Matt's New Mexico (Formerly Airstream) Adventure
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This story has fascinated me for decadess, I have to go see the Brooklyn Bridge whenever I am in New York…..
https://www.americanheritage.com/treasure-carpentry-shop
It is said that the first known instances of the bends were recorded building the caissons...
_"Not surprisingly, caisson work wasn't all that popular. Despite the princely (by 1871 standards) wages of $2.25 per day, McCullough estimates that one third of the caisson workers quit every week.
Some weren't so lucky. "Caisson disease," which is today known as "the bends," struck hundreds of the workers, and killed at least five. It also crippled Washington Roebling. In 1870, a fire broke out in one of the caissons, and he fought it for the better part of a day. When he finally left the caisson, he had to be carried home, where he was rubbed with a mixture of whiskey and salt, which doctors thought would improve his circulation. The next day, however, he was back on the job, again fighting the fire, and worsening his condition.
Roebling's brutal case of the bends ended up leaving him bedridden for much of the next thirteen years. He oversaw work on the bridge from his home in Brooklyn, while he developed an ever-increasing dependence on morphine and other painkillers. This is where the romantic epic part comes in: his wife Emily, the plucky young heroine, carried his messages to and from the workers on the bridge, ultimately becoming an engineer and designer in her own right."_
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Looks like a great adventure already! Thanks for the pics and the bits of history and local info are great!
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Travel day today. The trip was relatively smooth. I think we fried our trailer batteries again. We’re now researching lithium batteries which are suppose to be pretty amazing but are about 20x more expensive. And we need two of them. And possibly a new charger. Oh well. I’ll feel better when we get to a more primitive spot with no hook ups if we have better batteries. And the west is full of those.
When we got to our new spot near Mammoth Cave Natl Pk I went to pull the awning out, after not using it at all last week because we were camped beneath a beautiful and large shady tree. As soon as I started pulling it out (it rolls up at the top of the trailer) some very large black ants started to fall out, then some more, then some eggs, then all hell broke loose. The large black ants were living in the tree above our site and apparently nested inside the rolled up the awning. It was super gross. We killed them all including the queen.
It’s always something.
By the end of tomorrow I should be an expert on lithium trailer batteries. I’ll let you know.
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Everyone here is really nice. Hospitable in a Southern way. There’s really nothing I can do to alter the political landscape of half the country so I’m just doing my best to enjoy the different places and what they have to offer. I haven’t had a single political conversation with a local since we left and I’m happy to keep It that way. People vote for lots of different reasons. I’m sure plenty of people vote because of hate and intolerance but I think more people vote because of some longing for an idealistic “America” that never really was. They think America was great because of how successful and powerful we became. I think it’s great because of the people on whose backs we stood to achieve that “greatness” continue to persevere and make their presence known. I’ll be voting in TX this year so my vote will actually count for the first time since I was 18. I may even vote twice. I hear that’s legal now.
