HLJ - Glatt did answer you chick - here
I can't offer any help myself as I just attach them too.

HLJ;355565 wrote:

Shawnee -- I think your posts are stalking my posts.

I better have a long talk with my posts.

Sundae Girl;355571 wrote:

And I'm stalking both of you!

.

Wooohoooooo!

As I mentioned before, I've got a short walk to work, living and working in the same neighborhood and all. But it's a lot of sensory input for 10 minutes. Usually, I'll run into several people I know along the way, but not today for some reason.

First stop, iced coffee! This is right in front of my favorite espresso bar, Double Shots, a few feet from my front door.


Walking down Market Street. Tonight, it will be a completely different crowd.


My favorite water tower.


A few well-maintained historic buildings. The top of Ben Franklin's post office is on the far right, I think, with the Bourse behind it.


The street I work on. The building on the far left was priced at $9M last year, but it didn't quite make it. Gee...


Cute little (haunted :eek:) cobblestone street off my street, leading to Old City coffee for afternoon food coma emergencies.

Church St.??

Sundae Girl;355571 wrote:

HLJ - Glatt did answer you chick - here
I can't offer any help myself as I just attach them too.

SG -- your post might be gender-confused.

Undertoad;355665 wrote:

Church St.??

Yep, that's the last shot.

Cyclefrance, here's a map of my neighborhood (Old City, outlined in purple), the eastern-most side of Philadelphia. I work near 3rd and Market, and LJ cruises by on the BF Bridge to the north of me. My first photo is on Chestnut St., and the rest are on Market, 3rd, and Church.

Working from the top down:

HLJ - oops, done it before and I'll probably do it again. Chick in the UK isn't female-specific (in the same way Guys isn't male-specific here) I must try to remember when I post here!

Bluecuracao - do you live and work city centre? It looks like a lovely cosmopolitan walk - wonderfully tree-lined!

Clod - there is so much SKY in your part of the world. And it looks so hot. It's far greener than I would expect given the above, and really quite attractive. I have a friend with family in Houston, Texas, but her photos are in houses and shopping malls. And I love Joe R Lansdale's books. But I'm pleased to see real life in a different part of a vast state :)

UT - one thing people tell me when I admit I live to travel coast to coast in the US is that I'd be on highways all the time and after a while they won't even have the tourist benefit of looking foreign. Much as I really appreciate your posting I get a flavour of what they mean. It's the same in the UK - if you are travelling between cities I mean, not between towns like CF or urban travel like me - all you get is ROAD. But hey - I've devoured your garden mentally...

Cyclefrance - cheers for the pic babba. You realise I'm not a coprophiliac, right? I just love the idea that the OS puts such mundane details in. I cheered (to myself) when you photographed it though... (ellipsis specially for you)

SG, yes...in a way. Old City is considered part of Center City; but actual Center City (to the west) has much taller buildings and is less sunlit.

It's just that... well, y'see, the Cellar was, for a short time, colocated at DCANet's Philly location... on Church St...

"All road": the commutes generally are; I have a slightly longer, much more scenic "back road" which I'll sometimes take if 422 is really hosed. It involves going over Valley Forge Mountain, past some of the most expensive houses in the area including a beautiful horse farm. The tree coverage is so dense it interrupts my satellite radio reception. Stupid question: would you like me to take pictures of that commute?

Edit: you can choose to take these kinds of "long ways" if you travel coast to coast. My own thinking is that I want to fly to Denver (sorry midwesterners, your places are nice but boring to drive through) and then rent a decent vehicle and drive over the Rocky Mountains, through the badlands of Utah, down to the Grand Canyon and on to Vegas... on mostly the smaller roads, generally skipping the Interstate Highways.

UT -- I once found a website that mapped dirt road routes across the country. I've been considering getting on my TransAlp and taking a dirt-road trip.

Undertoad;355698 wrote:

"All road": the commutes generally are; I have a slightly longer, much more scenic "back road" which I'll sometimes take if 422 is really hosed. It involves going over Valley Forge Mountain, past some of the most expensive houses in the area including a beautiful horse farm. The tree coverage is so dense it interrupts my satellite radio reception. Stupid question: would you like me to take pictures of that commute?

Edit: you can choose to take these kinds of "long ways" if you travel coast to coast. My own thinking is that I want to fly to Denver (sorry midwesterners, your places are nice but boring to drive through) and then rent a decent vehicle and drive over the Rocky Mountains, through the badlands of Utah, down to the Grand Canyon and on to Vegas... on mostly the smaller roads, generally skipping the Interstate Highways.

Oh yes!

