Random Photos

[berkeman]

Yikes! I wonder what they dropped it from...

 

[morrobay]

Fashion

 

[morrobay]

Bhat is the price of clams? ;).

USD/35 Baht. Baht/kilo

 

[jtbell]

The recent wildfires that destroyed much of Jasper, Alberta reminded me of my very brief visit in May 2004, a rest stop (a half hour, maybe?) at the train station en route from Edmonton to Vancouver on VIA Rail's Canadian.

 

[jtbell]

(This begins a series of posts with pictures from my road trip from South Carolina to Connecticut and back, during August 2024. I posted them during the trip, then intermittently afterward. When the next post does not immediately follow the current one, there is a link at the end of the post.)

----

Now I no longer say "I never saw a purple cow..."

Location: along highway US-340, about 5 miles north of Waynesboro, Virginia. Until a few years ago, it was an ice cream parlor named the Purple Cow.

 

[jtbell]

A few hours later yesterday, I stopped at the White Post, supposedly erected by 18-year-old George Washington in 1750, while working as a surveyor.

(skip to the next post in this series)

 

[Borg]

My first thought was how often it gets hit by cars.

Because of its precarious, unprotected placement at the intersection of two roads, the White Post has been an unwitting victim of numerous vehicular accidents resulting in damage or near-destruction over the last 270+ years. Its status as a landmark on the National Register of Historic Places requires that the post be reconstructed each time precisely as it was.

 

[morrobay]

This new seafood restaurant is next to a boat yard way way off main areas . I only visited because I have seen them building it .Ie no one is just going to walk by in this area. So they must have good connections.

 

[jtbell]

From the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway in Jim Thorpe PA yesterday.

 

[jtbell]

From the Connecticut Trolley Museum in East Windsor, today:

A city bus c. 1970 modified by adding railroad wheels and other equipment so that it could run on both roads and railroad tracks. The plan was to run it on suburban streets to pick up passengers, then use rails to get into the city quickly. This turned out not to be practical, partly because the added weight impaired performance in "street mode".

This museum also houses the Connecticut Fire Museum, with a collection of vintage fire trucks.

(skip to the next post in this series)

 

[morrobay]

What a Beauty

 

[Ibix]

A city bus c. 1970 modified by adding railroad wheels and other equipment so that it could run on both roads and railroad tracks. The plan was to run it on suburban streets to pick up passengers, then use rails to get into the city quickly. This turned out not to be practical, partly because the added weight impaired performance in "street mode".

Interesting concept - perhaps a forerunner to the guided bus concept?

 

[morrobay]

 

[jtbell]

Today I took the train to New Haven from Windsor Locks CT. Surely this is one of Amtrak's smallest stations.

Yale is apparently in the middle of freshman orientation.

However, I wasn't there to visit Yale. I was just killing some time while waiting for a bus to East Haven, home of the Shore Line Trolley Museum. Yes, another one of those!

The scenery is definitely better than at the other trolley museum that I visited yesterday. Nice views of salt marshes and expensive waterfront homes.

(skip to the next post in this series)

 

[BillTre]

 

[jack action]

 

[jtbell]

The Shore Line Trolley Museum has a special exhibit: one of two surviving cars from a Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) train that arrived at New York's World Trade Center from Hoboken during the 9/11/2001 attack. It was immediately evacuated, and was standing empty in the station when the WTC collapsed on top of it. The first two cars escaped the falling debris. This was the leading car. The second one is at the Trolley Museum of New York in Kingston.

This article is from 2016, when the museums received these cars from the Port Authority.

https://untappedcities.com/2016/09/...-from-911-will-open-to-public-for-first-time/

I remember these trains well from my day-trips to NYC when I lived in upstate NY for a couple of years in the 1980s. I sometimes parked in Jersey City or Hoboken and rode the PATH into the city.

(skip to the next post in this series)

 

[morrobay]

From a random photos topic on: forum.surfer.com Too funny

 

[Ibix]

Atwood machine lights in a cafe

 

[collinsmark]

I took my camera to downtown San Diego yesterday morning. There was one architecture shot I had planned, and I figured as long as I was down there, I'd try to practice my street photography.

Figure 1. Planned, architecture shot. The image is composed of 5 individual, partially overlapping photos stitched together in post and cropped.

Fig.1 shows the planned shot: the main reason I went to that particular location. I was hoping my 21 mm lens would be wide enough to get everything in the frame. It was not.

So I did the next best thing and sat on the curb, put all the camera settings in manual, and took several overlapping shots, each covering a section of the intended view.

Photoshop's stitching algorithm wasn't perfect, but you'd need to pixel peep to see the flaws, so I'm OK with it, I guess.

Now onto the street photography.

Figure 2. Pigeons in puddle.

Figure 3. Pigeons in puddle, different angle.

I haven't done any street photography since I was in my late teens. And I wasn't all that good at it anyway. So to get the re-education going, I started with some birds (Figs 2,3). I hesitated at first, confident that I would frighten them off. My fears were unfounded, however. The pigeons immediately welcomed me into their flock. They considered me one of their own.

