A Few More Denver Road Shots

An odd mile marker, but at least it has the correct shields

A few posts down, I showed a mile marker on Interstate Highway 76 that incorrectly bears a U.S. 76 shield. I see my buddy, R-Dub thought the mistake was worthy of his road geek blog as well, so I am glad he was able to get a picture of it too. You never know how long such goof ups will stand before they eventually get corrected. A few miles before the one in the previous post, there is this odd one. The shields are correct, but this one bears what seems to be tenths of a mile numerals, but rather than matching the white type on green, the tenths are black on white.


An unusual sign for a sweeping loop exit

This 30 mph exit sign caught my eye, but even more unusual is the exit number. It is more clearly caught in the closer photo below. The first exit on a highway is usually Exit 1, but here we have Exit 0. Almost sounds like a good title for a sci-fi story . . . Terror Off Exit Zero!


Seldom seen Exit 0

Lots of freeways now have the high-mast lighting with an array of beams to cover large areas of the highway or interchange. These are so high that the typical man in a cherry picker can't change the bulbs. How do they do it? They bring the bulbs down to the man.

This bulb array was lowered, but no crew was in sight. Still, it afforded the rare opportunity to capture the array at near ground level. In the background are the same arrangement with the beam array fully elevated to the top of the mast.


Low Beams!

Finally, here it the answer to how the tolling authorities differentiate between free carpool traffic and tolled single-occupancy vehicles when a HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) Lane is also made into a HOT (High Occupancy - Toll) Lane. These are also commonly known as "Lexus Lanes", as they give a class distinction in that those who can afford to avoid traffic tie ups can use them, while the rest of us stay stuck in traffic.

On I-25 on the north side of Denver, single occupant cars may now make use of the old HOV lanes by paying a toll. There are no toll booths, but require a transponder to decrement the toll amount from the driver's account. I have wondered if someone with a transponder who happens to have an extra occupant ends up paying a toll anyway. Apparently the problem is solved by signs directing HOT traffic to a transponder-reading lane under the structure in the photo below, while free HOV traffic goes through on a lane that doesn't read the transponder. Skeptic that I am, I am not sure I would trust it not to charge me anyway!


HOV/HOT Tolling Gantry

So, what better way to finish off the month of August than with yet another road geeky post! Now, it's on to September!

Nesting Owls

Owls nesting on an office building in Englewood, Colorado

Yes, I know this is a pretty sorry excuse for a picture, but it is the best shot I could get so far. This photo was taken with a telephoto lens, hand holding the camera, and shooting through the dark glass of my office building that is next to the one where these birds are nesting. Still, I wanted to put this up, because these are such beautiful animals.

This pair has found a safe perch in the eaves of the rooftop of one of the buildings on the campus where I work. You can see that they are situated down behind the girder, with just their heads peering out over the top. They appear rather docile during the daylight hours, as they are nocturnal creatures. Still they watch out over the landscape on and off during the day. I am curious to see if we have some baby owls making their appearance in the near future.

Give Me Your Cheesy Statue Knock-Offs

The Iconic Liberty Enlightening the World, or more commonly known as The Statue of Liberty, stands proudly in New York Harbor, a symbol of the promise of freedom offered by the United States. Given to this nation by the people of France in 1889, Lady Liberty has welcomed immigrants, warriors returning from the battlefield, and tourists to America's largest metropolis for 118 years. Arguably, this is the most copied statue in the world. In Paris, France, there are two replicas, the most famous overlooks the River Seine, facing toward her New York original. Cities around the globe have replicas prominently displayed. Here in the United States, there is even a replica at the New York, New York hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

One massive distribution of Lady Liberty knockoffs was done by the Boy Scouts of America. Between 1949 and 1951, the youth organization distributed over 200 low-budget replicas to towns and cities across the United States. About half of them are known to still be around. I have seen at least two of these, one of them just yesterday. The first one was many years ago, and it stands (or at least did decades ago) at Boy Scout Camp Sidney Dew in Georgia. The one I saw yesterday, shown here, is on the grounds of the Weld County, Colorado courthouse.

