Tag Archives: roads

Events

Accident on I-495

Ligia and I were taking a leisurely walk on Beach Drive last night (Friday), when we were confronted with the overpowering smell of spilled fuel. On our way there, we’d seen a fire engine, but we didn’t think twice about it. This time, I thought I’d inquire, camera in hand. After walking through 100 yards full of fuel fumes, we were both a bit nauseous, but I pushed on, curious. By this time a few police cars had gathered as well, and I could see that there were two fire engines and more policemen on I-495, which runs parallel to Beach Drive on that portion of the road. Something big had happened.

Accident on 495 (1)

I walked up to a policeman’s car, waved, and he rolled down his window. “What happened?”, I asked. He lifted his eyes from the keypad of his laptop. “We got one death, and an overturned tanker,” he said, then looked back down at the keys. “That’s why the fuel smell…” offered I. “Yeah.” I thanked him, walked forward, took a few photos, then turned to join Ligia. It was then that the mention of death registered with me. Oops, I was more concerned with the stench of fuel than someone’s death… Shame on me. It’s sad how only the things that affect us personally register properly in our span of attention.

I don’t know who died up on that highway, and how he or she died, and truth be told, death always leaves me speechless. Don’t look to me for consolation when someone dies, because I won’t know what to say. I’ll just give you a blank stare, followed by an awkward pause and the usual, trite phrases.

Accident on 495 (2)

What I did want to say tonight is this: please be careful when you’re driving. That person that died out there was probably on the way home after a long work week. They were probably looking forward to the weekend, perhaps spending time with the one they loved. Now, they’re not here anymore. When you’re out on the highway, barreling down the lanes in your car, upset that the people in front of you are too slow, think about that. It may be your mistake or someone else’s, but you may end up dead. Keep your eyes peeled, put that phone down, and drive safely.

Accident on 495 (3)
Standard
Places

Sunburnt

This past weekend, Ligia and took a trip out to the countryside. Our favorite haunt is River Rd, way out in the fields hugging the Potomac hillsides. There are so many beautiful places out there, and trails galore. You can bring your bikes along, park your car, and push the pedals around all day, exploring the C&O canal trail or the country side roads.

On our way back home, I noticed this field and the reddish hue of its earth. I had to make a U-turn and photograph it. To help give you a sense of scale, that green line at the horizon is made of full-size trees.

Sunburnt

Standard
Places

Construction, people and traffic jams

For the past month, there’s been construction going on at the American Legion Memorial Bridge. I use it everyday to get to and from work. They’ve closed a lane on the right side, and that’s a huge inconvenience. So much traffic goes over that bridge every day, particularly during rush hour, that the single lane closure backs traffic up for several miles, all the way to Route 66.

Since no notice was given of the nature of the work, I thought they might be building an additional lane. But no, all they’re doing is cleaning and painting the bridge. It turns out that one lane’s going to be closed for 6-12 months, causing huge traffic delays for everyone. I have to file this one under really poor planning. For a road that important, they should have built a platform underneath the bridge and put the machines over there instead of inconveniencing everyone above with their work.

Things wouldn’t be so bad except for the rubbernecking delays. Everyone wants to look at the loud machines and the construction workers. They’re a sight to be sure, the machines noisy, big and smelly, and the workers sunburnt and stained all over with muck and grime — but that doesn’t excuse the traffic delays.

If some sort of wall were put in place to separate the construction work from the passing cars, people wouldn’t have anything to look at, and traffic would go much faster. But that wouldn’t be in character with the poor planning shown by blocking the full lane in the first place, would it? So my commute time (and that of tens of thousands of other people) is doubled, and there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it, since there is no other route we can take.

Standard
Places

Biking on the Via Appia (part 2)

This is a two-part article. Here’s Part 1.

While in Rome, my brother kept dangling this promise of taking our bicycles out to Via Appia and making a day trip out of it. I wanted to see it because the Via Appia was the most important Roman road of its time. Roman bases, villas and famous tombs adorned its sides in its heyday, and their ruins can be seen even today. The road itself was a marvel of Roman engineering. It was so well-made that portions of it are still preserved, thousands of years later.

Well, I kept feeling like the horse that can’t reach the carrot, since my brother still buried his nose in books every day. But, I kept nagging him, and in my last week there, we managed to make a half-day trip out of it. It was a wonderful time!

We took our bikes and rode through the city till we reached the highway shown below (don’t ask me for the name, I forgot it), rode alongside it for a bit, then took a side street down a little hill that took us to the start of the Via Appia. From then on, it was an easy (and beautiful) ride out into the countryside.

Along the way, we stopped so I could take photos (of course), and also snuck into some pretty unsafe ruins, as you’ll see below. I’m still amazed the floors didn’t crumble under us as we climbed onto the second floor of a villa. I can only attribute it to good, old, solid Roman construction.

Toward the Via Appia

Roman highway

Time takes its toll

The way we came

Keeping up appearances

Greeting the visitors

Light at the end of the tunnel

Looking right through

You can also read more about the Via Appia over at Wikipedia. Stay tuned for my post on Florence.

Standard
Places

Fantastic fall foliage

If you live in a place where you don’t get to experience the wonder of nature called fall foliage, then you’ll probably enjoy the photos I took on two trips to Shenandoah National Park and its most prominent and well-known feature, Skyline Drive.

I wrote about our September trip to Shenandoah a few weeks ago. Ligia and I took a trip in October as well, and that’s when I got some pretty cool photos of the changing leaves. I think it’s pretty hard not to get good photos from Skyline Drive. The landscapes are just amazing. The road hugs the very mountain peaks, and you get to peer down into the valleys of Virginia and toward the peaks of the neighboring mountains. The overlooks are plenty and offer tons of scenic opportunities, although sometimes I wished I could just stop the car in the middle of the road to take photos.

It’s a gorgeous place! I’d like to take a week’s camping trip out there with a quality dSLR, batteries, lots of CF cards, and a good tripod, to see what photos I’d get. And maybe a good book to read in the quiet evenings, by the campfire.

Skyline Drive is shown below.

Skyline Drive

The road to color

What’s wonderful is that one can see little villages and houses in the valleys below the mountains. I took these photos from various overlook points on Skyline Drive, and as you can see, the valleys below are quite picturesque.

Little villages

Patches of green

Taking advantage of the wonderful zoom on my Kodak v610 point and shoot, I was able to get fairly close to the lake in this photo, even though it was quite far away.

Lake of color

Some of the slopes were just getting some autumn colors in them.

The colors of fall

Autumn starts

Some slopes were already fully colored, and they were quite a beautiful sight.

The colors of fall

Descent into the valley below

Shenandoah Valley

Barrage of color

A short walk through the forest yielded even more beauty.

Parallel lives

Trees on a mountain peak

A glimpse of the autumn sky

One of the other impressive sights was that of the lone peaks arising from the valleys adjacent to the mountain ridge. I found them quite unusual. In shape, they resembled hills, but they were as tall as the mountains we were standing on.

Peppered with gold

Overlook on Skyline Drive

And with that I close. The Shenandoah valleys and mountains are quite beautiful, and I invite you to visit them if you get the chance.

Incidentally, the Shenandoah Valley is part of the story in “The Howards of Virginia” (1940), a movie about a colonial family that played a part in the American Revolution. The title role there was played by Cary Grant.

Standard