Thematic Photographic 85: "I'm Hungry" v.4.0 - Horsepower

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"Road Hog Fuel"
Raleigh, NC - January 2010 (Click to embiggen)

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Not so terribly long ago you couldn't have gotten me to eat one of these with a gun to my head. But they've improved a lot over the last 6 or 7 years and actually taste like food now rather than scratch-n-sniff samples of food. It's surprising just now good a job one of these can do in curbing a grumbling stomach. At least it surprised me. I always stock up on these if I'm going to be driving long distance. They can be managed with one hand, and you can eat them without having to stop. This is important when you have somewhere to be. Because on the rare occasion that I have a chance to go somewhere, I don't like to spend my time in the car -- I want to spend it at my destination. Fortunately(?) I'm most often driving by myself, so pit stops are limited to those I cannot avoid. And thanks to the new, improved edible energy bar, I can avoid a few more than I could before.

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Thematic Photographic 75: "Travel" v.7.0 - One-Tank Destinations II

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"Speed Checked By Radar, Enforced by Natural Selection"
Somewhere on the Blue Ridge Parkway in NC - February 2001 (Click to embiggen)

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If the unthinkable should ever occur and I get bored with the North Carolina beaches, a little further from me in the other direction are the North Carolina mountains. Which include a substantial portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Parkway is a nearly 500-mile strip running along the spine of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and Virginia that will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2010. I canot possibly tell you about all the points of interest in a blog post, or even a series of posts. (There are guidebooks for that which tell you what you can find at every mile marker along the way in much greater detail and with far more authority.) But I can show you what a substantial portion of your view will look like if you're there in Februrary. Even with the trees bare, the views are breathtaking. And you'll get a short course in the history of the region you can't learn from a book either. But be careful. There are stretches of this man-made wonder that still have no guard rails. And it would be easy to make a really bad mistake. One that might not be discovered for a long, long time. Because overdevelopment in this part of the state would be a tricky proposition. It's hard to build much on a cliff side.

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Thematic Photographic 75: "Travel" v.6.0 - One-Tank Destinations I

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"Public Beach Access"
North Topsail Beach, NC - July 2009 (Click to embiggen)

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When I was a kid, they used to call North Carolina "Variety Vacationland" because of its... variety of vacation destinations. I don't think we put it on our license plates or anything, but it was a common phrase bandied about in the media. Back then though, the majority of tourists were homegrown -- or regional at least. In more recent years, more folks have discovered the place which is good and bad. Good in that it brings in additional revenue and most of it in areas of the state that really need revenue. Bad in that, predictably, the influx of tourists has created the need for the infrastructure to support the trade. More people means more places to put them which means more development which -- in my opinion at least -- begins to rob the area of the things that made it attractive as a vacation spot in the first place.

In a strange turn of events, I was introduced to one of the few place on the North Carolina coast that hasn't been overdeveloped yet by a friend from New England of all places. Yes, I said "introduced" because despite all the time I've spent on our coast, if I've ever been to Topsail Island I don't remember it. Most often my excursions to the beach have been to the "Crystal Coast" area around Emerald Isle -- about an hour's drive north of Topsail. On occasion I've ventured to the Wilmington/Wrightsville Beach area -- a little less than an hour to the south of Topsail. And in between is a gem that has all of the charms (if not the internet access) of both of those places without quite as much of the downside that comes with it. It's coming, the signs are all there. Mainly in the form of "For Sale" signs along the main road from North Topsail Beach to Surf City. Half the island appears to be up for bids by my reckoning. But for now, topsail has it all over its neighboring beaches in two critical areas: public beach access and parking for said public beach access. The beaches along emerald Isle aren't private beaches per se, but to get to most of them you have to cross private property, and... you have to park somewhere. A far more difficult challenge. Not so in Topsail Beach. At least not in North Topsail Beach, where I took this photo. I've posted a number of shots from my trip there, and had conflicting feeligns about each post. On one hand, I'd love to freeze time and keep Topsail just like it is today. Let it remain the best-kept secret of the Carolina Coast. But truly, could you cpature such beauty and keep it to yourself? I can't.

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Thematic Photographic 75: "Travel" v.5.0 - Cold War Battlefield

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"'Snow' in Lake Placid"
Lake Placid, NY - August 2005 (Click to embiggen)

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Snow. In August. Yeahright. Sorry, not even in Lake Placid is this happening. I suspect that this mound of "snow" fell not from the belly of a cloud, but the belly of a zamboni or two. Just a hunch, but the proximity of two Olympic sized ice rinks is a pretty strong clue. Both of those rinks have played host to Olympic hockey tournamets, in 1932 when the US team took home the silver and Germany won the first of its only two medals in the sport (the West German team also scored bronze in 1976). Canada took home the gold in that tournament, which included only four teams (Poland was the fourth).

