My Iowa Commute

[lumberjim]

actually, that's jinx's commute...to the gym....

i took pics of mine on the way in this morning....muuuuuch more dangerous.....one of the roads is nicknamed the 'surekill expressway'....so. i'll put them up tonight if i get home before midnight.

as far as what appears to be crosses....i don't think so...i think it's a partially obscured sign...but i'll check next time we go.

[Cyclefrance]

Looks like good cycling country LJ and Jinx (bar the prospect of becoming a corpse that is) - no steep hills! I'll try to remember to take my camera with me next week and get a few pics of the route I cycle to and from work during the summer months - the left-hand-side-of-the-road driving should prove interesting/scary enough in itself.

[lumberjim]

ok..here's my ride in:

1st things first: traffic and transit at the 2's. got in the car at exactly the right time this am....


2nd things 2nd. My d&d guy, Jay knows my voice..."Camcho!"...(what's up in his dialect) "maddama!" ( chillin, havin a bud) "eck large coffe, just cream, mirbonni(please)"...."come to window"......"Abar!, Comcho!" (thanks, bye!).


entering the Turnpike at the Morgantown exit:


on the turnpike:



ugh...traffic backed up 3 miles from the turnpike exit at valley forge is a bad sign....



just after getting off at Valley Forge.....this truck reminds me of rich levy for some reason:


down the schuylkill expressway we go...and traffic was much lighter than usual...a glimpse of boathouse row

closer to town...a cool old bridge:


a statue of someone....it's not william penn...he's in center city:


the phila zoo floats a balloon with a big girraffe on it. I assume they give rides...


center city looms:


i take 676 under it, haeding towards the delaware river, and the Ben Franklin Bridge:


the coolest mural at the bottom of the exit for 'the Ben':


this dude is like an old friend i see every day...even though i've never bought one of his pretzels or newspapers:


over the bridge we go:


cherry hill......is flat as a pancake:




on the ride home, there was buku traffic, but it provided an opportunity for me to get a few shots of the new comcast building with it's ever changing light show:
sorry about the zoom blur....but these were the best i got:



they actually are multi colored lights in a psychadelic pattern....first time i've seen it do that.....usually its some basic geometric figure of one color or the other...

[Beestie]

Brings back memories. I used to live in Center City.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by LJ

"Abar!, Comcho!" (thanks, bye!)

It's actually abar, howjo.

Originally Posted by HLJ

jinx, it looks like you have a nice commute.

Is that two dead in the last picture?

I've been having a run of bad luck on my commute - there is always some turd going 35 for the whole first part and there are no passing zones. I can take the turnpike instead, but its just as risky (cops, traffic etc)

I'll check the crosses today but I think you're probably right.

[Sundae]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And three kisses (one for each of you).

I LOVE seeing unfamiliar horizons, especially if I can relate them to a person I've actually interacted with.

More please. Your local coffee shop, your supermarket, the place you buy bread etc etc. I really get off on the foreignness of the details of people's daily lives

[LabRat]

I can't wait to see HLJ's set of pics. Probably need to chew gum while looking at them...

Me first for the kisses!! *elbows jinx in the ribs and throws a doughnut to distract LJ* mwa dahhling!

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by LabRat

I can't wait to see HLJ's set of pics...

Then you might be able to track me down.

[xoxoxoBruce]

You should be so lucky.

[HungLikeJesus]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

You should be so lucky.

[Harp music indicates that we're entering a day dream]

I'm in the bedroom on a Saturday afternoon. I'm up on the top of the 20 foot ladder trying to coax the spiders down from the ceiling, when I hear a knock on the front door.

My wife answers it. As I come down the ladder, I hear voices - lots of voices.

"We're looking for HLJ."

"Excuse me?"


"We're looking for HLJ. Hung. Like Jesus."

"I'm ... oh, Jesus, you're Witnesses. I didn't know you travelled in such big groups."

Meanwhile, I've moved out on to the balcony, wondering if I can leap to that big Ponderosa Pine and slide down to the ground. I've seen squirrels do it -- but then I've also seen squirrels run under the tires of a school bus. Squirrels do not make good role-models.
[more harp music]

[Sundae]

It's a hot afternoon.
HLJ is up a ladder at the behest of his beautiful wife.

He hears the doorbell, but heck, he's up a ladder. Not being sexist here, but the person not up a ladder gets the door, right?

He expects to hear familiar voices - his wife's certainly, raised in greeting. And whoever has called. So he is surprised when the first indication he gets of other people in the house is when the bedroom door opens to admit a topless woman and it's not his wife...

I guess as this involves real life people, I'll leave it there

[lumberjim]

Originally Posted by jinx

It's actually abar, howjo.

oy... duh. howjo!

[HungLikeJesus]

SG -- I'll post those pictures as soon as possible.

... and PM me the rest of that story. I need to know what happens next!

[glatt]

I like seeing everyone's commutes, so I thought I'd join in as well. These are all on my Flickr page, so you can see larger versions there if you like. My commute will look a little different, because I walk. It's about 1.5 miles of total walking each way.

We start off at my house, where I just took out the recycling:


Then I go down the street. There's a mixture of small older houses, and silly enormous McMansions. See the tall building in the distance? I'm walking about three blocks past that to enter the MetroRail system:


I cut through the playground of this elementary school, but it's OK since no kids are here this early:


This street of older houses hasn't seen any new McMansions pop up because the houses are all duplexes. To tear one down, you would have to buy out two families, and I guess the developers think it's too much effort:


I walk along this bike path for a short distance. You can see I'm starting to get into a built up area around the metro station:


It looks like I'm in the city here, but I'm still in the suburbs, just a few blocks from my house. The metro station is three blocks ahead:


Here's the elevator down into the ground to catch a train:


This is my Metrorail station. I just missed a train, so the platform is pretty empty. It will be packed like sardines in just a minute or two. The glowing sign on the left says the next train will be here in 4 minutes:


The train! You can see it's become more crowded on the platform:


I know where to stand on the train so I'm one of the first off and through the gates. This is coming up out of the ground in downtown Washington D.C. There's a huge mob of people right on my tail, so I take a quick picture and head up the escalator:


Have any of you seen one of these R2-D2 mailboxes for the Star Wars 30 year anniversary?


I cut through Franklin Square Park:


Go past this old stone church and a new construction site. There's construction everywhere in this city.


This is the Washington D.C. International Youth Hostel. It's right next to an abandoned building being used as a billboard, and on the other side is a brand new building that is going to be a hotel or condos or something.


I bought a Christmas postcard from this place to send to Billy. It's right across from my building.


And here's my building! I actually went across the street to take this shot. I don't normally arrive from this direction. I normally come in a back way and sneak through the loading dock:

[SteveDallas]

Originally Posted by glatt

There's a huge mob of people right on my tail, so I take a quick picture and head up the escalator:

You're lucky nobody thought you were trying to take an inappropriate photo of that woman!