All I meant is that although many Brits commute, the word here just means "my trip to work". And in the vast majority of cases that doesn't mean along motorways/ urban freeways. Don't get me wrong - there must be thousands of people here who have journeys like yours, it's just yours was the first of the US ones that had enclosed roads. And I still liked seeing it! It's just I now understand that days on end of a similar view might pall.

The term 'Generica' describes what you see driving the freeways across the US. Every exit looks like every other exit. McDonald's, ABC restaurants (Applebee's/Bennigan's/Chili's), Home Depot, Wal-Mart, two gas stations, variations on a theme, a strip mall, a concrete wall.

If you're going to travel around the US and want to see something, stay off of the interstates.

HLJ;355721 wrote:

The term 'Generica' describes what you see driving the freeways across the US. Every exit looks like every other exit. McDonald's, ABC restaurants (Applebee's/Bennigan's/Chili's), Home Depot, Wal-Mart, two gas stations, variations on a theme, a strip mall, a concrete wall.

I feel fortunate that I don't have to see these things on a regular basis. I think I'd go completely nuts if I did.

HLJ;355707 wrote:

UT -- I once found a website that mapped dirt road routes across the country. I've been considering getting on my TransAlp and taking a dirt-road trip.

You better have a shitload of time.

xoxoxoBruce;355735 wrote:

You better have a shitload of time.

That's why I haven't done it.

Sundae Girl, you might want to get a copy of William Least Heat-Moon's

Blue-Highways-Journey-into-America.

This is one of my favorite books and I usually have a few thrifted copies around for people who haven't read it yet.

Blue Highways are the old US routes before the interstates went in. They still criss cross the country but are forgotten America in many ways. Route 66 is a blue highway.

OK, I'm gonna beat our regular song-quoters to the punch:

Oh you know we're gonna ride
On a blue highway
Walk with the legs you're blind
On a blue highway
Wave hellow to pride
on my highway
Yes I almost died
On a blue highway

SG, traveling across America is the same as London to Moscow....twice. That's without the side trips and detours that are damn near mandatory. There are long stretches of it that are repetitious(boring) and should be traversed quickly for time and energy conservation. There are other sections that should be seen at a snails pace.

Only with a little more sauerkraut.

lizzymahoney;355751 wrote:

Sundae Girl, you might want to get a copy of William Least Heat-Moon's

Blue-Highways-Journey-into-America.

This is one of my favorite books and I usually have a few thrifted copies around for people who haven't read it yet.

Blue Highways are the old US routes before the interstates went in. They still criss cross the country but are forgotten America in many ways. Route 66 is a blue highway.

PM me if you have one knocking about and you're willing to take a chance on a virtual unknown :)

Bruce - I know it wouldn't be non-stop pleasure, but it's a dream and if I had the money then I know I could schedule it so I could enjoy it.

Sundae Girl;356247 wrote:

PM me if you have one knocking about and you're willing to take a chance on a virtual unknown :)

Bruce - I know it wouldn't be non-stop pleasure, but it's a dream and if I had the money then I know I could schedule it so I could enjoy it.

SG -- you have a lot of imaginary American Cellar friends. I think that you should plan a trip to visit some of them (I mean us, if I may make that assumption), which would save you a lot of money and provide you with local guides through out the country.

I love the idea that I could do that HLJ - I'd like to at least have a beer with many Dwellars, although I'm so much more comfortable being the one imposed on than imposing.

I keep promising myself that with the great exchange rate (for the UK I mean) I'll buy at least $10 a week before the dollar gets any stronger. Something always comes up though!

I'll get my finances in order once I move. I promise I'll start working on a plan then.

jinx wrote:

I've been keeping a camera in my car, trying to get some shots of the hot air balloons we often see being launched in Eagle.

Just a couple minutes too slow to catch them on the ground today...

one more

lizzymahoney;355751 wrote:

Sundae Girl, you might want to get a copy of William Least Heat-Moon's

Blue-Highways-Journey-into-America.

I concur. This is a riveting, excellent, next best thing to being there read, and also one of my favorite tomes. When this book was at the height of its popularity in the 80's, I heard the author on the Larry King Show when it was still on radio. It was a nationally syndicated call in show back then, so I called in, and got on. My question of Least Heat Moon was simply, "Where did you get all the information for the stories you tell about the places you stopped? All the little historical asides, people's names and such?" His answer?

"You know all those roadside markers you usually drive past? I stopped at *all* of them."

Brilliant.

