Tag Archives: history

4,000 and Counting

I was looking through some old posts the other day to try and find something and I saw that the published post count was exactly 4,000 posts. I hadn’t been keeping track of this so was quite surprised that it was a) that many and b) I happened to look when it was exactly 4,000 published posts. The first post I made was on March 14, 2011. At that time, things were not as structured. My first entry was followed by a second a week later. Then I had a couple in one day.

By May, I was posting every other day. I come up with subjects long in advance and tend to prepare the posts in batches which are then scheduled out. I was getting to the point where I had so many posts scheduled, it was going way out into the future. It was this that triggered me to go daily. That’s how it has been ever since. While my initial focus was on aviation themes, the lack of interest from some family and friends on those topics meant I went to alternating with aviation one day and non-aviation the next. That is how it continues. Let’s see how long it all continues.

Ten Years of the Blog

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March 14, 2011 was the day I first posted something on this blog. At the time I did it, I didn’t have any idea how things would develop. Initially posts were sporadic. I then started to have a post every other day. I would draft them ahead of time – as I still do. However, I was developing quite a backlog and transitioned to a daily post to get the backlog back under control. I haven’t changed since then and still I post daily.

One thing I did was change the focus on odd days. Having aviation related posts was not of interest to lots of friends and family so I decided to alternate between aviation and non-aviation themes each day. This has proved to be a good formula for me given that the arrival of new subject matter can be erratic at times. If you ask Nancy what I am thinking whenever we are out somewhere, the answer will be something along the lines of “thinking of blog posts that will result”. What would have been a single post in the early days is now likely to be broken down into individual topics.

I have no idea how long the blog will continue. Viewing numbers have been stable for a long time now but that isn’t really the purpose. Now it is a personal challenge. I am coming up on 3,000 different posts and that is something I would not have thought likely when it all started. I haven’t used the same tracking system from the beginning so I can’t say for sure which is the most popular post but this is the one about a 767 that never was currently shows as the most read and the most read non-aviation post is about the desert side of Maui. We shall see how long it goes on for. Thanks for coming along on the journey.

Fort Worden

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After walking around the town in Port Townsend, we drove a short distance to check out Fort Worden. This base is now turned over to the community and the base buildings are used for a variety of enterprises. The whole area is a state park so we renewed our annual pass (it hadn’t been needed when we were going nowhere!) and talk a walk up to the old gun emplacements.

One of the things I like about these old installations in the state parks is that they are almost unchanged other than the guns having been removed. There is no fencing and so you can wander around and climb the ladders up on top if you chose (and you can fall off the edge if you aren’t careful!). It looks much like it would have a century ago. The only thing now is that a lot of trees have grown up where once there would have been open views.

We wandered along the rows of concrete works and read about the different batteries and who they were named after. There were large iron rings set in the walls which caught our eye and these were used for mounting block and tackle to allow the guns to be hauled in to place. On a sunny day the whole place felt very relaxing to walk around but I imagine the concrete structures were a lot less pleasant on a damp and cold winter’s morning. Some interesting history to check out.

Follow the Red Brick Road

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On the outskirts of Bothell, there is a small park with a red brick road. It is right next to the Burke Gilman Trail so I had ridden past it many times on my bike and frequently thought to myself I should check it out. I either forget to go there or am in a hurry on the bike and so, until recently, I had never visited it. A quiet weekend afternoon meant I had the opportunity and, more importantly, remembered to do so.

The route around the north of Lake Washington had been a dirt trail until the red brick road was built. When it opened, it increased the speed of travel from Bothell to Seattle dramatically and opened up the area. The road is now SR522 and is heavily traveled. It has long ago been re-paved but one small section of the original brick road has been preserved in this park. Along with the brick itself, there are some signs telling about the history of the road and the impact on the region as well as a couple of sculptures. I doubt people will be traveling from far afield to visit but I am glad I finally got around to checking it out.

The Henry Ford (Museum)

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We headed to Michigan for a family event recently. We had a little time to spare and decided to check the Henry Ford (apparently it doesn’t have museum in the name but that is what it is). The museum complex includes many elements including a village and tours of the F150 factory but we only had time to try out one so we focused on the main museum building. As it turned out, we had way too little time to even do that justice. As is often the way with us, we spent plenty of time in the earliest elements and then were rushing to see the rest when time ran out.

The museum is an eclectic mix of different themes, some of which will get their own posts. It included elements about the industrialization of the country, sections on how homes had developed, examples of furniture styles, many different cars (no shock there given where we were), aviation, rail transportation, math and science and so on. I have no idea how much of it we didn’t even see. With time ticking, we had a frantic last few exhibits! I could easily have taken a full day to check everything out. With the village next door not even looked at, we had plenty left.

These types of museum have a difficult challenge. They curate a bunch of old items and new ones to provide a comparison. Of course, the newest ones are soon dated and there is a need to bring ever more in to provide some modern relevance. They seemed to have done a pretty good job of meeting this need. As we wrapped up and headed on our way, we were left contemplating how we had missed out on making a trip here when we lived in Chicago and this would have been a simple journey to make. I don’t know whether I will ever get back to the area but, if I do, I shall make an effort to go back and give it substantially more time!

More Fort Point

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Continuing my theme of return visits to take Mum to places, Fort Point was on the itinerary. Always a cool place to visit on a nice day and it benefited from the swell resulting in some great waves crashing up against the fort. Also, we saw some guys taking advantage of the swell to do some surfing alongside the fort. Very cool although they had to know what they were doing since, if you rode all the way in, a rocky wall awaited you! (This also meant that choosing your parking space was a big deal unless you wanted the car to be covered in salt water!)