In retrospect, I should have taken a few shots way down low, only a couple of centimeters from the ground, but I didn't think of it at the time. Well, live and learn. There'll be a next time.

Figure 4. I don't know what that contraption is or why it belongs here. But, there it is.

Figure 5. The interior lighting and the outdoor reflection worked really well together here.

Figure 6. Omg.

This guy was hauling a bunch of stuff stacked up on a hand cart. Just as I approached the corner (the same corner where I took the photo), something happened to his cart, and everything toppled over. Thinking about it now, I feel bad not asking if he needed help. He looks like he's having a bad day.

Figure 7. No actual humans in this image. I thought the buildings looked interesting and quaint.

I really wanted to stop in at the coffee shop, but I didn't have a lot of time. I couldn't find a good parking spot when I arrived downtown, so I parked in a pay lot for $10. And it was only good for two hours.

Next time I think I'll travel light, drive to the nearest trolley station and take the trolley the rest of the way. That should give me more time.

Figure 8. Some mornings can be a struggle.

Figure 9. Some fountain outside of the Wells Fargo building. I needed the practice with slow-ish shutter speeds.

To be continued ...

 

[collinsmark]

... Continuing on,

Figure 10. The juxtaposition of this guy and the "walk" sign in the background caught my eye.

Figure 11. San Diego is a very dog/pet friendly town. While not all stores/shops/bars/restaurants allow dogs, many do. As long as you know where to go, you can take your dog anywhere.

Figure 12. Temporary walkway next to a construction site.

Figure 13. These doors remind me of a classic riddle.

 

[BillTre]

Nice shots.
I like your commentary.

 

[berkeman]

Figure 4. I don't know what that contraption is or why it belongs here. But, there it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standpipe_(firefighting)

 

[jtbell]

Last weekend I was at the American Philatelic Society's big annual national stamp show, this time in Hartford, Connecticut. A couple of items from the exhibits:

First, a piece of mail salvaged from the wreck of the airship Hindenburg in 1937.

Unfortunately, reflections from the plexiglas covering of the exhibit frames and the plastic sleeves enclosing the items make photography challenging.

Earlier this year I showed you some mail that was intended for the return flight to Germany but had to be sent by other means.

Those of you who hunt may know about the "duck stamps" that show payment of fees for waterfowl hunting licenses. The designs come from an annual competition among wildlife artists.

The artist here was one of my classmates in grad school, a year behind me IIRC. After finishing his PhD, he ended up doing wildlife art, not physics. His two brothers are also wildlife artists. Between them, they've won the duck stamp contest 15 times, of which 6 were by Joe.

http://www.hautman.com/

 

[jtbell]

Yesterday I drove from Hartford to Scranton, Pennsylvania. After passing the fork in the fork in the road I stopped in Port Jervis, New York to take a look at the former Erie Railroad station, built in 1892.

It was used as a train station until the 1970s, then was redeveloped into offices and shops.

Next door is a hotel that was built about the same time as the station, and still operates as a hotel/bar/restaurant.

Further west down the tracks, just barely visible at the left in the first picture above, is the current Metro-North station for commuter trains to Hoboken, New Jersey (with connections to New York City).

 

[jtbell]

Also in Port Jervis, the Tri-States Monument, which marks the point where the boundaries of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania meet. It's the marker on the rock at the water's edge.

We're looking southwest down the Delaware River. The left bank is New Jersey, the right bank is Pennsylvania, and we're standing in New York.

I didn't feel secure enough to walk out onto the rocks to get a closer look at the marker. This closeup come from the linked Wikipedia article.

Turning 180 degrees, we can see that we're at the tip of a cemetery, underneath highway I-84.

I drove across that bridge last week, on my way to Hartford.

Map from Wikipedia:

 

[jtbell]

Scranton has the remnants of blast furnaces for producing iron, built in the 1840s-1850s, and in operation until 1902.

Looking down into the top of one of the furnaces:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scranton_Iron_Furnaces

 

[jtbell]

I can't resist showing one of today's sightseeing stops, even though it's out of sequence with the rest of this trip. It's an old-fashioned tourist trap on highway US-522 south of Winchester, Virginia.

Remember the fish-slapping initiation ritual we had for newcomers, a long time ago?

"What's your favo(u)rite fish?"
"Megalodon." [the final pic above]
"OK, here's a nice megalodon for you!" [WHAPPP!]

(skip to the next post in this series)

 

[morrobay]

Squall line, Pattaya Bay

 

[Flyboy]

Little late to the party with this, but saw this absolute monster of an eggplant at the Iowa State Fair this year.

I had no idea they could get that big.

 

[morrobay]

Main selling point in this country - no bones about it

 

[docnet]

Main selling point in this country - no bones about it View attachment 350401

how do you read the signs (thai?) if you moved from the U.S.? It doesn't seem an easy language to learn

 

[morrobay]

That's why I always like to go to restaurants with my Thai girlfriend. And for that matter with any other type of transaction

 

[morrobay]

Fresh tuna from seafood market. Check out the Cambodian fish vender

 

[pinball1970]

Hydrangea in my garden. It is past it's peak so the colours have faded.