The Hills Are Turning Green

Some photos of the area where I grew up.  The hills are being painted green by spring.

Note! Click on photos to view full size. 

The two hills and hollow in the background are the woods that I played in while growing up.  In the foreground is the Union Railroad maintenance yard.

These photos were taken from the Sam's Club / Gabriel Bros. parking lot in Monroeville, Pennsylvania on Easter Sunday.

 The Union Railroad round house. The turntable is somewhat visible in full size, it is painted yellow at the ends.

For more information on railroad roundhouses see:

Wikipedia, Roundhouse













A zoom shot of the hillside showing the colors.  I love when the trees are like this.

The hollow between the hills.  Many adventures occurred in this hollow with my brother-in-law, the naturalist. Before he was my brother-in-law, he was my best friend. I didn't like his sister then.  She was a young snot.  Odd when I came back from the service I liked his sister better them him.  Snots grow up into beautiful women.  Anyhow, this is a lovely woods and I consider myself fortunate to have grown up here.  The vast majority of the green in this picture is sugar maple.  This hollow is magnificent in the fall.

This beautiful green mist is not leaves budding, but rather flowers.  Odd looking flowers, but they do not rely on insects to pollinate them. They use the wind.instead, hence the flowers come first so that the leaves do not inhibit pollination.  This may be the source of your spring sinus problems.

   
In the center of this photo on the distant hill, there is a rock outcrop. It is barely visible in full size.  It is located in one of the most inaccessible areas of our woods.  The inaccessibility and the mysterious outcrop always seemed mystical to me.  I used to go there and talk to God as a youth.  God didn't reply, but with the magical atmosphere here, I always felt that God was near.  I called this place Mount Olympus. It was a Holy place in my youth.

Here is another one of my favorite bridges.  It is the Hall Station Bridge for US 22.  Wilkins Township is on the far end, and Monroeville is on the near end.  The span is 1127 feet long and was originally built in 1942 and widened in 1957.  It is a beautiful bridge.

The creek, Thompson Run, that formed this valley is visible under the main span.  It is not a very large creek yet look at the work it has done over the centuries.

For an incredible amount of information on this bridge see:  Bridges and Tunnels of Allegheny County, Hall Station Bridge

That would be your's truly's hand in the mirror while I was taking the photo.  It was raining and I was trying to keep the lens dry.  This shot is from Home Depot's parking lot in Wilkins Township.

The Thompson Run Valley from the back of  Sears.  The creek and the Union Railroad are heading for Turtle Creek.

The Monroeville end of the bridge looking from Thompson Run Road.

Looking toward Wilkins Township from Thompson Run Road.

The uneven spacing of the main arches is due to the bridge being widened in 1957.

The above photo zoomed in.

No, you can't walk the tracks.











No lousy sign is going to stop me, I crossed the fence to get this picture.  I fully expected the railroad bulls to come along.

The Union Railroad and I have a long history of antagonizing each other.  As a child I used to pick wild strawberries near the tracks.  The bulls would chase us off.  One time someone shot the place up with a pellet gun.  I was under suspicion.  I swear I had nothing to do with that incident.  While the URR has maintained a dislike for me, I have always loved it--despite the bulls.  I still love to hear the throbbing diesels, often 5 of them linked together, open full throttle and barely moving the train at 10 mph.  Ore and slag are heavy. 

The Hall Station Bridge from my illegal highly trespassed vantage point near the URR locomotive shop. 

The Hall Station Bridge from the s-bend on Thompson Run Road.

Indeed the bulls still patrol, but they have got fancy.  They used to have plain brown sedans. They are probably looking for me.  Right across the tracks from his location is where the strawberries grew.  Ah the joy of running away from the bulls while trying not to dump your strawberries.  Those wild strawberries were only the size of the tip of your little finger, but one had more flavor than an entire package of those inbred tasteless monstrosities that they sell in the grocery stores.  Note to strawberry geneticists: with your current methods, your goal to provide a strawberry the size of a melon will still have only one strawberry's worth of flavor distributed among 5 pounds of tasteless pulp.

For more information on the Union Railroad see:

Union Railroad Company, History

Wikipedia, Union Railroad 


Carsten Lundsten. Union Railroad


Logo Image Credit, Wikipedia above.