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Stranger in a Strange Land


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4 hours ago, Bryan said:

we've taken the ferry to Santander in northern Spain and then slowly worked our way north,

Don't forget your International Driving Permits next time, both of them- 1949 convention for Spain and 1968 convention for France. And travel insurance and Green Cards. What larks.

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8 hours ago, spacecadet said:

Don't forget your International Driving Permits next time, both of them- 1949 convention for Spain and 1968 convention for France. And travel insurance and Green Cards. What larks.

 

Don't get me started....... 

 

Complete shambles. However our touring days are perhaps drawing to a close, and I can only be grateful for the many years we were able to spend wandering freely around Europe. 

 

My wife did a temporary job swap in Germany and both of our sons did school exchange visits in France and/or Germany, while our elder son did a year of his degree in a French University and worked as a language assistant in a French school etc etc.  We see ourselves as Europeans first and little Englanders way down the line.

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I can get in my car and be out of town and almost all traffic in 15 minutes. Rambling around in the countryside, seeing crops during the season, looking for wildlife and finding country lanes to explore. Sometimes I can drive for 15 minutes and not see another vehicle.
 My adult life has always been rambling around like this. As a result, when traveling on road trips, we always avoided big cities. Nature is my thing, anyway. We camped a lot.  Panning for gold in Colorado or one of the other western states or fishing for trout in Wyoming is way more fun than a puttering around in a museum. I did love the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, though.  White water rafting In Tennessee was fun, too, but beyond me now.  Most of it is, like your saying it may be for you, Bryan.
Here, you can go about anywhere out of town, find somewhere to walk or take pictures and not see people or worry about Covid.

 
 

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Luckily where we live we can walk from home for an hour or two and hardly see anyone. During the first lockdown we printed out the local page of an OS map with the intention of  walking all the bridleways and footpaths in our area. Surprising to come across places we’ve never been after living in the same village for 40 years! 

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5 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

I can get in my car and be out of town and almost all traffic in 15 minutes. Rambling around in the countryside, seeing crops during the season, looking for wildlife and finding country lanes to explore. Sometimes I can drive for 15 minutes and not see another vehicle.
 My adult life has always been rambling around like this. As a result, when traveling on road trips, we always avoided big cities. Nature is my thing, anyway. We camped a lot.  Panning for gold in Colorado or one of the other western states or fishing for trout in Wyoming is way more fun than a puttering around in a museum. I did love the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, though.  White water rafting In Tennessee was fun, too, but beyond me now.  Most of it is, like your saying it may be for you, Bryan.
Here, you can go about anywhere out of town, find somewhere to walk or take pictures and not see people or worry about Covid.

 

Despite our crowded roads Betty, we can also be into the countryside for walking locally, I would hate to live in a city.  A short drive takes us into Northumberland which is England's least densely populated county.  We have to take the dreaded and very busy western bypass around Newcastle to get there mind, with a strict 50 mph speed limit which is observed by most, but you do get some selfish individuals who clearly feel that the law doesn't apply to them - a return to cruel and unusual punishments, e.g. flogging, might sort them out. I did once observe a boy racer fly past at perhaps 80 mph only to be stopped by an unmarked police car further down the road.  Schadenfreude, a wonderful feeling....

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On 13/12/2020 at 12:00, Mr Standfast said:

 

Stocked with very random items without rhyme or reason, yet somehow tempting.

 

All manner of DIY tools from makers you have never heard of. Pillar drills and drop saws not just a set of screw drivers. You might see welding rods one week and a welding mask the next, but never the two together.  It's worth a browse just for the entertainment.

 

🦔

 

 

 

I once bought a wheelbarrow wheel from there........

 

John.

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Out here in East Anglia we do big skies and patches of pretty open road but not like some Canadian and American areas. The speed limits are quite a bit higher than N.America. 60 mph on all non-urban roads unless specified, 70 mph on all 4 lane roads (not just the motorways) and even some urban roads allow 40mph. These are quite a bit higher than N.American speeds and when you consider the greater distance in most cases it might seem a very long time to make your journey.