Commute route B. 10 minutes longer, unless 422 is seriously hosed. Usta be the same distance as commute A, but the fuckers closed a critical road I needed.


mill grove, historical home of john audubon


what "st gabe's curve" is named after

422 hosed again, as we pass over it

over the schuylkill river



the country club

over valley forge "mountain"


invisible driveways to the homes of the rich.

trees so dense and lush they interrupt mah satellite radio



horse farms

one lane bridges



and into officeland.

That beats the first commute for me, UT (but then I'm greenery fan!). Looks far more inviting and interesting - and much less stressful with so little traffic to contend with.

I didn't know they called that "Saint Gabe's Curve."

I see the place and it just makes me get irritable.

(Saint Gabe's is a school for exceptionally bad children, most of them from Philadelphia, all of them miserable, manipulative, little criminal bastards. Well, mostly bastards. I think that one or two have come from intact two-parent families.)

i jumped off the schuylkill today and went down East River Drive....thought of this thread and wished I'd had my camera....I'll get it one day...

OK, so my regular commute is to and from the kids' school. Usually there on the freeway (because I'm always on the last minute) and back across town.

1) waiting to turn left at the first main intersection
2) Southbound US23

3) Eastbound I94 (with water tower in distance for cyclefrance)
4) it's neverending....

5) The city park with the ice rink where I take skating lessons. Melted in summer, though -they have an outdoor pool with a waterslide running in the summer
6) Zingermann's Roadhouse Diner Drive-through. The trailer has a huge aluminum coffee-pot spout on the front, but I didn't manage to get that in the picture.

7) Looking behind me towards the freeway I just left (still sat at the intersection with the ice rink on one corbner and the diner on another)
8) Heading straight for downtown Ann Arbor -about a mile from the very center

9) About a half mile away from the city center you can just start to make out the taller buildings
10) At school

11) The school nicely hidden by trees :rolleyes:
12) A random house on the way home

Some more of the way home, then the memory card malfunctioned, so I'm going to use someone else's images of the rest of the way if I can google some! :lol: (I should be able to -I go past the Michigan Stadium)

Pioneer High School (in winter)

which is kitty corner to:

The U of Michigan Stadium

Is Zingermann's Roadhouse Diner Drive-through, a trailer permanantly parked in a parking lot?

Past what is apparently an old gas station, although i only knew it as a drive-thru bank and now in it's current incarnation as a drive thru coffee shop (Bear Claw)

turning right by the Meri Lou Murray Rec center

Finally I wanted to show you the purple "castle" which houses a homeopathic pharmacy. A huge old purple house with turrets and spires. I'll try and snap a pic next time I'm passing -I can't believe I couldn't find a pic.

xoxoxoBruce;359520 wrote:

Is Zingermann's Roadhouse Diner Drive-through, a trailer permanantly parked in a parking lot?

Yes, but it's in the parking lot of Zingerman's Roadhouse restaurant.


(oops, only one N in Zingerman's)

A while back, my mother had an art show in Ann Arbor, and loved her visit there. Thanks for the pics, monster!

you're welcome. Oh And I meant westbound I94. You feel cheated now, dontcha?

monster;359529 wrote:

Yes, but it's in the parking lot of Zingerman's Roadhouse restaurant.
(oops, only one N in Zingerman's)

Ah ha, clever way to add a drive through without remodeling the whole joint. Thanks.

xoxoxoBruce;359684 wrote:

Ah ha, clever way to add a drive through without remodeling the whole joint. Thanks.

Actually, they moved in and completely rebuilt an old restaurant, and added the trailer in the same year. I think it was always the intention. It's incredibly popular (and a very cool trailer).

I tried to take a pic of the purple castle today, but I suspect I failed. I'll get the camera from the car in a mo.

I'd like to see some Aussie commutes in here

*cue smartarses posting upside-down commute pics*

I drive about 20 miles one way to work, with an elevation change of about 2000 feet.

The first 10th of a mile is dirt; the rest is paved.

I had this great idea that I would ride my motorcycle, with my camera hanging around my neck, and would be able to shoot without stopping. Apparently, I was lacking in either riding or photographing skills, and found this to be impossible. Instead, I put the camera in my tank bag, and had to pull off the road to take every picture, sometimes risking death just to bring you these photos.

19.9 miles to go.

The road, for the first 5 miles, includes about 54 curves, but must of the pictures I took on the connecting straight parts.

Most of the trees are Ponderosa Pine. The deciduous trees are either Aspen or Cottonwood.

I'll try to post more throughout the next few days.

Dang, everyone lives in such nice places... I'll have to try and compete!

LabRat, do you live in Iowa City or Cedar Rapids? I've lived in both!

queequeger;381721 wrote:

Dang, everyone lives in such nice places... I'll have to try and compete!