But far more famous was the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" which saw an upstart Team USA take down the mighty Soviet Union which had collected seven gold medals in nine tries since their Olympic hockey 1956 debut. You didn't have to be a hockey fan to appreciate the enormity of that moment as the final seconds ticked off the clock and a bunch of college kids from Boston and Minnesota and opints in between who didn't realize what they couldn't do went on to the final game. The game between the US and Sweden to determine the gold was nearly lost in the uproar following this upset victory. But it was more than just a game or even a medal that came out of that rink in a small town upstate. It was a win at a time when the country desperately needed a win. Any kind of win. It's different now. The breakup of the Soviet Union and the IOC's allowance of NHL players have pretty well narrowed the field of teams that can be competitive to a handful. Besides the USA, Canada, Finland, Sweden and the Czech Republic, most other countries represented in the NHL were former Soviet satellites. And bound together under the umbrella of the USSR, they presented a formidable force. Individually however they boast relatively few professional players on their rosters, handicapping them significantly in a round robin competition like this. It's still entertaining to watch, mind you, but the dyas of "miracles" in Olympic hockey are probably gone for good.

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Thematic Photographic 75: "Travel" v.4.0 - Undeserved Reputation

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"Port of Cleveland Waterfront Park"
Cleveland, OH - August 2005 (Click to embiggen)

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Cleveland has been the punch line in a lot of jokes over the years, and until I visited there in the summer of 2005, I bought into the stereotype myself. But truly, other than not being keen on lake effect snow I can think of lots worse places to be sent. This is a waterfront park at the Port of Cleveland and could rival anything you'd find in New England. Looking back on it, I wish we'd had more time to spend here, but such is the nature of a Great College Road Trip.

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Thematic Photographic 75: "Travel" v.3.0 - A Kodak Moment

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"Eastman Kodak Building"
Rochester, NY - August 2005 (Click to embiggen)

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George Eastman accomplished a great many things in his life, and the city of Rochester, New York could probably be named for him. A great many of the buildings in town are named for him, most notably the Eastman Theater and Eastman School of Music. It was this latter that brought my son and I to Rochester in August of 2005 as part of the Great College Road Trip of 2005 I've spoken about so many times. Ultimately, Bryan decided on another school, as impressive as ESM's history is. But in the spirit of "something for everyone" we stayed in a hotel room that afforded a splendid view of Eastman's most notable contribution to history (for my money at least), the Eastman Kodak Company. Rumor has it that the name "Kodak" came from the sound a camera shutter makes as it opens and closes. And that sound was propagated in many of the company's product names (Kodachrome, Ektachrome, etc.). Little known trivia, yeah? Anyway, I thought it fitting that I took all of the shots I did of this building (and pretty much all the others I took on this trip) using Kodak MAX film in ISO 400.

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Thematic Photographic 75: "Travel" v.2.0 - National Treasure

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"The United States National Museum (Now the Arts And Industries Building)"
Washington, DC - April 1999 (Click to embiggen)

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High on the list of "educational destinations" -- especially among parents of school-aged children -- is The Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. Its beginnings are something of an enigma, since the trust that established it was bequeathed to the US by British born James Smithson who, by all reports, had no ties to the United States of any kind. In magnificently typical Washington fashion, it took seven years to decide whether or not to even accept the bequest, and another eight before ground would be broken for it.

This photo is of a later addition to the original "Castle". After the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, many of its exhibits were donated to the Smithsonian, and an entirely new building was commissioned to house them. The building bore the name United States National Museum from its opening in 1881 until 1910 when larger exhibits began to move out into their own spaces. At that time, the building was renamed the Arts & Industries Building. From 1974 to 1976 the building was closed for renovation, then reopened with the exhibit: "1876: A Centennial Exhibition" featuring many of the same exhibits housed in the building originally.

What goes around comes around, yeah?

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Thematic Photographic 75: "Travel" v.1.0 - Prepare for Takeoff

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"Douglas DC-3 in Piedmont Airlines Livery"
Winston Salem, NC - September 2009 (Click to embiggen)

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When you think of travel -- at least in the planning stage -- the means of transport is probably the first thing to settle. And since that's what we're thinking about in this week's Thematic Photographic, it seemed fitting to embark on this week's theme with a seat on nostalgia airlines. I'm actually old enough to remember the venerable Douglas DC-3 (and its military variant, the C-47), though I can't recall ever flying in one. But for a lot of years this aircraft was the workhorse of American travel and transport. This example, that I captured at the Winston Salem Air Show, is dressed in the finery of Piedmont Airlines. This is fitting enough, since it was a DC-3 that carried Piedmont Aviation's first commercial passenger. The company's website describes it like this:

"On a cold day in February, 1948, a small DC-3 took to the skies over Wilmington, North Carolina enroute to Cincinnati, Ohio with intermediate stops in Southern Pines, Charlotte and Ashville, North Carolina, Tri-Cities, Tennessee and Lexington, Kentucky.

Piedmont Flight 41 was carrying one paying passenger, founder T.H. Davis who was not yet 30 years old and a handful of local dignitaries."

In the years since then, Piedmont has been on both ends of the merger game, acquiring Richard Henson's Henson Aviation and later being assimilated by US Airways.

"If you're driving down the road and see a turtle sitting on a fence post, don't be too impressed. That turtle didn't get there by itself." - T.H. Davis

(I bet I know who'll get him down from there though.)

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Monochrome Monday #53: Am I The Only One Who Sees The Irony?

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"Keep Right? Seriously?"
Boston, MA - August 2005 (Click to embiggen)

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