I have travelled the east coast of Australia both with my parents and then as an adult. Car, train, plane and then by motorbike:) Where I'm situated, you typically have to travel north to the tropics to see rainforest and waterfalls...or so I thought. A random 'hey, let's go for a drive' on a Saturday led us to the most gorgeous set of waterfalls only an hour away...and right next to the freakin highway! The sound of the waterfalls dims the highway noises. We sat on the rocks in the hot sun with our feet dangling in the water and marvelled at little we knew about our own backyard.
It is wild that places like that can be hidden in almost plain sight. Back in high school we had this spot called "The Shanty." It was an old abandoned house. It was right off of a major road near a walmart, strip malls, etc. In an area of the city that was assumed to be built out. But there was a small gap in the brush along the side of the road and if you knew to drive through it, on the other side there was a dirt road. If you followed it, it led to a semi-large home in dis-repair with a dirty pool. Less than a quarter mile off of a major road in the middle of civilization was this home that felt like it was on it's own prairie. There was a family of rattlesnakes living on the first floor, and the property made you feel like you were miles away from the city. All of the brush and trees along the road basically eliminated all traffic noise.
We eventually brought an old couch out there and put it on the roof to hang out on and smoke weed. Some kids from a rival high school eventually found our spot and threw our couch off the roof. Supposedly there was a fight there and the owners of the property found out. I wasn't there for that stuff so don't quite remember what happened, but eventually they blocked off the entrance with a gate and had cops stopping by every now and again, so we eventually just stopped going. It's often amazing just how much stuff is hidden only a short walk off of a major road or highway. We drive through the world with our eyes on the road, while blind to everything else along it.
I was raised in NYC and my favorite museum of all is the Natural History Museum. That being said, in Washington D.C is the best museum in my opinion, the Post Office Museum. I think most people don't go to it because they assume "what history can be learned through letters and packages." However that makes for a sparsely populated museum in a building grandiose and occupied by some of the coolest displays and facts I've seen. You can even bring children and let them play the game of tossing boxes into bags like a mock carnival game. It's full of amazing history especially that of mail and how it was delivered in the western frontier. Best of all, If you're knowledgeable of Lysander Spooner and his qualms with usps then you can begin to take away the bias in some of the "historical facts" and get a sense of just how amazing it must've been to have delivered mail in a developing america.
So much of the sacred hidden among the mundane. That reminds me of the Pigeon Racing Museum in Oklahoma City. I used to have to go there quite often for work and one day decided to give myself an extra hour on my way to the airport and it was fascinating. Nobody was there, but apparently the racing pigeons of today were descended from messenger pigeons from the 18th and 19th century. They even had a specific line of pigeons at that museum that were descended from pigeons that served inn ww1. I had assumed they had basic telephony in WW1 that something like a messenger pigeon would be of no use, but in actuality these messenger pigeons were used frequently in ww1 and even to direct forces in rather important ways. They had some descendants of a pigeon there that had served in the battle of Verdun. After the battle was over, the pigeon diedd from shrapnel wounds and it received a medal (I didn't even know they did that for pigeons).
It was a fascinating tour. I even got to see some of the descendants, but I was the only one there and it was an off-day so I didn't get to see any of the pigeon racing. I'm a big fan of obscure museums and artifacts from times gone by. The things we've left behind, the people we once were, the experiences that were once had before modern conveniences replaced them. We often forget that this civilized world we live in now was once the bare naked edge of order and that it was all chaos beyond the rift.
Thanks for telling me your story about the Post Office Museum. I really enjoyed it and the memory it stirred within me about the Pigeon Museum in Oklahoma. I've gifted you a one year subscription to the substack, I hope you enjoy it.
It means a lot, I love your writing because it makes me think about things more than just saying "how don't you understand this, this is obvious". I often read your posts and go on to talk to my friends who may not even be concerned with the thoughts of commodity pricing and how generations transition to different technologies and get them thinking about what it means to them. I recently talked to a fellow NYCer about the sacred and mundane and they told me about how much it surprised them that people can live next to a mecca like the statue of liberty or the empire state building but see it as nothing more than an inconvenient tourist trap. We even both agreed that we sometimes see these sacred places like that too. I think your writing made us take a step back and appreciate what we sometimes consider to be so unimportant as really a beacon of hope for so many people. Thanks flirt.
There was an Art Installation of an Inverted Pylon I went to see in Greenwich London. I wasn't expecting much of it but to this day it has brought back a pleasant memory. When you arrive it is almost like you are in the middle of nowhere and just alone with a bizarre pylon left wondering how it manages to stand upside down. From one direction you can see all the London skyscrapers in the distance across the river, I sat down and just felt a peace. Of being disconnected from the city, the noise and the people. I enjoyed the solitude and just sat there watching the summer sunset in the distance. I still remember the feeling yet still don't fully understand why such a mundane place could bring such an experience.
The Adirondacks in Upstate New York and the White Mountains in New Hampshire are both within 3 hours of me. Gorgeous scenery, lots of history and some of the tallest mountains in the Eastern U.S. I would love to explore some of the Great Camps out in the Dacks, huge historic mansion-like cabins built out in the woods by rich folk back in the late 1800s. Not sure if you have been to Vermont yet, but if you make it here I'll buy you a beer!
I still need to make a true trip to New England. For that part of the country I have only really ever been to Boston, I hear so much about Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. I will make a summer trip out of it one of these years before I get too old.
