unexpected....

JOETHECROW · Oct 13, 2012

It was a decent fall day today, and I was driving through an area I don't frequent, but pass through occasionally....There is a nice two lane road through mostly forest, punctuated with a few settlements. Along one steep area, I remembered an old house on a little cleared area set back into a hill. The highway was right out the front of this house. Penn Digger once mentioned being in the house. It's just a memory now, but I've always wanted to look down over the highway embankment across from it, a logical place for a dump. It was set up like this. House in clearing, highway, steep embankment, powerline running somewhat parallel w/ highway, then a steep oak woods, railroad tracks in a cut,...then jungle like forest along the river.

JOETHECROW · Oct 13, 2012

The last time I decided to explore here, 10 years ago, an angry guy in a pickup appeared out of nowhere yelling to get the hell out.[8|] (still not sure where he came from...) I explained I was looking for old bottles and glass and remembered the house that used to sit there. He said again "Get the hell out" so I did. Today I drove past....turned around up the road, came back and parked about an 1/8th mile past it...grabbed my scratcher and headed out along the powerline.

JOETHECROW · Oct 13, 2012

A lot of the leaf cover is gone due to the heavy frosts...I hiked to where I thought the house would have been above me, found a creek crossing the powerline and walked up towards the house....an old overgrown built up area loomed above me in the brush, I started to see a lot of junk...(Car parts, metal drums, some 40's glass etc.) Apparently there was once a garage that went with the old house, but it was on the lower side of the road. I found the foundation, a clear local blob complete w/ lightning stopper, but the back was missing....found some prohibition whiskeys, also found a cool old zinc coated coal or milk pail with "Bradford" stamped into the face, but it was too rusted on the backside to retrieve. There was too much modern junk layered on top to dig properly, and I had my good clothes on (wasn't planning this jaunt)....So I decided to head down below the powerline, into the oaks, but above the railroad and hike out that way.

JOETHECROW · Oct 13, 2012

The oak woods was nice, but the terrain steep, as I walked through the leaves, side hilling it as I went. Gravity and the rail line below drew me like a magnet. I headed towards the tracks and stopped at the upper edge of the steep cut, looking down at the tracks and old poles 50' below me. I leaned my scratcher against a nearby tree to tie one of my boots, thinking about heading down to look for insulators....as I turned to pick up my digger, I noticed that it wasn't a tree at all, but an ancient telegraph pole!

JOETHECROW · Oct 13, 2012

Apparently there was an earlier telegraph line above the tracks...Cool! I looked up, and there were three crossarms with all blue-green insulators intact, but no wires... This older line had escaped target practice and scavenging by being hidden in the woods up the steep bank, instead of out in the open along the tracks. Who could resist? There was an oak sapling growing near the pole, so I hoisted myself up to the first angled brace on this, then did a pull up and got my leg over the first cross arm so I could examine all of the insulators in a relaxed manner...The view was pretty nice, it was pleasant in the woods, and I was hoping to see a train, but all of the insulators were plain beehive style, with just the letter "B" on the dome...none were broken. There were two or three hemmingray style with the flared skirt as well. Since I have a few bushel baskets of these already, I saw no sense in taking any. Maybe someday when they become scarce...[

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JOETHECROW · Oct 13, 2012

When I realized they were common, I climbed down, dropped the last couple feet, and rolled my ankle on all the older insulators hidden under the leaves....! Alas, these were more of the same, but It was exciting, finding them all and examining them... I reasoned that there might be another defunct pole along the edge, going towards the car...so much closer than I thought it would be, there was the next one...no insulators above, but more on the ground... Hmmm, more beehives, none embossed....next pole! again not very far,...I kept repeating this game, found seven poles, climbed three, found lots of the similar insulators, but nothing worth taking home....Sure was fun! started losing the light so headed up and came out right below the car! Perfect. My wife asked me why it took so long to go get some gas???[

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slag pile digger · Oct 13, 2012

...

botlguy · Oct 14, 2012

You, Sir, are a story teller. Had me all the way.[

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BillinMo · Oct 14, 2012

What Jim said! Great tale, and you have a gift for vivid description.

You got me wondering, though, just how old that line might have been. Could be worth digging for threadless!

JOETHECROW · Oct 14, 2012

Well,...How old would the line need to be for threadless insulators...? Civil war, 1860-70's...I know it's at least 1870's (the existing railroad)....What era were the bluegreen beehive style that were there? One other interesting aside...Somewhere in that order of highway/powerline/oak woods/railroad then river was a defunct trolley line,...at first It occured to me that the poles in the woods were for that somehow, but no...the grade would have been obvious there in the woods...I think maybe the trolley grade was up closer to the highway where they ran the powerline... Thanks for the comments...[

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P.S. I figured I should be extra descriptive, being I didn't have a camera...[

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unexpected....

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