Date:         Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:14:36 -0500
Reply-To:     Joy Hecht <jhecht@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Joy Hecht <jhecht@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: vanagon speed (was Re: Heart vs. Head
In-Reply-To:  <4B11915C.7060606@charter.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Any place is interesting if you stop to see what it has to offer.  I
actually had a quite exceptional drive across Nebraska - quite
unintentionally.  I stopped in some bitty little down, I don't remember
why.  (Possibly that was where I was so bored in I-90 that I went on the
side road, just to stay awake?  ;-)  Anyway, in this little town a woman was
changing the notices outside what appeared to be town hall, so I started
chatting with her.  She was the one town employee, and I asked what the
issues were in the town.  Barking dogs, I think, and complaining neighbors.
Then a man came along and asked what on earth I was taking photos of (the
streets, or something).  He offered to take me up to the top of the grain
elevator - he was its former manager, I said I'd never been in a grain
elevator, he wanted to show me the view of the flat countryside.  So we went
up to the top, he showed me all around, explained why the ripe smell was
very bad because it meant the corn was beginning to ferment, showed me how
the corn is moved around in moving belts and poured down into the different
towers.  Told me about the real estate trends in the little town.  Some
developer was building some new homes at the staggeringly high price of, I
think, $60K - no one would ever pay so much for a house, he said!  I guess
in that town they probably wouldn't.

Anyway, it was all very interesting!  In Nebraska, no less!


Joy


On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 4:08 PM, John Rodgers <inua@charter.net> wrote:

> It's a mind set thing. There is always something to see if the mind is
> receptive to it. When we drove across Nebraska years ago, me, the wife
> and kid - we all played a count the pheasants game. Highway killed ones
> in one tally, live flying birds in another. really kept us busy. Then
> there were silos, and grain mills, and farm equipment we counted. We had
> a busy crossing of Nebraska, not boring at all.
>
> John Rodgers
> 88 GL Driver
>
> craig cowan wrote:
>
>> While I tend to agree and love slowing down and enjoying the view,
>> Nebraska
>> has (in my mind) nothing to offer the slower you go. The faster you go,
>> still nothing to offer, but you get out of there much more quickly.
>> There are some great towns, it's just the vast distances between them
>> filled
>> with nothing but nothing that calls for speeding.
>>
>> Just my 2cents.
>>
>> Vanagons are NOT the slowest things on the road, they have character.
>>
>> -Craig
>> '85GL turned WESTY
>> BOSTIG in the back
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 2:56 PM, John Rodgers <inua@charter.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>  As a pilot - I have flown the big boys at 30,000 feet doing 60o mph, and
>>> I have flown the little guys like J-3 Piper Cubs at 300 feet. You don't
>>> see much at Flight Level 300 going 600 mph.
>>>
>>> There was in my younger flying days a saying amongst pilots:
>>>
>>> "Fly lo' and slo' an' enjoy it mo'!" :-)
>>>
>>> The Vanagons of all stripes are those J-3 Cubs - and even today - those
>>> powered hang gliders - the ultralights.
>>>
>>> Get off the interstates, drive 55 - and less - and enjoy the drive an
>>> the scenery.
>>>
>>> Even the long drives over the vast distances of the Great Plains offer a
>>> lot to see at that slower speed. How about watching the hawks ride the
>>> pressure wave at the edge of the highway shoulder where it rises up out
>>> of the plains to elevate that great ribbon of asphalt that makes
>>> interstate 70 connecting Denver to Kansas City. When you drive slower
>>> you can watch the birds sail along the highway shoulder on that pressure
>>> wave caused by the wind as it rises up over the highway shoulder
>>> obstruction. The hawks ride it like a surfer on a big wave at Waikiki.
>>> Or how about counting and watching the play of the pronghorn antelope
>>> one encounters out west along the highways. And then there is the rare
>>> beauty of the deer herd having a drink  out in the shallows of a river
>>> in Wyoming where the water runs under a bridge - a sight not seen by
>>> those fly by at high speeds - they don't have time to look. Or how about
>>> having time to slow down sufficiently to watch a Sage Grouse hen cross
>>> the road with her brood of 12 chicks.
>>>
>>> Yup - I'm old now, but I still "Fly slo and enjoy it mo'!" :-)
>>>
>>> Vanagons Forever!!!
>>>
>>> John Rodgers
>>> 88 GL Driver
>>> Chelsea, AL
>>>
>>