Like all of the statues distributed by the scouts, this one is not a close replica at all. The face is somewhat misshapen and rounder in features than the original. I also noticed this one appears to be getting tired, as the torch is not being held up exactly straight, if it ever was. Still, it is one of the remaining examples of this post-World War II act of patriotism by the scouting organization, and is proudly displayed 57 years after it was donated in 1950.

As the current government in Washington continues its assault on our freedoms, let's hope that our actual liberties don't die before the demise of these statues that personify those ideals.

Does Anybody Really Know What Time it Is?

"Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?" So sang the rock group Chicago back in 1970, in their hit song from their first album, Chicago Transit Authority. People have been asking that question for centuries, and have devised all kinds of devices for providing the answer. In Denver's Cranmer Park, there is a more modern version of one such device that dates back to antiquity. A giant sundial stands there to mark the hours as the earth makes its daily rotation in relation to the Sun.


The sundial in Cranmer Park, Denver. Click photo to enlarge.

This is not the original sundial in this park. This is one placed in 1966 to replace the first one, which was placed in 1941. The stone is tilted to the plane of earth's equator, and the shadow producing rod points pretty much at Polaris, the North Star. According to the instructions engraved in stone behind it (enlarge picture below to read), you can make adjustments from solar time to standard time by using the diagram on the instructions. They appear to have been engraved for the 1941 dial.

As you can see from the time indicated, I was at the park at noon solar time, and that is very close without any adjustments, as my watch indicated 1:02 PM, but that is Daylight Savings Time, which adds one hour to standard time. Standard time is the average for the time zone, and the Mountain Time Zone's average is at the 105 degree meridian west of Greenwich, which the instructions tell us is at Navajo Street in Denver. Therefore standard time in the Mile High City is just about solar time. Since time zones are drawn for convenience, and not necessarily true to solar time, Denver is closer to the Central Time Zone than the Pacific. If one heads east on I-70, you enter the Central zone at the second county in Kansas, just past the town of Goodland, KS. That is about 200 miles away. To reach the Pacific Time Zone, you have to traverse two-thirds of Colorado and all of Utah to the west, entering Pacific time in the state of Nevada.


Instruction chart from the original 1941 sundial. Click to enlarge.

Microsoft Word? WordPerfect? Who needs 'em?

A vintage Underwood typewriter

This afternoon I was walking in downtown Greeley, Colorado, and came upon a business machines store. In the main windows of this shop were some displays of vintage technology that once ran America's businesses. There was an old dictaphone machine similar to the one in featured in one of my favorite film noir movies, Double Indemnity. There were many old cash registers (that's a point of sale device to you kids out there). There were also many antique typewriters on display. Some were older than the one pictured here, but this one caught my eye.

Why? Because my dad had one almost exactly like this that he purchased used while attending college in the early 1950s. I believe this model was produced in the 1920s, so that says something about the reliability of these vintage pieces of office equipment. I don't know if he still has it or not, but my school papers in high school and early college years in the late 1960s and early 1970s were also produced on this heavy piece of machinery.

How well I remember buying a package of "Typing Paper", rolling a fresh sheet onto the platen of the typewriter, and begin typing words onto paper. You didn't want to make a mistake, as there was no such thing as correction tape. The ribbons were either all black ink, or half red and half black. There was not a key for the numeral "1"; instead you used a lower-case letter "L". To make an exclamation mark, you typed a vertical single quote and backspaced to put a period underneath it. Still, for the most part, the QWERTY keyboard arrangement is the same as this laptop computer I am writing this post on. I also recall the loud bell as you reached the end of each line, telling you to perform a manual carriage return at the end of the next word. Did you want boldface type? Type over your words again. Want to change the typeface or get italicized text? Tough luck on that! And whatever you do, don't type too fast...the type arms would get tangled and you'd have to stop and unmesh them.

