Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/19/this-iowa-bridge-trail-has-a-r.html
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Trippy, indeed!
There’s a lot of things I miss about Iowa City after living there for four years in the '90s, but the winters aren’t one of them. Though it might be interesting to ice skate across that bridge at night.
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The whole time watching the video, it was bugging me wondering who spent tens of millions of dollars on a giant bridge for recreational cycling, so that is useful info.
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I wonder whether this will cause accidents. I could certainly imagine it causing some people to lose their balance.
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Looks like the perfect venue to play frisbee with Jeff Bridges.
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The bridge is cool but the video is pretty awful. More of an excuse the faff about with a drone than anything else. You don’t need a drone to shoot night footage crossing the bridge, just slap a go-pro on a bike and have at it. And while you’re there speed up the aerial shots and add some up tempo music. I get that this is from a YouTube channel that just does drone shots but with some minor editing it would be much better.
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It’s hard to tell from the video but I get the impression that in real life the illusion breaks fairly quickly.
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One of the benefits of Iowa’s crazy 19th century railroad building explosion is lots of abandoned corridors to use for trails.
Little towns that have been declining for decades have discovered that cyclists are generally friendly, hungry and thirsty from all that pedaling.
More trail info here for those interested: http://www.inhf.org/what-we-do/protection/high-trestle-trail/
This trail will soon connect to the Raccoon River Valley Trail, which is said to be the nation’s largest loop trail at 70+ miles: https://raccoonrivervalleytrail.org/
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Madrid is about 15 miles from Ames, a couple hours from Iowa City. And they say it Mad-rid, not Ma-drid. How do I know? The locals will correct you. Somewhat angrily.
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Nextdoor in IL our bike trails are built on the remains of the IntraUrban rail lines which were used to get around the suburns before the transition to a car society. The bike path by me still has ruins of old houses along it.
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Wonder if it is a response to the Spanish-American war – in Wisconsin the town of Berlin is pronounced BER-lin (rhyming with the wizard Merlin) rather than like the German capital. Supposedly this was due to anti-German sentiment during WWI.
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Same with the town of Berlin, NY.
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Yeah, I’m familiar with Berlin. My family is all from Wisconsin. Kind of amazing that Rhinelander never got renamed, eh?
Michigan has a bunch of towns with names that aren’t pronounced the way you might expect. Milan, Saline, Gaylord, Alpena and Charlotte, just to name a few. If you actually speak French, there’s Detroit, Cadillac, Sault St. Marie, and half the major surface roads in Detroit. Dare to guess how they pronounce Dequindre around here?
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Also not far from Nevada, Iowa, pronounced Nuh-VAY-Duh.
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Yup, did my 5 years in Ames. I’ve even been all these dinky little towns.
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Same with Carmel, Indiana, emphasis on “car.” Every year some out-of-state person (usually a politician) says car-MEL on TV and everyone in Central Indiana goes crazy.
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Roulette, PA is pronounced Rŏw-lett - note the short O as in now. It’s not a mispronunciation of the game’s name, the town is named after a person.
Staunton, VA is pronounced Stanton for no reason I have ever found.
Newark, DE is pronounced New Ark, but Newark, NJ is pronounced Niwwirk.
Similarly, Townsend, DE is pronounced Town’s End, not tounzend.
Throop, PA is pronounced “Troop” by natives, and you could be excused for believing this is due to the local accent, but I’m told Throop street in Chicago and the various Throop edifices at CIT are also pronounced without the H.
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Central Iowa has experienced a high level of rain this spring and summer. Water levels are a lot higher than what’s seen in the video shot in 2014. Here are a few pics - https://photos.app.goo.gl/uREf6XHRCrGLM5yT6
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Yikes. I was in the middle of my studies in '93. Hope no one has to relive that nightmare flood again.