LabRat, do you live in Iowa City or Cedar Rapids? I've lived in both!

I thought that Georgia was nice. At least you're not too far from the ocean.

But it's not really a competition (or is it?).

HungLikeJesus;381714 wrote:

I drive about 20 miles one way to work, with an elevation change of about 2000 feet.

The first 10th of a mile is dirt; the rest is paved.

I had this great idea that I would ride my motorcycle, with my camera hanging around my neck, and would be able to shoot without stopping. Apparently, I was lacking in either riding or photographing skills, and found this to be impossible. Instead, I put the camera in my tank bag, and had to pull off the road to take every picture, sometimes risking death just to bring you these photos.

19.9 miles to go.

Buy one of these: Gorilla Tripod, affix to your handlebars or helmet and try again.

BigV;381723 wrote:

Buy one of these: Gorilla Tripod, affix to your handlebars or helmet and try again.

BigV, that's really neat, but we're going to need a bigger Gorilla, or a smaller camera. It says that the maximum weight capacity is 9.7 ounces. The D70 weighs 21 oz, plus battery and lens.

I have been considering getting a smaller camera.

Edit: I just went to the Joby site and saw this. That might be the way to go.

uh, yeah, that's the one I meant!

While you're at it, you can secure your gorillapod with some Gorilla Tape. This stuff is the real thing. You better mean it when you apply it. You *can* take it off, but it *will* leave a mark.

The horses in the first picture are spoiled - they have lots of room, and they get blankets in the winter. The horses across the road are in a little lot that turns to mud after the first snow.

The water in the foreground is the creek that the road follows.

The second picture is a better view of the creek - which was a roaring rapid this summer. You can see I'm risking death to get this picture, as the shoulder is only about 8 inches wide. If I lost my balance and fell to the left I'd get my head run over. If I fell to the right I'd be smashed upon the rocks.

The road has no line in this section because drivers don't know how to keep their BUTs (big ugly trucks) within their lanes, which eventually erases the line. The line has since been replaced, and a rumple strip placed along the center of most of the road.

This is my drive to the gym (because it's nicer, and I actually do the drive more often than work)

Cool pics !!

Q - you have a much greater variety of trees than we do. We don't have nearly as many hardwoods in Colorado.

You also seem to have a better ratio of cars to trucks/SUVs.

It's really hard to appreciate the things and places that you see everyday, which is why this thread is nice.

Oh, don't be fooled, we've got a lot more trucks than cars... this was driving through the rich white neighborhood :yelgreedy

But, I had never noticed the variety of trees. It's always just green and green. It reminds me, I went to Colorado when I was younger with a family reunion, and as we were driving about the Rockies in a hotel-airport shuttle I asked our driver/impromptu tour guide, "This area is so beautiful, do you ever get used to it?"

He just said, "Yup, I hardly even notice anymore." It made me a little sad, and I think that one moment made me a little more willing to notice some of the beautiful things around me that I might otherwise overlook as commonplace... Except for tree variety, that is. ;)

queequeger

Welcome. Please phonetically pronounce your name so I stop calling you kweerkweiger in my head. :lol: What is the origin of this interesting handle?

I live in Marion and work in Iowa City. For how long and when were you a local? Did you remember any of the pics I posted? What brought you to Georgia?

Haha! I guess it would best be written as Kwee-Kwayger. It's based on a character from Moby Dick (Ishmael's savage bosom buddy if you remember) and I stuck an -er at the end, mostly in case someone already took the name.

I was a local of Iowa for longer than anywhere else I've lived, which means about 8 years. I went to High School at LaSalle (when it was still around) and then Kennedy. After that I moved to Iowa City to go to school at U of I. My parents still live out in North Liberty (mom works in Cedar Rapids at McLeod and pops worked at UI and Mt Vernon until recently, and now works at a marketing research firm in Iowa City).

And yes, I made the drive from IC to CR countless times, brought back some memories it did. The whole Georgia thing happened when the Air Force tricked me! I thought I'd be going to Middle Eastern countries and far away places... but instead they plopped me down in Augusta, GA. I can't say it's that bad though, one more interesting place to live.

In another thread I posted a picture of Tiny Town. Here are two more.

Tiny Town was built in 1915, and recently restored. In addition to the railroad, there's a mining building (I think that that's what that red building on the hill in the upper center of the first picture is), a church, and lots of other buildings.