Still, with all the shortcomings compared to a modern computer with word processing software, you have to wonder just how many pages of business reports, school papers, and books were produced on machines such as these.

Where is This Sign? Not Where You Might Think.

Today was a beautiful day, so I decided to take a short road trip. During this little Saturday jaunt I saw this mile marker sign, and a few others that were the same except for the mile number. Now, you can take a look at a U.S. road map and try to find this highway. Or just CLICK HERE to find out about U.S. 76. You will see that it is a 548 mile long highway that stretches from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina; traversing parts of Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas.

Yet here I am in the Centennial state of Colorado, many miles from these eastern states. So what's up with the U.S. 76 highway shields? Well, CDOT's clueless sign makers are at it once again. These markers are actually along the western version of Interstate 76, and should carry a red, white, and blue interstate shield, or none at all. Instead we have the wrong highway denoted for several miles along the freeway, showing U.S. 76 in a state where the highway doesn't exist!

This highway, I-76 is a bit of an anomaly anyway, as it has two distinctly separate highways with that designation, and both were once known as Interstate 80S. The eastern I-76 goes from Lodi, Ohio; through Pennsylvania (largely as the Pennsylvania Turnpike); and ends in New Jersey.

The western I-76 is almost entirely within Colorado. This is perhaps fitting, as Colorado is known as The Centennial State, as it was admitted to the union in 1876, the centennial year of the United States. This highway begins as a split from I-70 just west of Denver, Colorado; and heads northeast toward Nebraska's panhandle, where only about a mile or so is actually in that state. The highway ends as it merges onto Interstate 80 near the northeast corner of Colorado.

Rolls of Hay

Rolls of hay in an open field - Englewood, Colorado, USA.
Click for larger version.

The Colorado plains along the front range are definitely horse country. With all those hungry equines, comes the need for hay to feed them. I took this photo in an open field in the Meridian Business Park, a large area near Centennial Airport that is home to a number of companies, including Western Union and EchoStar. There is also a golf course that runs through it. Even so, there are many open areas yet to be developed, and apparently these are used for the growing of hay.

I decided to go a little artsy-fartsy retro on this one, giving it a black & white treatment with a red filter to enhance the clouds. Look closely in the larger version, and you will see the Rocky Mountains off in the distance, along with many more rolls of hay scattered across the field.

I used to play a little hay game with my wife. We would be driving along the road, and I would spot a truck loaded with hay, or some hay by the road, and would shout out, "HAY!". Invariably, she would reply, "What? What is it?". Thereupon I would point to the hay and say again, "Hay!". Finally, she got tired of my silly trick, and vowed never to fall for it again. That has been several years ago, so I am biding my time. One of these days, I'll get her with it.

Also, when I think of the words "roll" and "hay", I always remember Terri Garr in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, where she invites Professor Frankenstein for a "roll in zee hay". She then starts rolling around in it, chanting, "Roll, roll, roll in zee hay!". What a great movie!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

A beautiful double rainbow, and Alexander's Band.

Here is a photo I took this afternoon of a spectacular double rainbow stretching across the sky. We currently are in a pattern of hot days which agitate the atmosphere to create afternoon thunderstorms. Out of this has come some very nice rainbows. I wish I had gone to get past the power lines in these shots, but I didn't want to get my camera wet, as it was raining pretty good at this time.

This particular photo of a double rainbow displays a couple of very cool things about these displays of color in the sky. First, the primary, brightest rainbow is mirrored by a fainter partner, higher in the sky. This is because the light is reflected once inside the raindrops to product the primary, and then is reflected again inside the drops to produce a secondary rainbow, fainter than the original. It is also interesting that the colors are are always reversed in the secondary rainbow.

