Category: Journal
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Journal Entry – Snowbird – Highway Bridges
Today, I drove from the southeast side of New Orleans to Grand Isle, Louisiana, and I swear that fifty percent of the highway was on bridges. That might be an over exaggeration, but it felt like during my trip was 125 miles. In New Orleans, a significant number of interstate miles are elevated above the…
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Journal Entry – Snowbird – Erosion
Considering my career with the Iowa Department of Transportation, it seems like one way or the other I was always working on erosion projects either in the field or under development. After each flood, I was the first engineer in many areas looking at erosion. During our major floods, this would require examining a highway,…
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Journal Entry – World War II Museum
Today I visited the World War II Museum here in New Orleans. One might think that there are just going to visit a great museum on a world wide war. Although this is true, the start of the museum is a stark reminder of the number of people that was killed during this war, so…
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Journal Entry – Snowbird – Twentieth Day
Today I played bridge engineer. I know it is kind of my passion. But to start with, my trailer is in Baton Rouge being serviced. I feel that these RV service centers must have a racket going on. I took the trailer in with a few concerns, but then they have to tell me that…
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Journal Entry – Snowbird – Day Eighteen
The silence is deafening. This is how I felt at about 3:00 today setting in my truck in the packing lot of Melrose National Historical Park. As the handout states, “a cotton kingdom estate.” Just imagine a 132-acre plantation with a labor force of 28 people. (The owners, the McMurrens, had five plantation with 1,000…
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Journal Entry – Snowbird – Happy Thanksgiving
I am still next to Lake Bruin, and I can sit at the table in the trailer and look across the lake through the cypress trees with moss hanging from their branches. This has been a nice site to spend a few days. I guess that I am here at the correct time. I spent…
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Journal Entry – Snowbird – Fourteenth Day
Today was a frustrating day. I first go to the Vicksburg Visitors Center, and I find that it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. I am finding that the videos in visitor center really sent the mood for the tour in these parks and they are educational giving everyone something to look for in the…
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Journal Entry – Snowbird – Twelfth Day
I did not take in any history today, but it was a nice sunny and a little cold. The high was 63 degrees. Trace State Park to Grenada Lake, about 80 miles apart, although they are both manmade lakes, Grenada has a dam that is over a mile long. Longer than the dams in Iowa.…
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Journal – Snowbird – Eleventh Day
It was a nice day today with the high of 55 degrees, but it is going to 32 degrees tonight, and there is a chill in the air of the trailer tonight. I did not take in any history today, but I got my truck serviced. As for this trip, keeping my truck in good…
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Journal Entry – Snowbird – Tenth Day
This morning I moved from a state park on the east side of Tupelo to the west side, although it was windy and my trailer was getting pushed around. So, regarding the move, I went from zero bars of internet reception to three, so I am typing now. After lunch, I went Parkway Visitor Center…
Deflection 