Ah, HLJ, you get so many great shots of stuff that is so familiar to me. It helps me appreciate where I live! Yes, it is true, you can get use to mountains. In fact, I am so use to them now, that driving through Kansas through storms was truly frightening for me. Somehow the mountains are protective. In Kansas the sky is so big and I am so small.

case;382166 wrote:

Ah, HLJ, you get so many great shots of stuff that is so familiar to me. It helps me appreciate where I live! Yes, it is true, you can get use to mountains. In fact, I am so use to them now, that driving through Kansas through storms was truly frightening for me. Somehow the mountains are protective. In Kansas the sky is so big and I am so small.

When I was taking the pictures I thought, "Case will be able to figure out where most of these were taken." I hope to add the return trip (different route - including Dinosaur Ridge, Red Rocks, Mt. Falcon, etc.) later.

P.S. I'm trying to include a mix of blue sky and intimate landscapes. So far, the pictures are more documentation than art.

HungLikeJesus;382182 wrote:

When I was taking the pictures I thought, "Case will be able to figure out where most of these were taken." I hope to add the return trip (different route - including Dinosaur Ridge, Red Rocks, Mt. Falcon, etc.) later.

P.S. I'm trying to include a mix of blue sky and intimate landscapes. So far, the pictures are more documentation than art.

:)

I think they become art through their use as documentation.

My commute is pretty long (29 pictures worth) but it's very green and pretty...just wondering if you guys think I should cut out some of the photos, or post them as is. (If yer still interested, of course.)

Post them.

Could vBulletin (possibly) run some kind of slideshow?

Razzmatazz13;383168 wrote:

My commute is pretty long (29 pictures worth) but it's very green and pretty...just wondering if you guys think I should cut out some of the photos, or post them as is. (If yer still interested, of course.)

Razz - I felt the same way. I took about 90 pictures, then had to figure out which to reject. To me, most of mine weren't interesting.

I've only posted part of the commute. I don't know if I'll do the rest.

I took a lot more than 29 also HLJ...but I cut it down as best I could to save on poor UT's bill (since I can't send anything his way just yet).

He's very forgiving of pictures that feature naked women.

Don't often see naked women on my way to work though, so that doesn't help me in this thread.:o

[SIZE="1"]psssst...photoshop.[/SIZE]

Well, here's my commute:
[SIZE="3"]

Start off heading down the driveway

It's a long driveway

Ok, now turn onto the real road.


which is in lovely shape

today we're taking the short route

which is still very pretty

this road was HELL before it got paved about two weeks ago..yaaay road matinence

we're about to turn at that stop sign

the road surface here makes me think of quilts

hey look some lines finally


Pass the christmas tree farm


that driveway has about 10 posted/no tresspassing signs...makes me wonder what's up there

annnd we keep goin

and goin

and scary bridge

annnnd goin[/SIZE]

Alright, Razz, you have an extra bedroom? I'm movin in! Any available jobs at Lowes? :D

I love this thread. The last few commutes have been wonderful.

Here's my commute, right now:

Emerging from the bedroom


Make breakfast


Take shower


Through the laundry room


Toward my "office" (if you look, you can see my assistant has arrived before me)


I have arrived

Razz - maybe I missed it, but have you said in what part of the country you live? (The trees in your pictures remind me of those in Q's pictures. Are you in the same area?)

case - your office has some great daylighting. Is it heated? That cement floor looks cold.

HungLikeJesus;383948 wrote:

case - your office has some great daylighting. Is it heated? That cement floor looks cold.

Indeed, today, it is cold. But I have my high tech heating system set up, already:

Awesome! Thanks everyone who has posted lately, these are so cool.

I'm from Pennsylvania...a few hours away from the home of the cellar though.

I instantly already like that painting case, how much ya want for it? :D
Fer yer question, only one bedroom...but my bed's pretty big...I'm a blanket hog though. Lowe's is always hiring. Always.

Thanks, razz! I can't sell that one, though...it was commissioned by my husband...which explains why I haven't finished it, yet.

Alas, I am a covers freak. I get grouchy if my covers aren't "just so." It's one of those case oddities. (hahahahahaha....me so funny!) :p

Bummer...oh well...I'll let ya know when I've got my own place/a spare room then :thumb:

Sweet! Sounds good. :D

I really missed this thread
Wonderful, wonderful - thanks to all

Case, I'm just as nosey about people's houses as I am their commutes, so thanks for the tour

Oh, thanks! I will do a better one, sometime.

Sundae Girl;384272 wrote:

... Case, I'm just as nosey about people's houses as I am their commutes, so thanks for the tour

That could be another good thread - house tour. But no fair cleaning up first.

Been there, done that! (Link to Cellar post)
I'd love to see other people's - I understand why many would prefer not to though

I know you've seen mine already SG - but it's easy to link. So there.

jinx;384297 wrote:

I know you've seen mine already SG - but it's easy to link. So there.

