h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been working on a Route 66 project for the last couple of years now. The Hillbilly Meet gave me an excellent excuse for some hands-on research since Webb City is directly on the old highway.

A lot of old 66 has survived as frontage road to the interstate. Despite this I found it easy to ignore the interstate and concentrate on the 2-lane, imagining how it would have been to drive the road fifty years ago. I stayed on 66 from Gray Summit to St James, which was just about my halfway point. I liked winding through all the little towns along the way, seeing surviving attractions of the road's heyday alongside relics and ruins. Even though I had brought my 35mm camera specifically for taking pictures on the drive, I didn't stop anywhere for photos.

I joined I-44 for awhile to make up time, then left 44 again just before Springfield and followed it all the way to Hyp's house. Once through Springfield 66 goes due west and 44 goes southwest, so I didn't see the interstate again after that. The total drive took approximately 6 hours, and was exactly 319 miles.

Coming home I decided to pick up parts of 66 that I'd missed on the way down. I vowed to actually stop and take pictures, since that was half my reason for not taking the interstate to begin with. So I took the interstate to just east of Springfield before following 66 again.

Somewhere before Rolla (less than the halfway point) I came upon Devil's Elbow. Here the original 2-lane road went right past the Devil's Elbow Inn, a restaurant/bar, and over a small bridge that crosses a waterway just behind the Inn. The setting and scenery are Missouri Ozark at its best, so I decided to stop and take a few pictures.

I took a few of the bridge from up the road, using the 80x zoom lens, then the 300x zoom. Then I drove up onto the bridge itself, stopping at the midpoint to snap some shots up and down the water. After the first few shots I decided the 300x lens was too big and decided to switch back to the 80x, capping the 300x and setting it on the bumper of the truck. I took several pictures and thoroughly enjoyed this little nook I'd found.

I got back into the truck, drove up the road and took pictures from the other end of the bridge and the little Inn before heading back to the main pass. Looking at the camera I noticed I only had one shot left on the roll, so decided to take a picture of the new pass. Since I was further away I wanted the 300x lens for the shot - and this is when I discovered it missing. I frantically searched the camera bag, knowing it wasn't there, before turning around and zipping back up the road to the little bridge.

The lens wasn't there. I drove over the bridge twice. I parked at the Inn and walked back and forth across the bridge. I looked over the side hoping I wouldn't see the lens in the water. I searched the road in front of the Inn, under cars and on the roadside. I slowly drove back to the intersection where I discovered the lens missing, searching the roadside as I went. I finally found the lens on the side of the road where I was parked when I first discovered it missing. Fortunately when it fell it landed on gravel instead of concrete, so there was a good chance it wasn't damaged.

I had lost a good deal of time by this point, so rejoined I-44 at the next junction. I made it to Rolla about 4pm and left the highway for something to eat. I immediately got lost in Rolla. Another hour later I found the highway again, but not before paying entirely too much for dinner at Steak n Shake.

I arrived home just past 7, the drive home having taken 2 1/2 hours longer, but being 15 miles shorter than the drive down.

Steak n Shake... sounds like a classy joint. Next best place when there's no Waffle House in the vicinity

I'd love to see the pics

Waffle House rocks! Given a choice between the two, it'd be Waffle House every time. But they don't have a drive-thru.

Steak n Shake actually isn't that bad, it's just not to my taste and on the high end for fast food (even though they have sit-down restaurants). I didn't realise there weren't any in Texas. Maybe I'll write an entry sometime. If I remember right, they're a Route 66 original, as is McDonalds, actually.

Working on the pics...

Okay, these are the pictures off the 35mm. There are 2 new albums, one for the meet, which only has 6 pictures because I took more with the digital. The other is for Route 66.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/broelan/my_photos

Unfortunately, it looks like the auto-settings on the camera need to be adjusted, the meter is letting too much light into the frame so some pictures look a little washed out.

They seem fine to me broe.

It looks pretty remote around that bridge - almost like Dukes of Hazzard country one might think

I like bridge pictures too - took a couple driving over the Tappanzee Bridge in New York state, after having visited FDR's home at Hyde Park

It's not quite that remote . The stretch of road it's on is only a mile or two long, then you get back to the 4-lane. There's some more on the bridge here: http://www.rollanet.org/~conorw/cwome/article51&52combined.htm

For a university project in photography my sister took a series of black and white photos of the old 115 bridge, one of the early Mississipi River bridges between St Louis and St Charles. When she got the photos back I took a couple and matted them, they're hanging on my living room wall. The bridge was demolished several years ago.

I have some black and white postcards of the Brooklyn Bridge that I've meaning to get framed for a while. I can't make up me mind whether to frame them individually or in a group. I think I bought them as a set in NYC around the same time I bought a copy of that "WE WIN' photograph that's part of the opening credits from Cheers, and is now hanging behind the bar at the South Lamar Drafthouse

I would frame them individually, if you can afford it. Then you can display them any number of ways and still hold a theme.

Somewhere I have a big print that's a series of photos of the Eiffel Tower being built. Would look great in the living room now that it's been remodeled - can't find it anywhere (and I had already bought the frame, too.)

Thanks for sharing the pix, broe! Being ascared of heights, looking at your bridge pictures is the only way you'd get me on that rusty old span!

You'd be even more leary of it if you'd looked at the pictures on the link above first (I had seen them before I went, though). I'm glad you enjoyed my pics

How've you been?

Just fine, thanks! We just got back from a family reunion in Ohio, and I'm now looking forward to a long span on non-vacation time! I could use a vacation from that vacation!

I'm ready for vacation. I'd go somewhere air-conditioned.

The humidity had condensated on my skylight overnight and was running off the roof this morning. It's like living in the tropics - only with no palm trees.

Extended-family vacations are always a mental workout. I hope you had fun, though.

Yeah, we did. Althought it's not quite humid enough for me on Ohio.

Come to Missouri! You'll feel right at home, I promise.

I don't know about that ... I hear dey tawk funny!

No, you Noo Yorkers just listen funny.

Speaking of funny accents, I was thinking the other day of asking you if you'd consider the Langwich Skool for the Alternative Writing Workshop. It's been a few years since I read it, but it might have an Underguide appeal.

Sure, if you'd like to. I remember when Bossel (when he was a Scout) was trying to talk me into submitting it to be a *real* Guide Entry! I told him it was just silliness, but he seemed to think it could make it. I was too embarrassed to let him try.

Well that's bloody weird - I haven't heard Bossel's name mentioned in a long time and yet I typed it in another thread not more than a few moments ago

It's a funny ole game, life, ain't it.

That it is, that it is ... wish I kept the page with the rules on it, mind you ...

Would've been worthless by now given as often as they change. Might have had some nostalgic value, though.