On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good Morning All,
This post is for Balloon Juicers who are on the road, travelling, etc. and wish to share notes, links, pictures, stories, etc. from their escapades. As the US mainland begins the end of the Earth day as we measure it, many of us rise to read about our friends and their transient locales.
So, please, speak up and share some of your adventures, observations, and sights as you explore, no matter where you are. By concentrating travel updates here, it’s easier for all to keep up-to-date on the adventures of our fellow Commentariat. And it makes finding some travel tips or ideas from 6 months ago so much easier to find…
Have at ’em, and have a safe day of travels!
Should you have any pictures (tasteful, relevant, etc….) you can email them to [email protected] or just use this nifty link to start an email: Start an Email to send a Picture to Post on Balloon Juice
Lots of goodies, after the fold
First, a great picture. I used to recreate right behind(and used to cut through the property occasionally!) where ENIAC was created, right near American University in Washington, D.C. I think I was the only person in that group who knew some important computer history had happened just a few feet from where we were. Seeing this inside view of such an important part of the evolution of our technology is so utterly cool!
Where it was taken: Outside Boelter Hall 3420, ULCA, Los Angeles, CA
When: March 6, 2017
Commenter nym: BillinGlendaleCA
Other notes or info about the picture: This is the room where the first message was sent on the Internet in 1969. The refrigerator sized box was one of the first routers built.
Birthplace of the Internet.
And next from evap
Where it was taken: Aachen, Germany
When: March 4, 2017
Other notes or info about the picture: The first picture is a detail inside the Rathaus (town hall) in Aachen, Germany. It was Charlemagne’s palace back in the day.
Where: Oberwolfach, Germany
When: March 6, 2017
Other notes: The second picture was taken from the top of a hill near the conference center where I am staying, in the Black Forest region in Germany. The closed medium-sized town is Strassburg.It’s been cold and rainy all the time, so the picture is a bit gloomy.
I suspect that, come late summer, those forested hillsides are filled with delicious mushrooms just ripe for the picking!
Thanks evap, travel safely!
And, from wataguy
Where it was taken: Taipei airport
When: 0740 8 March
Other notes or info about the picture: On my way to Cambodia. That’s not me in the picture.
Can’t wait to see some pictures from your trip!
And finally for today, from frosty (and yes, lots more coming tomorrow!):
We were on the road for a month and I’ve got lots of photos of beaches, bikes, and critters, but these are from the most amazing thing we saw.
This was from one of the Ringling Museums in Sarasota. It’s a 3,800 SF model of the circus from the 1920’s. I was a model maker in my youth (ships in bottles) and I can’t believe the detail that went into it. The guy who made it, Howard Tibbals, started in 1963 and he says he’s not done yet.
I didn’t get pictures of the 55 flatcars, hundreds of circus wagons and horses and everything else he modeled. The crowning touch is that the whole model can be put away in the wagons and flatcars, just like the real thing. Holy cow!!!
The pictures are an overview from the second floor balcony(5th), then a wide shot and close up of the big top(1st and 2nd) and commissary (3rd and 4th). Then finally the one every model maker has to model: The dog looking at a hydrant (6th).
Hope you like them! It’s not Poco, but at least there’s a dog!
— frosty
Neat! Sometime I’ll have to post some pictures I took of models in a Japanese hotel. Quite amazing work – great photos – thanks for sharing!
Baud
AKA the Hellmouth.
OzarkHillbilly
A buddy of mine coming back from Mexico stopped at an Oklahoma truckstop for some breakfast. When he came out there was a flatbed semi parked in the lot stacked sky high with hydrants. Behind it was a lone beagle looking up at all those hydrants, so near and yet so far. To this day he regrets not digging his camera out from under the mountains of gear packed gunwales tight in the back of his Blazer.
Central Planning
@Baud: I would visit to pay homage
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Yep. Could have gotten play in the internet with a shot like that.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
I had a good number of classes in Boelter Hall and spent a great deal of time in the computer lab there, I’ve called it worse.
Tarragon
So is apicture amid a tree lying on the road an on the road pic? I have a few of them after last night?
OzarkHillbilly
@Tarragon: There’s a story behind that….
OldDave
Next to the ARPANet router is an ASR-33 teletype. 110 baud! 10 (Ten!) (0xA) (1010) noisy characters per second!
satby
Nice pictures all, but the models are amazing. As is the thought that frosty used to build model ships in bottles.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OldDave: What! There are 110 Bauds? WASF.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@satby: Now I know the next pic I’ll send to Alain.
rikyrah
Thanks everyone for the pictures
BellyCat
Wally Byham, founder of Airstream, sold his wares with a slogan that “Adventure is where you find it!” For most, this conjured up images of wandering caravans with annual treks to exotic places (including the great pyramids in Egypt).