Wow, wow and twice around the carpark to come back in for another wow.
No, I hadn't seen it - how beautiful.

jinx - that's a great house. I particularly like the cat rug.

Is the house difficult to heat?

Thanks!

The house definitely has warm/cold spots. We keep thinking we'll put a wood stove in one of these days. Gotta build a chimney first...

jinx;384351 wrote:

Thanks!

The house definitely has warm/cold spots. We keep thinking we'll put a wood stove in one of these days. Gotta build a chimney first...

There are some pellet stoves that can use through-the-wall vents. Or, if you have an old fireplace you might be able to get a wood or pellet insert. I put a pellet insert in mine and have a free-standing wood stove in the basement.

jinx - you guys have a beautiful place. I love the snow pictures.

Here is my morning commute to the shop as requested by Ms. Jinx. This is about a half-hour drive in all.. not counting deer or antelope crossing the roads at any given moment:

Starting at 15 minutes into the drive..




Getting closer to the mountains..


And closer..


Ranch dogs stay in the bed


Onto the county road..


The shop where we all meet in the morning and head out from there

I took this shot yesterday morning on my way to work. This is about a half-mile from my house.

O hai, an Iowa thread... Hmm... Nah, I can't defend it, not gonna try...

It's not really an Iowa thread (despite the title) - it's a commute thread.

Gorgeous picture, HLJ. Do they have rocks in Iowa?

All I read was the first post (I'm lazy like that), where LabRat was trying to dispel well-deserved Iowa stereotypes. It's not ALL corn, granted, but I live in the capital, and you can be in all-corn country within 10 minutes of anywhere in the city.

If we wanna talk about my commute though, it takes me through West Yuppie-burg, not much to share.

case;449824 wrote:

Gorgeous picture, HLJ. Do they have rocks in Iowa?

Yes, we throw them at minorities.

I keep a few in the glovebox to feed out of the sunroof at tailgaiters. . .

HLJ, looks like a good source of meat.

Elk cows average about 500 lbs, and I count about 40 just in that picture (which only shows part of the herd), so that's about 20,000 lbs. I don't know how much of that is meat.

Lotta burgers.

Hey Bullitt, Your commute is Beautiful. I guess because it is in stark contrast the the massive greenery here. Thanks for sharing.

xoxoxoBruce;450924 wrote:

Lotta burgers.

Man I would love a bull elk tag.

HungLikeJesus;450178 wrote:

Elk cows average about 500 lbs, and I count about 40 just in that picture (which only shows part of the herd), so that's about 20,000 lbs. I don't know how much of that is meat.

A fair amount if you take the time to clean them correctly.

TheMercenary;451034 wrote:

A fair amount if you take the time to clean them correctly.

Pfft, that's what the natives did. It's decidedly un-American now.

Dingleschmutz;451434 wrote:

Pfft, that's what the natives did. It's decidedly un-American now.

BULL ELK, tis not. Who says?!?!? Very few bits can't be used for something. Let's eat!

Rode the bus to work today. It was a pretty successful trip. Carpooling, it takes about 25 minutes, minimum, to get to work. Today's trip took 95 minutes. To be fair, about 15 minutes on the front end was wasted waiting for the next bus. We live only a minute from the bus stop, so I could easily reduce this idle waiting time to close to zero. On the destination end, the (second) bus dropped me off about 20 minutes walk from the office. Perhaps there is a bus that would stop closer to the office; I haven't found it yet. But if it's waiting 20 minutes for the bus to relieve me from the burden of walking 20 minutes, then I'd rather walk.

So, minus the waiting time and walking time, the travel and transfer time on the bus is about 60 minutes, 35 minutes longer than the best case drive time of 25 minutes.

The cost of the ride was $1.75 for the city zone and another $1.00 to cross the lake, $2.75. That's about a dollar less than the gas cost, each way. So, conceivably, I could trade $2.00 per day savings for about an hour (minimum) extra commute time.

For me, this simplified view of the economics of my commute reveals that it's still a better deal to carpool than to ride the bus. I value my time more highly than $2.00 per hour. Other factors that could raise that value are the maintenance costs of driving, reduced hassle factor of riding (but when Tink's driving, I'm already a rider), and other real but difficult to quantify factors like saving the planet.

TheMercenary;451871 wrote:

BULL ELK, tis not. Who says?!?!? Very few bits can't be used for something. Let's eat!

I say! If you're not being wasteful, you're not a real American, terrorist!

