Sketch Crawling

This "Sketch Crawl" was mentioned last week on one of the sporadic posts. So an explanation is probably in order. This Sketch Crawl is some kind of Art Thing, where people spend a day going around making sketches of stuff. This was going on in places all over the country, in fact, all over the world. The Fuzz's Sweetie is a bit of an Artist Type Person and tends to get involved in these sort of things.
This is a Railroad Trestle. It crosses a mostly dried up river. It was also on His Sweetie's short list of things to sketch. She often tries to get The Fuzz involved in this sort of thing too. The Fuzz is kinda lazy, but, he does not like His Sweetie to have to sit by herself in a lonly place like this. And so he tagged along. In this situation he had no excuse not to be involved in all this, and so, here it is. You even get to see the Fuzz's Sweetie here in action.
Not having the dedication that His Sweetie does, The Fuzz soon returned home. She however, continued to crawl for a while longer.
Later in the day he joined her at our famous Court-square for even more sketching.
And that is the story of the Sketch Crawl.

Rusting Away

More on the fascinating subject of railroads, or at least railroad trestles. Back to the old Southern RR. This is the part abandoned. Here it crossed the river on the other side of town. Actually, I suppose, it still does, but no trains. Not even any track. But this is an impressive trestle, is it not ? There is that long stretch with the timbers leading to the river itself. Trains must be really heavy, I guess the trick is to use lots of timbers. And then we come to the river itself. This is not the river of the River Walk, only a contributer to that mighty flood. But still a real impediment to railway travel.
I think at flood stage, all those timbers would catch all kinds of trees and other debris, so this problem was eliminated with this iron span. It seems so fragile in a way, with it's slender braces, compared to more modern bridges. But this one carried trains for years and years, and never let them down. Now it sits here, quietly rusting away.

Still no score on the "Final Destination" quiz. You'll have to look real close to uncover the sad truth.

Looking Down

So why do we even need such a thing ? I meen this isn't the Grand Canyon or even the New River Gorge. True enough, but we do have Hickory Creek here. To get into town from this side, one must somehow get across this natural barrier to travel. There is of course a road that makes the decent, crosses a bridge, and winds upward again. But this would not work out for a train. It could handle the down part I suppose, but that up stuff would cause a problem. And that is where this trestle shines. It may seem rickety, and may even sway and shake under the strain, but it is the only way to make an entire train pass though the air across the gorge.

There may be worse sounds that can come to the ear, but when one is on foot, halfway across one of these things the sound of an approaching train will sure get one's attention. I speak from experience. What if one is two thirds of the way ? Jumping is not an option. Should one run toward the nearest end, even if that is toward the train ? How does one run on cross-ties anyhow ? Very carefully I assure you. And don't look down.

Railroading Stuff

Across the road there is a hayfield. Across the hayfield there is a railroad. This is not like an Amtrak Main Line or anything, it is what is left of what was once the Southern RR. It used to pass though town and head for points west, but now this is the last stop. The rest was abandoned with the tracks pulled up and all. So now there are not a lot of trains. They still pass now and then, usually slowly with a lot of noise. Trains do have a certain fascination about them. Especially at night there is something almost spooky about them.
I remember, when I was younger, camping out at an old abandoned farm that overlooked a trestle. In the middle of the night you could hear the train coming and watch it crossing in the distance. It almost looked like a toy out there with it's headlight and all. Kind of lonesome and spooky. This is a trestle near here. At night you can hear the train crossing. It slows down to almost nothing, and eases carefully across. The thing looks kinda rickety, and I guess the crew thinks so too. I used to listen for the crash, but so far they've always made it. I guess I'm just paranoid or something.