Gribblenation

On the Top Ten Places I enjoy going to the most, you would find Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh. I was fortunate to have grown up a 25 minute drive from the park, and after years of going on school picnics, marching in fall fantasy parades in high school and college, you can easily take the park for granted.  It wasn't until I moved to North Carolina that I truly realized how special a place Kennywood is. On this trip to PA, my mom, dad, Maggie and I went to the park.  This was Maggie's first visit to the park, and the first time for me since 2002.    We got to the park at around 2 p.m. beginning a memorable day at the park! Here's the photo set on flickr. Kennywood, in operation since 1898, is one of the oldest amusement parks in the country.  Home to five roller coasters, which includes three classic wooden coasters, Kennywood is a roller coaster enthusiast's playground. The first coaster that I always go on when going to Kennywood is the Racer.  The Racer is a

As indicated in the previous post, I found several new areas to observe progress on construction of the 'US 311 Bypass' from Spencer Road to US 220, that I decided to break this report into two parts, and will do the same on my web page later this week. I. Design-Build Project from Spencer Road to US 220, Due to Open in Late 2012: A. Spencer Road This is the beginning of the Design-Build contract won by Barnhill Construction last year. The first photo looks back at the end of the previous contract: The water truck is there I believe to water the cleared roadbeds to prevent too much dust from blowing around. Believe me, it happens, Weekend watering, I guess, is not in the contract. The photo below looks south from Spencer Road, showing some clearing having gone on in the distance, but not near Spencer Road... But, it appears this will not be the case for long... There were at least 8 earth moving vehicles parked just to the south of the road, ready to start digging. B. Banner W

I decided that I was tired of being hold up in 100 degree weather, and a road trip in the heat would be an excellent test to see how my AC was working. So I left early Sunday morning, to beat the extreme heat, and headed off to High Point and south to once again take note of the latest progress on building the I-74 freeway, still expected to open around November. Since I have been given several other places to check progress on the new section from Spencer Road to US 220, I will be including those photos in Part 2, as well as splitting the two contracts up onto separate pages on my I-74 pages as well. I. High Point East Belt, Business 85 to I-85 A. Baker Road In a semi-historic moment, not quite up the meeting of railroads in Utah, Segment 3 of the East Belt was finally joined to Segment 2 earlier in July, as you can see below: Asphalt now extends from Business 85 to just before Kersey Valley Road, most appears to be the final layers. As you may see in the future westbound lanes, the r