20 mph in the city areas of London's financial district and often near schools seem like walking pace but probably save a lot of grief. 

Edited by Robert M Estall
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3 hours ago, Robert M Estall said:

Out here in East Anglia we do big skies and patches of pretty open road but not like some Canadian and American areas. The speed limits are quite a bit higher than N.America. 60 mph on all non-urban roads unless specified, 70 mph on all 4 lane roads (not just the motorways) and even some urban roads allow 40mph. These are quite a bit higher than N.American speeds and when you consider the greater distance in most cases it might seem a very long time to make your journey.

1920px-US_Speed_Limits.svg.png

 

 

 

1920px-World_Speed_Limits.svg.png

wim

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surely those are the top end speeds on motorways only? Like Betty, I avoid those if possible. In general, a normal highway in N.America is 50 mph where it would be 60 mph in UK. So you can still put the pedal to the metal in Germany?! But again, surely that is just the autobahn? 

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In fact a lot of autobahnen are now restricted- permanently (or at least with metal signs) on some stretches. Probably just as well if you have a boot full of wine holiday gear or worse still a caravan, because if you want to be anywhere other than the slow lane you have to play the high-speed game. It's not optional.

Edited by spacecadet
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2 minutes ago, Robert M Estall said:

surely those are the top end speeds on motorways only? Like Betty, I avoid those if possible. In general, a normal highway in N.America is 50 mph where it would be 60 mph in UK. So you can still put the pedal to the metal in Germany?! But again, surely that is just the autobahn? 


No, the normal highway speed, in the USA,  is more like 60 to 65 mph with no risk of a ticket...50 would be considered too slow and dangerous.  In rural America, 70 to 75 would be normal.  I typically drive at 70 mph on highways, along the eastern states, and have never been stopped by a police officer.  Yes, the tolls are annoying and every year there are more and more.  My last trip to Italy, a couple of years ago, there were many tolls to pay between Milan and Rome and they were not cheap!

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13 minutes ago, Michael Ventura said:


No, the normal highway speed, in the USA,  is more like 60 to 65 mph with no risk of a ticket...50 would be considered too slow and dangerous.  In rural America, 70 to 75 would be normal.  I typically drive at 70 mph on highways, along the eastern states, and have never been stopped by a police officer.  Yes, the tolls are annoying and every year there are more and more.  My last trip to Italy, a couple of years ago, there were many tolls to pay between Milan and Rome and they were not cheap!

 

I think UK motorway is what we call highways in the US -- four-lanes, no stop lights, merging from ramps.  Two lane roads can be highways in the US, but generally aren't called that, and can be up to 65 in the parts where I've driven.  I've also been on interstates where the traffic was going up closer to 90 mph than to 70.

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Want speed? Try driving on the autobahn in Germany. 

 

Weather wise, it would be nice to be in Hawaii about now, but you would have to suffer through listening to The Twelve Days of Christmas over and over with Hawaiian lyrics. 

 

Edited by Ed Rooney
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well things seem to have moved on since I lived in Canada &  drove around frequently in NY State. 50 mph was the limit on normal highways and more on the four lane expressways whatever they might be designated. Of course all driving is now calculated in Kilometers in Canada. There was a notorious patch of highway 2 near the St Lawrence which regarded speed restrictions as a revenue opportunity. I got a ticket for 55 mph driving my Mom's car and I swear to this day I had the speed control set to 50 as we genuinely were not in any hurry. For what it's worth , I drive pretty moderately but my other half's driving is a real white knuckle ride

Edited by Robert M Estall
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1 hour ago, Robert M Estall said:

surely those are the top end speeds on motorways only? Like Betty, I avoid those if possible. In general, a normal highway in N.America is 50 mph where it would be 60 mph in UK. So you can still put the pedal to the metal in Germany?! But again, surely that is just the autobahn? 

 

Yes top speeds per country. Actual speed limits on the road can be lower.

 

In The Netherlands, the map says 130 kmh / 80 mph but we went back to 100kmh / 60mph during the day and 120/75 at night in many places.