What he really meant was this.
The bridge outside Mobile, Alabama was a delightful adventure, indeed.
BellyCat
Will definitely be checking out the Ringling model next time I darken EMIL’s door!
I ran across a similar obsessive modelmaker last summer at a Steam Power Festival. He made these incredible scale models of Caterpillar heavy equipment, that actually had moving parts, out of wood.
OzarkHillbilly
The Azure Window in Malta is gone. Entropy happens.
NotMax
Very small earth tremor just a minute or so ago. Only enough to feel the cottage teeter-totter for maybe a second and a half.
Spanky
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
There were 19200 before I lost count.
LAO
I visited the Circus museum years ago, the models are astounding. Thanks for sharing.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Just like the Old Man of the Mountain
Quinerly
On the road. Leaving Kanab behind and heading north to Escalante and Torrey,Utah for 3 nights. Poco is all packed. He’s got his bandana. A dog’s life. Have a great day.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Quinerly: You need to lock your computer down, Poco’s been sending out emails.
Elizabelle
@Quinerly: Have a fabulous day in the great west.
Quinerly
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Why should I? I’m sure he’s saying how fabulous his chauffeur mom is for taking him on vacations and bringing backing exotic tidbits from the restaurants. I am the woman who has driven Poco through 6 states, 5,000 miles, 4 plus weeks. (I put something like that again on the Book of Faces this week and yet another friend thought I was with the band❤) If he’s sending out emails, he’s probably trying to make the other doggies jealous.
Quinerly
@Elizabelle:
Thanks!
frosty
Following up with BellyCat’s Airstream story yesterday, here’s our Trailer Tale of Woe.
We’re at the second day of our trip, a few miles from our destination, southbound on I-95 near Santee, SC when we hear a bang and grinding sound behind us. And then a trailer wheel goes bouncing down the road in front of us, ending up in the median.
My wife did a great job getting us over to the shoulder and out of traffic. Then we got on the phone with roadside assistance. And sat. It took them over an hour to find someone willing to tow a trailer. The guy they sent was named Snake (another story) and he told us this was one of the most dangerous stretches of 95, especially on a Friday night. He put the spare on the single stud that hadn’t broken off and walked us off the highway to an onramp a few hundred yards away. After he got us on the wrecker he jogged across to the median, found the wheel, and brought it back. For that, I tipped him half the price of a new wheel.
They had us fixed up by noon the next day. Before we left asked if there was anything besides loose lug nuts that could have caused it and Snake showed us a broken stud and said it looked like it had been overtightened and was weaker because of it. That made me feel better.
We stopped for gas before we hit the road and my wife mused: “I wonder if they checked the left wheel?” So I pulled the hubcap and found one of the lug nuts was only finger tight. Pulled out the torque wrench that I’ve been carrying and torqued them all down. So basically, I let the lug nuts go loose and this disaster was my fault. I tightened them every morning for the rest of the trip.
So, our Road Trip mantra: “Well, that could have been worse.” We were about a quarter mile from a bridge with no shoulder. If we’d stopped on the bridge we would probably have been rear-ended and had nothing left of the trailer but kindling.
frosty
@OzarkHillbilly:
That would have been a great shot. One of the nice things about a smartphone is that now I’ve always got a camera with me.
frosty
@BellyCat: I didn’t see your pic before I posted my tale. Funny (or not) how much stuff can go wrong. Last summer we bent an axle hitting a curb and by the time our trip was over we’d ruined two tires running on the inside edge. No camber adjustments on a trailer.
But it could have been worse…
Yarrow
I keep forgetting to check these threads because they’re so far down the page by the time I check Balloon-Juice. I’ve missed so much! Love these photos. The dog by the fire hydrant is so great. No traveling for me on the horizon, so I’m really enjoying living vicariously.
Tarragon
@OzarkHillbilly:
Not really.
Area got slammed with a huge windstorm last night and now something like 30% of the county is without power.
BellyCat
@frosty: Holy crap!
Sad to say, been there done that. For me it was nighttime and 28°. Good times.
I was once given a hot tip that I will pass on to everyone hauling a trailer. The studs on the left wheel should be checked often, especially after a wheel has been removed and installed. The forward rotation of a wheel begins to loosen the studs much more quickly they on the right wheel because of the direction of threading.
BellyCat
@frosty: @frosty:
Truth!
frosty
Alain —
Are you sure that was ENIAC? My father was working on ENIAC at the Moore School at U Penn when he was getting his MS in Electrical Engineering in the 40s. I don’t suppose there were two of them.