Deflection

Today, I traveled from Lafayette to Dayton Ohio. The low was again in the fifties but the high was 82 degrees. So, not too bad.

The topography of the land was kind of interesting today, after spending over 35 years in Iowa. They say that Iowa is flat, without any character. But, after my drive today, I would disagree with this statement. The east-west portion of Indiana that I drove over today is glacier washout. On the east end of my trip through Indiana, I was to travel through a few moraine left as the glacier move back and forth as it receded to the north east. But, regarding the whole trip, it was a flat as a pancake. I really could not find the moraine. Unlike Iowa, as a person travels east and west, the drive is up and down all the way across the state, so it is call the washboard affect. With the rivers and creeks cutting into the soil, there is a gradual hill between the stream beds. As for this location, it is hard to find a river or a stream, but, when one is found, it is cut deep into the soil, like twenty to twenty-five foot deep, and this would include the drainage ditches.

From a highway safety perspective, the highways do not meet the federal requires for federal funds, although the highways that I was traveling on can receive federal funds. The utility poles are in what is call the clear zone and the ditch are to close the highway, so there is no recovery if a wayward vehicle runs off the highway and the vehicle will probably run into the utility pole. In Iowa, we designed and built all of our highways to meet the federal specification, so, although all of the highway do not meet the federal specification, none of the highways are a bad as I saw today. As for the highways that I was traveling on today, the safety features would have to be brought up to federal standards to receive federal funds. (I just cannot get away from being an engineer.)

With the amount of salt that the Iowa DOT puts down for snow and ice control, all of the bridges that had exposed steel, like what we call a pony or high truss, has been removed years ago, since they were rusting so fast that they lost their structural integrity. So, today, it was a surprise when I saw a pony truss being planted. Even as I was driving down the highway, I could see that the steel above the deck had not experienced the rusting as we had on many of our bridges. It was a surprise for me.

I had another little surprise today. Before I left Whitewater, I fueled up my 1500 GMC pickup. Today, just before I got to Dayton, I fueled my pick up. That is like about 550 miles on 24 gallons for gas. For the whole trip, I have been ranging from 20 to 25 miles per gallon. With this V8 able to travel on four cylinders, it makes a difference in gas milage. About three years ago, I drove a Ford 150 that was environmentally friendly, I got about 18 miles per gallon burning all eight cylinders all the time. As for now, I will not write about more of the advances of my pick up.

Today, as I was a traveling, I was listening to a book on the Wright Brothers written by David McCullough. Tomorrow, I am planning on spending time at the Wright-Patterson Air Force and Wright Brothers museums. So, it should be fun visiting these museums with knowledge of the Wrights.

Now, I will get ready for tomorrow.

Roger