All very confusing. It used to be a quite uniform 100/60 in built up areas or 120/75 in the rest of the country, but the populists wanted 130/80 everywhere. And they got it, in spite of protests from environmentalists and various road safety advocacy groups,

But lots of roads were not built for that, think radius or too many ramps and exits in a short stretch, so there had to be lots of places with 120 or 100km limits, which in some places could then be 130km at night.

Now it all reverted back to a much more strict 100km than ever before. Not because of the environmentalists, but because of the farmers lobby. Farmers on the highway? No it was the NOx limits they could/would not/refused to observe/have been refusing for 30 years. (First EU NOx limits were put in place in 1991.)

So it was house building and road traffic that got new NOx limits. (61% of NOx comes from agriculture and 4-6% from traffic here!) It's mainly livestock farming (46%) that produces it. NO2 and NH3 are the main culprits and they come from slurry or liquid manure (dung mixed with pee produces ammonia: only a problem in stables not on land).

The vocal farmers in this are firmly in the populist camp, so those remain quiet now. The farmers have got a taste of blood power and they are blocking supermarket distribution centers in the midst of the Corona/Covid lock down that has started this morning and will last 5 weeks until mid January. All to ward off any caps on their 61% of NOx. No they don't say that, now it's about fair prices for milk etc, which is a valid point. But in reality it's about keeping your troops in the front line.

 

260px-Boerenprotest_2.jpg

wikipedia stikstofcrisis

 

Boeren blokkeren met trekkers de ingang van een bevoorradingscentrum van Jumbo in Raalte, Overijssel. Op verschillende plaatsen in het land protesteren boeren bij distributiecentra van supermarkten.

yesterday

 

Btw The Netherlands is the major producer and exporter of NOx in Europe per sq km or mile, not so much per head.

Yesterday we had a run on bread in the supermarkets. Supermarkets will remain open during lock down.

There you have it: everything is intertwined with speed limits these days: bread and cars.

Anyone remembering Kanonen statt Butter (guns or butter) from school? I do! But they always told us it was the Nazis Goering and Hess. Now it turns out it was Woodrow Wilson where this originated.

 

Learned enough for today - back to editing digitized B/W film contact sheets.

 

wim

 

edit1: links

edit2: It used to be a quite uniform 100/60 in built up areas or 120/75 in the rest of the country

Edited by wiskerke
links added
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10 hours ago, Bryan said:

Despite our crowded roads Betty, we can also be into the countryside for walking locally, I would hate to live in a city.  A short drive takes us into Northumberland which is England's least densely populated county.  We have to take the dreaded and very busy western bypass around Newcastle to get there mind, with a strict 50 mph speed limit which is observed by most, but you do get some selfish individuals who clearly feel that the law doesn't apply to them - a return to cruel and unusual punishments, e.g. flogging, might sort them out. I did once observe a boy racer fly past at perhaps 80 mph only to be stopped by an unmarked police car further down the road.  Schadenfreude, a wonderful feeling....

The answer to “where is a cop when you need them!” How satisfying.

One way to travel here I absolutely hate. Taking Interstate 40 East out of Oklahoma. It is a major trucking road. They sometimes box you in and because there are so many hills going eastward, they bog down on the hills. Particularly horrible if there’s any rain involved because the windshield (wind screen to you) gets covered with so much muck thrown at you that sometimes you’re driving blind.

My last trip to Tennessee, I took other highways and avoided I-40 most of the way. When I was forced onto it for a ways, I nearly had an accident that would have been fatal, no doubt. A highway backup from an accident that was hidden until I rounded a curve I didn’t need to slow for, then there they were, BAM, stopped vehicles for miles. Why the highway patrol hadn’t posted warnings or trooper cars well ahead of the curve, I’ll never know. Because the accident was old, in the loading-up-the-wrecked-cars stage to be carted off. They had ample time to set up a warning.

Going 75 miles an hour and suddenly ramming into to stopped vehicles would not have ended well. I came to a rubber-burning stop inches from them. Thank heavens I still have quick reflexes.

