Tag Archives: travel

HMS Queen Elizabeth

One leg of our trip to the UK included a ferry to the Isle of Wight. We took the ferry from Portsmouth and, as we drove in to town, I thought I could see the twin islands of the HMS Queen Elizabeth, the first of the pair of new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy. Sure enough, when we pulled out of Gunwharf on the ferry, we could see the carrier moored in the naval base. A rear view doesn’t give to much impression of the ship but she is clearly pretty large. At about 65,000 tons, she is over three times the displacement of the previous RN carriers.

Precursor to the Lifeboat Posts

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There are going to be some lifeboat posts coming up in the coming weeks. We ended up seeing quite a bit of the RNLI’s work while we were there. I shall have more detailed posts but these shots are just a warm up act for the posts to come. I do like the RNLI and they certainly entertained me on this trip!

Power for a Factory

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The Dearborn factory required a large power generation facility and, in days gone by, this was provided by a large steam engine driving generators. This machine is now nicely preserved. The scale of it is a bit hard to represent. The cylinders are huge and the controls are substantial. You can climb up on top of the whole thing to see how it went together. Surprisingly, this is not a place that was getting too many visitors which meant I was able to nose around in relative peace. It is hard to imagine what it would have been like when this enormous piece of engineering was in use and was generating the power for the plant. Now it is idle but it still looks imposing.

Quite a Locomotive

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I know a few of the regular readers of the blog are in to trains so I hope this one pleases them. The Henry Ford Museum covers all sorts of engineering endeavors including a selection of rail vehicles. This was one of the last things we saw before we left so I didn’t explore very much. However, there was one rather large steam locomotive on display. This thing was a beast and I imagine it was quite the sight when it was in regular usage. Our visit coincided with the running of Big Boy after restoration so something similar to this can been seen for real once again!

Another Boat Out of the Water in Anacortes

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During a vacation trip to Anacortes, prior to moving to Washington, I posted some pictures of a large vessel out on the dockside being worked on. I was quite taken with seeing it so high out of the water. That post is here if you are interested. We were passing through Anacortes again recently and I decided to go back to the same shipyard to see if something else was there. Sure enough, another large vessel was sitting in the yard undergoing work.

Seeing a ship this large out of the water is impressive to me. I got a few photos. It was an interesting shaped hull. I think it had propulsor units of some sort based on rotating vanes rather than traditional propellers. They were a bit hard to see but I think that was what was back there. My friendly marine engineers might step in here and help out.

The Big House

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My nephew’s graduation took place at Ann Arbor MI. I had not been there before but the main graduation ceremony was held in the football stadium. It might be able to hold 100,000 but on this day there were not so many. We had more space to spread out than would be the case in a football game and behind the stage area was left empty. While we waited for things to “kick off”, I figured I would grab a panorama or two of the Big House.

Changing Landscapes By The Second

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The weather while we were in Jackson was rather variable. Our first day was pretty sunny but it clouded over and the second day had clouds constantly moving through. You would get patches of sun showing up periodically but it was generally overcast. As you looked to the hillsides surrounding the valley, there was hardly a moment when things were constant. Light might pick out the terrain briefly and then a cloud would roll in and obscure the view completely. There was always something different to see. Even though the conditions were not great, it was still gorgeous to watch the constant evolution.

Big Horn Sheep Safely on the Slopes

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The end of our wildlife spotting trip in Jackson took us around the back of the elk refuge. Alongside the road is a slope which is very popular with the Big Horn Sheep. It has steep sides and food for them to graze on. The terrain renders them safe from the predators that might otherwise bother them since they are the ones with the advantage on such a steep and craggy slope. There were families of sheep scattered along the slope.

They weren’t very far away from us but, seeing as they are not large, they didn’t fill the viewfinder. Our guide carried a spotting scope which gave us a really close view. It also allowed you to get a quite impressive photo using only your cellphone since you could hold it up against the eyepiece. I did shoot with the bigger camera too, though. Some of the sheep moved up on to the ridge line where they were silhouetted for me to photograph. It was fun to watch them move around as they were constantly walking to the next good food source all while they were perched on some pretty precarious spaces.

That’s a Tight Corner (Boston Old School Subway)

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A quick work trip to Boston meant I needed to take the “T” from my hotel to the offices where we were meeting. I took the Blue Line in to the city and then changed on to the oldest line the city apparently has, the Green Line. The vehicles I rode on were very old school in their design. What amazed me more was the tight curvatures of the track.

I lived in Chicago where the “L” has some really tight curves. However, it has nothing on this track. I watch the next car pivot out of sight as we weaved through an amazing turn. When I made my return journey, I changed at one station that also had a really tight curve. At first I thought it was a relic of old track but the rail looked like it was in use and there was a power line in place so I guess it is still needed. Quite something. It would never get built like that now but that is what systems over a century old sometimes come with!

Lewis Falls

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We stopped off at the Lewis Falls on the way out of Yellowstone. The angle of the falls from the road meant I had not even noticed them when we drove into the park but, coming back south, they were easily seen ahead and off to the right of the road. Temperatures were not so low that the falls were frozen up and they looked very pretty. Given the number of vehicles in the area, everyone was stopping to take a look too.