Dingleschmutz;449828 wrote:

Yes, we throw them at minorities.

::gives dingle a long overdue public beating::

Can you feel the love now bitch?









:lol:

Wasn't that from The Lion King?

Lumber King.


Lumber.

Ridin the bus home too today. Report tomorrow.

I was investigating riding the bus to work. I would first have to drive 6 miles to the park and ride, then spend two hours on three buses. Or I could drive directly there in about 45 minutes.

(Google maps has a cool feature that links in to the Denver RTD routes.)

Public transportation is one of those things you have to plan around when you choose where to live. If you don't, it probably won't be convenient. When we bought our house, the first priority was that it be walking distance from a subway station. It was a trade off. We gave up other things to be this close.

Dingleschmutz;452028 wrote:

I say! If you're not being wasteful, you're not a real American, terrorist!

:sniper: :apistola:

:shred:

Ooh, might do my commute home too, tonight!

glatt wrote:

Public transportation is one of those things you have to plan around when you choose where to live. If you don't, it probably won't be convenient. When we bought our house, the first priority was that it be walking distance from a subway station.

Sometimes it would require choosing to live in a different city altogether though...

True. There is very little public transportation in towns like mine. Sometimes I think I wish there were busses, and subways...but growing up around here you get used to going where you want, when you want, on your own schedule. I imagine there are pros and cons, either way.

For the last few years I've been working from home one or two days a week. In my next job I'll be only going to the office one or two days a week and otherwise working from home. The distance is twice as far, though, so weekly fuel consumption and commute time will be about the same.

My husband is working something like this out with his employer, too. Right now, he has a hellish commute and the gas is going to kill us sooner than later. It appears employers are starting to warm up to more work from home time. I hope this trend continues.

HLJ, we considered the bus option, too, but it is similar to yours...2 hours on the bus and changing 3 times plus getting him to the bus stop. Lightrail should be here in a couple of years I think, but until then, the route is a little convoluted.

Is there a "Working from Home" (or similar) thread? If not, maybe I'll start one. (Actually, I think a whole "Working from Home" forum could be useful, if there are many here that are telecommuting.)

I haven't seen one. Go for it.

My commute home.
Could have been better. Of course as soon as I pick up a camera the world and his wife appears. Also it was very bright, which affected the picture quality.
[youtube]M5b4nNedsZ4[/youtube]

That was fun! Thanks Sundae girl for showing us around :)

Sundae Girl;452588 wrote:

My commute home.[/youtube]

Absolutely charming!

I sometimes fantasize about living in a city. It would only work if I was single, though......so fuck that.

thanx for the walk, cherry, just the same. I likes it.

lumberjim;454676 wrote:

I sometimes fantasize about living in a city. It would only work if I was single, though......so fuck that.

thanx for the walk, cherry, just the same. I likes it.

Married people don't live in cities?

Steve, there's a lot of lush green in your commute. This time of year, anyway.

I'll have to do it again in February.

Okay, this isn't technically a commute, but it is the same trip I take every time I go to and from my parents' house.

Nothing particularly exiting happens, it's just a new perspective for you. Most of the Tube journeys I take are underground. It's only once you get out onto the further reaches of the map that you travel through houses and then countryside. It's certainly not the Tube that most tourists see. Reviewing it I see the sheer bounciness of the journey doesn't come across. Shame - it's a wonderful rackety ride at some points.

Two clips - one close to Amersham and quite green, the other cloer to London and more urban.
[youtube]3p7TMdIwNeA[/youtube]
[youtube]fpVfg4nyEIk[/youtube]

Yey! That was great:)

I love that on train journeys: watching for the break in the trees. You go hurtling along through this green tunnel of foliage and every so often it opens up and you get a fleeting glimpse of countryside rolling out to the horizon. I like the reminder that much of england is still substantively green:P

I took some commute pictures today, because it was all pretty with the snow. I'm going to post them next to the same locations I took pictures of in the late Spring a couple years ago. Just for fun.

glatt;353966 wrote:

I like seeing everyone's commutes, so I thought I'd join in as well. These are all on my Flickr page, so you can see larger versions there if you like. My commute will look a little different, because I walk. It's about 1.5 miles of total walking each way.

