Topeka to Evansville
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Day 19: September 2, 2009 Topeka to Evansville |
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There was a rather impressive storm in the early hours and it was still
raining steadily as I left Topeka. By Kansas city, it had stopped.
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September 2,1999In Oklahoma, the caravan veered away from Route 66 and we were on expressways most of the time after that. |
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There was an I-64 detour in St Louis so I decided to do my own detour and pick up
a concrete at Ted Drewes. This is not the one on Route 66 but is the only
one my GPS knew about. Curiously, the Garmin database has the old (1931)
store but not the "new" (1941) store. That was just fine with me as I've never been to
this store and this was an excellent time for it.
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So it's come to padding a panel with the welcome sign of a state just one
boundary from home. There are beau coup interesting places in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, and
every other state but they aren't often sitting by the interstate.
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And even when you find them, photographing roadside attractions isn't
always simple when the road they're beside is an expressway. This is semi-familiar territory
so I knew of the airplanes less than a mile beyond the turnoff to Evansville.
I'd wanted to photograph them and this was the perfect opportunity. But
the next exit is eight or nine miles east of the planes so the "half-mile
beyond" turned into a near twenty mile side trip.
Last Friday, as I stood by the Pacific at Cliff House and snapped pictures of pelicans, a propeller driven plane flew by. I grabbed a couple of shots and even thought I might use one in conjunction with some of the pelican pictures. As it turned out, I used neither pelican nor plane. But I have another chance. Compare the model fighter in the second picture with this real one photographed in the sky over San Francisco. ADDENDUM: Sep 8, 2009 - In the American Road Magazine Forum, Rick Pisio pointed out that the plane I photographed in San Francisco isn't, as I called it, a fighter but a trainer. And he knew a lot more than that about the plane. From Rick: "Actually the plane you got a picture of was a World War II trainer known as a T-6 Texan (the Navy called it an SNJ). The owner of the plane is Jim Thomas and the plane is based in Livermore, CA. That plane will be racing in a few weeks at the Reno Air Races in the T-6 class. With speed in the low 200's the T-6 class is much slower than the Unlimiteds, which are World War II era fighters and capable of speeds anywhere between 350-500 mph." How's that for behind the scenes info? |
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