Also, notice that the sky beneath the primary bow is brighter than that above it. The rainbow becomes a demarcation arc between darker and lighter sky. This is due to the angles of light emerging from the raindrops as well. Since the colors of the rainbow spectrum combine to form white light, there is more white light refracted below the bow than above. The area between the primary and secondary bow is actually a bit darker than the sky above the secondary one. This is known as Alexander's Band. This is because Alexander of Aphrodisias, a commentator on the writings of Aristotle, noted the phenomenon around the year 200 C.E.

While the science behind them is interesting, it doesn't remove any of the joy of looking at the colorful display in the sky.


The primary rainbow's north end, demarcation between light & dark.

An Unfortunate Product Name

Being a marketing type, I find it interesting when companies commit a faux pas in the marketing of their products or services. One type of such a problem is when a company doesn't listen to how the name they give a product can be a homonym for another phrase. Had I seen the name of my latest example printed or on screen prior to hearing it, I might not have noticed either. However, I was reading and had the television on, and thus heard a commercial for the product, complete with the pronunciation of its name before seeing it on the screen.

The product in question is AciPhex, the trade name for a new heartburn medication. What I heard coming from the TV was an announcer talking about this wonderful new drug called "Ass Effects". I don't think I want to take anything that creates any kind of ass effect! Makes you wonder if the company ever said the name of their product out loud.

A Small Town Diner

Well, life has seemingly been so busy lately that I haven't been posting to the blog quite as often as I would like. So here is the first post for the month of August.

The lovely spouse and I decided to take my new car out for a short spin on the Interstate to give it a quick exposure to what a road trip might be like. We didn't go far, but headed east on I-70 and exited at the small town of Strasburg, Colorado. There seems to be a bit of a housing boom going on in Strasburg, as one homebuilder is apparently cashing in by building homes a little cheaper than you can get them in the Denver area. The catch is that the approximately 40-to-50 mile, each way trek into town makes it not worth the price difference. Just the gasoline alone would add to the cost of living there.

That said, Strasburg is a nice little town out on the prairie. It is so flat out there that you would not think you are in the same state as Estes Park or Aspen. The terrain is more akin to our neighboring state of Kansas than it is to the Rocky Mountains for which Colorado is known.

It was getting into the afternoon hours and we were getting hungry, so we looked at the handful of choices in Strasburg for lunch, and saw there were quite a few cars at an establishment called the Nifty Fifties Diner. We have this rule when looking at unknown places to eat. That rule says that if the parking lot is empty, the food is probably not very good. With the traffic at the diner, we decided it would be a safe bet.

The first thing I noticed is that Strasburg time is slower than Denver time. It took a while for everything, from getting water, to the arrival of our food. Not an inordinately long time, but longer than I usually wait in Denver. The menu had a great variety of food, from meatloaf to chicken fried steaks to burgers to malts. We each decided to get a malt with our meal. Too bad we didn't take a closer look at the price before ordering. More on that later.

My wife had a grilled meatloaf sandwich, and I had the Heartbreak Hotel Hot Dog. The meatloaf was over an inch thick slice, grilled and put into a sandwich that looked delicious. My hot dog was also quite the feast. It was split butterfly fashion, and grilled; put in a foot-long bun and smothered in a chunky-style chili, with cheese, mustard, onions, and jalapeno slices topping it off. It was served with waffle fries. The dog was delicious, but was also so big that I could not finish it all without making myself overstuffed. I got about two-thirds of the way done and had to stop. I also ate about a third of the fries.

The only surprise came when we go the check. The total after tax and before tip was about $34! The big gotcha was the price of the malts. They were $4.99 each! Yikes. I might have settled on something else had I looked at the price. The malts were really good, but not overly big. They were thick and tasty, but at five bucks, I think they are a bit pricey. But then again, you are in Strasburg. Don't like the price, drive to Denver.

Bottom line, the Nifty Fifties Diner had tasty Americana diner fare. While the price is a bit on the upper end for this type of food, it is a good stop for non-chain road food when traveling across Colorado. And while this type of food is good once in a while, I would not recommend it as a steady diet if one expects to live a healthy life. I think it's time for some granola and yogurt!