see, that totally clears everything up. Here we clearly see all the important information we'd ever need to know about Mayfield: theres a railroad nearby, and also some wavy lines indicating elevation change. Up? Down? We don't know!! Thumbs up, geographers, for the exceptional clarity of maps in general. (Actually, there is a geographer who tends to read this blog. Like most normal people, I had assumed the last actual geographers were Lewis and Clark, but apparently we still train these people in our universities, in spite of the fact that theres already a map to everywhere worth going. I'm not entirely certain what a modern geographer does, and they don't seem to be either: they can tell you in great detail what they don't do, but I've never once heard a clear description of what the function of a geographer is. Personally I think they should put some time into making mapquest run accurately, rather than directing me to turn the wrong way on one-way streets, or go 10 miles out of my way for no apparent reason. On the other hand, as far as I know there are roughly three geographers left alive in the world: the one I married, the one I'm friends with, and someone to train the other two. This is why I can post such a lengthy musing on them: even if the full force of geographer wrath descends upon me, I'm pretty sure I'll be just fine. What can they do to me anyway? post bad directions on mapquest?).Mayfield is in Manassas, on a high place overlooking the old town. If you study the map, you'll see that adjoining the Mayfield fort is a place called Hooe, that used to be a plantation belonging to the Hooe family. Here's their cemetery:
Seriously, my new hobby is going to be cemetery photography. There are plenty around, some of the gravestones are quite lovely, its easy to pose the subjects, they don't wiggle during the shot, and they never complain. (How many of you noticed that the Widge wasn't wearing pants in the Gettysburg cemetery?). Anyway, although I have no pictures of the actual earthwork fort, because it was bascally a high, grassy place with a Napoleon gun on it, and honestly, haven't we seen enough cannon lately (I sure have), but I do have a photo of me!
aliens took the photo! Well, actually Mr. Forkman took it, but he told me I didn't have to credit him, I could make up a story if I wanted to.
and after that, we went to old-town Manassas and saw a train!!! TRAIN!!! it had a CABOOSE!!!! Widge got to climb on it!!!!! I cannot stress the excitement of train viewing enough.
Look at the Widge, he looks like he's running for office.
1 comment:
Where to start? Where to start?
Well, turns out the 3rd geographer, the one you haven't met, he has a nice definition of Geography, it's a 3 part study, 1, Where things are on the earth - this is Lewis and Clark, 2 Why Things are where they are on the earth - this was big in the early to mid 20th century (as a side note, what was to be my example of a geographer in this era, Walter Christaller, the father of Central Place Theory, was the Nazi Geographer - No Indiana Jones Movie about this?- charged with replanning Poland, so I'll just let that one slide...) and 3, how things are connected on the earth. So our charge as geographers is to create was to pass the info of 1 along, use the info of 2 to plan and explain our world efficiently, and 3 to figure out how our world interacts spatially. Essentially we are all social sciences considered spatially, rather than systemically.
As for a clear explanation of why mapquest sucks, let me explain the hierarchy of online mapping with the aid of Saturday Night Live:
"Let’s hit up Yahoo Maps to find the dope-est route/
I prefer Mapquest/
That’s a good one too/
Google Maps is the best/
True that/
Double true"
So that's your problem right there, as with all else in life, Google has found a way to make it better.
Also, train watching is fun...
And I'm a blog of note!
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