I have travelled the east coast of Australia both with my parents and then as an adult. Car, train, plane and then by motorbike:) Where I'm situated, you typically have to travel north to the tropics to see rainforest and waterfalls...or so I thought. A random 'hey, let's go for a drive' on a Saturday led us to the most gorgeous set of waterfalls only an hour away...and right next to the freakin highway! The sound of the waterfalls dims the highway noises. We sat on the rocks in the hot sun with our feet dangling in the water and marvelled at little we knew about our own backyard.
It is wild that places like that can be hidden in almost plain sight. Back in high school we had this spot called "The Shanty." It was an old abandoned house. It was right off of a major road near a walmart, strip malls, etc. In an area of the city that was assumed to be built out. But there was a small gap in the brush along the side of the road and if you knew to drive through it, on the other side there was a dirt road. If you followed it, it led to a semi-large home in dis-repair with a dirty pool. Less than a quarter mile off of a major road in the middle of civilization was this home that felt like it was on it's own prairie. There was a family of rattlesnakes living on the first floor, and the property made you feel like you were miles away from the city. All of the brush and trees along the road basically eliminated all traffic noise.
We eventually brought an old couch out there and put it on the roof to hang out on and smoke weed. Some kids from a rival high school eventually found our spot and threw our couch off the roof. Supposedly there was a fight there and the owners of the property found out. I wasn't there for that stuff so don't quite remember what happened, but eventually they blocked off the entrance with a gate and had cops stopping by every now and again, so we eventually just stopped going. It's often amazing just how much stuff is hidden only a short walk off of a major road or highway. We drive through the world with our eyes on the road, while blind to everything else along it.
I was raised in NYC and my favorite museum of all is the Natural History Museum. That being said, in Washington D.C is the best museum in my opinion, the Post Office Museum. I think most people don't go to it because they assume "what history can be learned through letters and packages." However that makes for a sparsely populated museum in a building grandiose and occupied by some of the coolest displays and facts I've seen. You can even bring children and let them play the game of tossing boxes into bags like a mock carnival game. It's full of amazing history especially that of mail and how it was delivered in the western frontier. Best of all, If you're knowledgeable of Lysander Spooner and his qualms with usps then you can begin to take away the bias in some of the "historical facts" and get a sense of just how amazing it must've been to have delivered mail in a developing america.
So much of the sacred hidden among the mundane. That reminds me of the Pigeon Racing Museum in Oklahoma City. I used to have to go there quite often for work and one day decided to give myself an extra hour on my way to the airport and it was fascinating. Nobody was there, but apparently the racing pigeons of today were descended from messenger pigeons from the 18th and 19th century. They even had a specific line of pigeons at that museum that were descended from pigeons that served inn ww1. I had assumed they had basic telephony in WW1 that something like a messenger pigeon would be of no use, but in actuality these messenger pigeons were used frequently in ww1 and even to direct forces in rather important ways. They had some descendants of a pigeon there that had served in the battle of Verdun. After the battle was over, the pigeon diedd from shrapnel wounds and it received a medal (I didn't even know they did that for pigeons).
It was a fascinating tour. I even got to see some of the descendants, but I was the only one there and it was an off-day so I didn't get to see any of the pigeon racing. I'm a big fan of obscure museums and artifacts from times gone by. The things we've left behind, the people we once were, the experiences that were once had before modern conveniences replaced them. We often forget that this civilized world we live in now was once the bare naked edge of order and that it was all chaos beyond the rift.
Thanks for telling me your story about the Post Office Museum. I really enjoyed it and the memory it stirred within me about the Pigeon Museum in Oklahoma. I've gifted you a one year subscription to the substack, I hope you enjoy it.
It means a lot, I love your writing because it makes me think about things more than just saying "how don't you understand this, this is obvious". I often read your posts and go on to talk to my friends who may not even be concerned with the thoughts of commodity pricing and how generations transition to different technologies and get them thinking about what it means to them. I recently talked to a fellow NYCer about the sacred and mundane and they told me about how much it surprised them that people can live next to a mecca like the statue of liberty or the empire state building but see it as nothing more than an inconvenient tourist trap. We even both agreed that we sometimes see these sacred places like that too. I think your writing made us take a step back and appreciate what we sometimes consider to be so unimportant as really a beacon of hope for so many people. Thanks flirt.
There was an Art Installation of an Inverted Pylon I went to see in Greenwich London. I wasn't expecting much of it but to this day it has brought back a pleasant memory. When you arrive it is almost like you are in the middle of nowhere and just alone with a bizarre pylon left wondering how it manages to stand upside down. From one direction you can see all the London skyscrapers in the distance across the river, I sat down and just felt a peace. Of being disconnected from the city, the noise and the people. I enjoyed the solitude and just sat there watching the summer sunset in the distance. I still remember the feeling yet still don't fully understand why such a mundane place could bring such an experience.
I've always felt that the best Art installations are outside of museums
The Adirondacks in Upstate New York and the White Mountains in New Hampshire are both within 3 hours of me. Gorgeous scenery, lots of history and some of the tallest mountains in the Eastern U.S. I would love to explore some of the Great Camps out in the Dacks, huge historic mansion-like cabins built out in the woods by rich folk back in the late 1800s. Not sure if you have been to Vermont yet, but if you make it here I'll buy you a beer!
I still need to make a true trip to New England. For that part of the country I have only really ever been to Boston, I hear so much about Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. I will make a summer trip out of it one of these years before I get too old.
Last year I visited Tallulah Falls in Northern Georgia. Gorgeous spot tucked in the Appalachian Mountains. Also hit a moonshine distillery nearby.
Half Dome/ Yosemite National Park is a pretty amazing thing to see.