Edited by Betty LaRue
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4 hours ago, spacecadet said:

In fact a lot of autobahnen are now restricted- permanently (or at least with metal signs) on some stretches. Probably just as well if you have a boot full of wine holiday gear or worse still a caravan, because if you want to be anywhere other than the slow lane you have to play the high-speed game. It's not optional.

 

Indeed I found driving on the unrestricted autobahns terrifying. Not towing fortunately but still a problem.  On one occasion we elected to travel through the night to avoid the traffic. Result inevitable darkness, it was raining heavily and the roads were still crowded, but no reduction in the top speeds. My wife said that she had never been so afraid on a car journey.  You pull out from behind a truck and somebody appears from nowhere doing well over 100. Why they allow this in such an otherwise well regulated country is beyond me.

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8 hours ago, Robert M Estall said:

Out here in East Anglia we do big skies and patches of pretty open road but not like some Canadian and American areas. The speed limits are quite a bit higher than N.America. 60 mph on all non-urban roads unless specified, 70 mph on all 4 lane roads (not just the motorways) and even some urban roads allow 40mph. These are quite a bit higher than N.American speeds and when you consider the greater distance in most cases it might seem a very long time to make your journey.

20 mph in the city areas of London's financial district and often near schools seem like walking pace but probably save a lot of grief. 

Not sure where in the US you noticed those speed limits? Around here, the highway speed limits are 75mph (Kansas) (75 and 80 mph Oklahoma), 40 mph in town everywhere except residential streets which are 30mph. The major highways as they enter cities drop to 60mph.

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Our USA speed limits were reduced for a period of time starting during the oil crisis back in the 70s. They were increased again in the 90s. During that period of time maximum speed limits on the interstate highway in Florida, for instance, was 55 MPH. 

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2 hours ago, Cecile Marion said:

Our USA speed limits were reduced for a period of time starting during the oil crisis back in the 70s. They were increased again in the 90s. During that period of time maximum speed limits on the interstate highway in Florida, for instance, was 55 MPH. 

That’s right. I’d forgotten about that. How could I?  it felt like we were creeping down the highways.

That was also when we turned our thermostats down and snuggies were popular.  Snuggies were like quilted cotton blankets with zippers, similar to sleeping bags.  My daughter had one that looked like a box of crackerjacks. We bundled up in them to watch television in the evenings.

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https://c7.alamy.com/comp/KKA9FX/old-dominion-freight-line-triple-trailer-combination-road-train-on-KKA9FX.jpg

Nevada - On Interstate I-80 between Carlin and Battle Mountain Nevada.

80 mph. Car more or less driving itself means you can take pictures. First car that kicked me in the butt when I swerved just a little bit too wide.

The economy of Nevada has long been tied to vice industries -Wikipedia says. Well it makes for great roads. It seems the schools are good too.

The road trains (one of the few places where I have seen them in the US) are a bit smaller than their AU counterparts.

- Low $$ Worldwide Presentation or newsletters. Oh that's the other thread. 😎

 

wim

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36 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

The road trains (one of the few places where I have seen them in the US) are a bit smaller than their AU counterparts.

 

 

Fancy overtaking a 50m long road train in Oz? You need one kilometre of visibility to do so. Fortunately, they are not all that long. The max is 5 trailers.

If you meet them on a dirt road, you just get out of the road sharpish. Then you sit in a shower of stones and flying dust.

 

2D54JX5.jpg

Edited by gvallee
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34 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

 

The road trains (one of the few places where I have seen them in the US) are a bit smaller than their AU counterparts.

 

 

This one had a female driver.

 

KC2RKE.jpg

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8 minutes ago, gvallee said:

 

Fancy overtaking a 50m long road train in Oz? You need one kilometre of visibility to do so. Fortunately, they are not all that long. The max is 5 trailers.

If you meet them on a dirt road, you just get out of the road sharpish. Then you sit in a shower of stones and flying dust.

 

 

 

EGBFE6.jpg

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