We start off at my house, where I just took out the recycling:

glatt;353966 wrote:

Then I go down the street. There's a mixture of small older houses, and silly enormous McMansions. See the tall building in the distance? I'm walking about three blocks past that to enter the MetroRail system:

glatt;353966 wrote:

I cut through the playground of this elementary school, but it's OK since no kids are here this early:

Boots are very helpful here.

glatt;353966 wrote:

This street of older houses hasn't seen any new McMansions pop up because the houses are all duplexes. To tear one down, you would have to buy out two families, and I guess the developers think it's too much effort:

glatt;353966 wrote:

I walk along this bike path for a short distance. You can see I'm starting to get into a built up area around the metro station:

I'm loving the boots.

glatt;353966 wrote:

It looks like I'm in the city here, but I'm still in the suburbs, just a few blocks from my house. The metro station is three blocks ahead:

You can see the bollards they finally installed to keep cars from driving on the sidewalk. I was tilting at windmills to get them to install those, and they finally did. Don't know if I had anything to do with it.

glatt;353966 wrote:

Here's the elevator down into the ground to catch a train:

glatt;353966 wrote:

This is my Metrorail station. I just missed a train, so the platform is pretty empty. It will be packed like sardines in just a minute or two. The glowing sign on the left says the next train will be here in 4 minutes:


The train! You can see it's become more crowded on the platform:


I know where to stand on the train so I'm one of the first off and through the gates. This is coming up out of the ground in downtown Washington D.C. There's a huge mob of people right on my tail, so I take a quick picture and head up the escalator:


Have any of you seen one of these R2-D2 mailboxes for the Star Wars 30 year anniversary?

I didn't take any pictures in the Metro this time because it was a clusterfuck down there with the bad weather, and I didn't want to call attention to myself. And the R2D2 mailbox sticker is gone.

More in the next post.

glatt;353966 wrote:

I cut through Franklin Square Park:

glatt;353966 wrote:

Go past this old stone church and a new construction site. There's construction everywhere in this city.

...

glatt;353966 wrote:

And here's my building! I actually went across the street to take this shot. I don't normally arrive from this direction. I normally come in a back way and sneak through the loading dock:

Heh, that's cool glatt.

It really is a beautiful snowfall. Last night, it was snowing everywhere except under the trees, and this morning it was snowing only under the trees. A picture perfect winter wonderland. And the snow is so light that "shoveling" is more like mopping. Slide the shovel along the ground, and the snow offers little resistance.

Looking back at these pictures, one of the most interesting things is the way the wires jump out when there is snow on them. These two shots are from slightly different angles, so that explains some of it, but in the Summer shot, you don't see the wires at all. In the Winter shot, it's almost all you see.

Yeah the wires caught my eye. Almost looks unsafe they're so cluttered.
They've been talking about burying ours (just in the historic district) since we moved in here, I hope they get to it eventually...

Did they actually move that one playscape at the school? The one on the right, sticking halfway into the frame? It looks like it's 50 feet farther away from the building now. I mean, they couldn't have, and the other piece between the playscape and the building is still there... but the depth of field is so different.

I think in the old summer picture, I was farther away, and zoomed in, which compresses everything. And in the newer winter one, I was fairly close and zoomed out.

My commute this morning. I had to show a business card to a soldier to get to my building.

This is the view out the back, the checkpoint here is the second checkpoint, so there's nobody around on the sidewalks.

After you get past this second checkpoint, you come to the fences. The huge building in the background is the convention center, and it's like a ghost town over there right now. Should get busy soon though.

The view out the front. I bet motorcades will be coming through here.

Thanks x 2 Glatt.
For the update (always interesting) and for the chance to review my previous vid. Yes, I think I will go blue (hair colour) again. I likey!

Glatt,

We will be by in a few moments to confiscate the computer you're using and your digital camera. No heroics, please. Come down to the lobby and take us to your terminal, and we'll keep this on the QT.

oh shit oh shit oh shit

glatt, we'll look for you in the MIA thread.

My Iowa Commode:

Dump trucks loaded with gravel, vehicle barriers I assume.

xoxoxoBruce;648198 wrote:

Dump trucks loaded with gravel, vehicle barriers I assume.

Yep. They are all over the place. A big national guard truck ran over a woman on a bike in the evening commute. Oops.

I was delayed by half an hour this morning. There were several motorcades going through the neighborhood and they wouldn't let anyone cross the street. So after sitting there for 15 minutes, I noticed pedestrians two blocks down were being allowed to cross, so I backtracked a block, walked down two blocks and came back around a block and was able to get to work. The ironic thing was that they let me across the street right next to the actual motorcades. It was the intersection two blocks away that wouldn't let me cross.

more pictures. 'Cause hey, why not?

Most of the motorcades went past the handful of protesters. I wonder if the Chinese motorcade took a different route, since these guys were protesting China?

All sorts of cop equipment was being used. If Homeland Security gives you $5 Million to buy a tactical command center truck, you damn well better have it on display.

So, you're one of the K street gang. :lol: