Could the Gov Be Clogging Highways on Purpose for Environmental Reasons?

Having lived on Gum Spring Road for over 20 years we’ve seen daily traffic rise from fewer than 400 cars a day to well over 10,000 each weekday. Over the years we’ve had many conversations about traffic in our immediate area and asked “where have all the tax dollars gone?” many times. Jokingly, I’ve often vented that it’s the “anti-sprawlist’s” way of preventing more development. Of course, I wasn’t serious and actually believed it was just that building fiefdoms and Taj Mahals was more important to government spenders than building something to benefit those who send them the money in the first place.

Earlier today I came across a blog post that provides another plausible explanation for the incredible traffic jams that citizens in most major cities have become bitterly accustomed to. Basically, the traffic jams are viewed by some greenies as a very good thing because people will be motivated or forced to reply more on public transportation or telecommuting.

Could this be possible? Could greenies really be using high school level theory to resist the investment of billions worth of tax revenues into improving our roads? Based on recent news I do believe this is partly to blame for the complete lack of effort to build out our infrastructure at a pace even resembling our population growth. If I’m right, I say fine. Just let us know what you are doing and why and reduce our taxes significantly so we aren’t paying for goods never delivered.

Here are some articles on this very subject:

• Wired: The Upside of Traffic
• Wall Street Journal: How Traffic Jams Help the Environment
• One Green Gnome: How Can Traffic Jams Help the Environment?

Yuck! Traffic Issues all Over the Area Today

This is a snapshot of the current traffic situation as depicted by the traffic.com tool used on the homepage. Friday August 15th at 3:15 pm.

I haven’t seen it this bad before today. It’s registering a 6.6 for 66 Westbound. Yuck!

Typical Monday Morning Traffic

We finally figured out why traffic was so light during the recent Loudoun County Fair! It was peaceful for the first time in years on the road…

Ain’t the net great? Y’all can find jes bout anything on it. This looks like a blast!

The Elusive High Speed Internet

Verizon had been sending us invitations to sign up for their high speed internet connection for months and I hadn’t called to inquire whether the service was available to our home in years so I decided to give it another try….

The guy, Paul, who got my call was great. I enjoyed hearing about his life atop a mountain up in Pennsylvania. Sounded similar to our life less the 10,000 cars passing by every day.

I explained to Paul several times that we had tried before only to discover that despite what his computer was telling him that the service was actually not available at our house. He assured me it was so I went ahead and signed up. Cautiously I told Kathy that we might be in luck, that Verizon was coming the following Wednesday to install high speed internet for a fraction of what we pay DirecWay for our satellite connection. I remained skeptical and didn’t have my hopes very high, but when the package arrived with all of the gadgetry to hook us up it appeared we might finally be on the internet highway at last.

Finally, the call came. Late Tuesday just hours before we were prepared to celebrate our arrival into the modern era Verizon called and left an AUTOMATED message telling us that the service was NOT available at our house! Aarrgghh! Being a male, the fact that what I had told Paul at Verizon was correct, helped to ease the pain of learning once again that our not-so-high speed internet connection would have to do for another while.

The Latest Strange Happenings

In the 20 years we’ve lived here on Gum Spring Road some strange things have happened and last night was no different!

Jamming away on my keyboard at about 11 pm last night when Kathy comes down to tell me a man had showed up in our driveway. My immediate thought was that someone had been in an accident or run out of gas so I proceeded to head upstairs to sort out the situation and help them out. At about the same time there was a knock on our front door.

Expecting to see the “man” my wife was referring to I was surprised to see a Loudoun County Police Officer. He proceeded to explain that a car had lost control a few hundred feet north of our house and had flipped over. Strange thing was… there wasn’t anyone in the car!

At about that time our 17.6429867 year old son came outside to explain the situation….

He had been out front talking with a girl friend when a man walked up our driveway asking if he could borrow our phone to call his mom for a ride home. Being the good samaritan that I’ve raised him to be, he was happy to help “AJ” out. He called AJ’s mom and then decided since he wasn’t going very far to offer AJ a ride to the local 7-Eleven in South Riding. (!!!!!!!)

Of course, I’m learning all of this as the Officer was hearing this. So apparently AJ lost control of his car coming around the sharp curve, flipped the car over, staggered down the road, and calmly walked up our driveway. Our son, fearless as most teen boys are, ended up driving this lucky guy, AJ, to safety and freedom from possible arrest.

I asked the police officer to help explain to my son why he should NOT have done this, but his words seemed as ineffective as mine. Our 17.6429957 year old just isn’t much of a listener unless the voice is female and between the ages of 16 and 18.

I’m glad AJ survived a very nasty accident. I’m not glad my son didn’t come inside and get me before putting himself in potential danger. And I’m VERY glad no one was traveling the opposite direction on Gum Spring when AJ lost control of his car and came across the Northbound lane!

Drive safe please.

Black Bears in Virginia

Animal Control Worker’s Worst Nightmare

After receiving the series of photos below I finally understand why the woman at the Loudoun County Department of Animal Care and Control really didn’t want to make the trip out here when we called to report a bear the bear we had in our backyard!

“Gee thanks pal for all the great pics you took!”.

Attention all kids! Grow up to be photographers!!

Black Bears Having Fun

A family that lives in a typical new neighborhood in the suburbs decided to build a sturdy, colorful playground for their 3 and 4 year old sons.

They lined the bottom with smooth-stone gravel all around to avoid knee scrapes and other injuries. They finished building it one Friday evening and were very pleased with the end product.

The following morning, the mom was about to wake up the boys and have them go out to play in their new play center. These are pictures of what she saw from the upstairs window:

I wonder if the family still lives there or if they high tailed it back to the city?

Our First Bear Sighting

Shortly after we moved in 20 years ago we were told there had been some black bears living back in a cave not far from our house. Of course, as the years went by we wrote that off to someone trying to mess with us.

Then a few months ago we started to have trouble keeping our trash bags in our trash cans. Every morning the cans would be on their side and we’d have to hunt for the bags of trash. We knew something large was dragging them off into the woods, but we figured it was a couple of large raccoons teaming up or something. Little did we know….

After a couple of weeks of this Kathy finally found some large paw prints down at our pond.

This picture isn’t real clear, but it’s the only visual evidence we have. When I got home from work I went down and looked at it and agreed it could be a bear paw print. But, it still wasn’t “real”.

A couple of evenings later Kathy yelled down the steps “the bear is in the yard!” and being the skeptic that I am I slowly walked up knowing full well that she was pulling my leg. When I looked out the window and saw that bear sitting at the back corner of the field looking up towards our house my heart started pounding. A bear, a good sized bear, in our yard!

It was dusk when we saw him sitting there so we watched and waited. The night before he had eaten an 8 lb bag of food we feed the fish in our pond with so we were pretty sure he liked our place and would be moving up towards the house as it grew dark. Sure enough he walked up towards the house and then veered left towards the pond apparently remembering where he had scored a jackpot the night before. He nosed around for a minute and then realizing that he had eaten tonight’s dinner the night before he started for the house.

By now we had moved the trash cans into the garage to spare us the duty of picking up trash strewn about everywhere. So we were a little concerned that he might get annoyed at us for teasing him with all the easy goodies in the weeks before. A bear is one thing… a ticked off bear is quite another!

We were fascinated and enjoying our first ever bear sighting, but at the same time we were realizing that we had a bear in our yard and four kids who spend a lot of time in the yard. Bears and boys might not be the best combination! So we did what most people would do and we called the Sheriff’s Office and the Animal Control Department.

I got a kick out of my brief chat with the women at the Animal Control Department. She told me that their office closed in 3 minutes and that it’s rare a bear is still around by the time they arrive. So I told her to enjoy her evening and that we’d call the next day if we needed her. Her lack of enthusiasm may have had more to do with the difficulty of actually dealing with a captured bear then with her work hours. Check out this post for ane example of what I’m talking about: Bear Encounter

Our dedicated staff of officers at the Sheriff Department were more then willing to come out for a look. The first officer to arrive did so just in time to catch a look at the bear as he trotted off into the woods. It was his first bear sighting as well! A short while later two other officers arrived hoping to catch a look for themselves, but our bear was long gone or at least we were hoping he was.

Having 3 police officers and 3 police vehicles in the driveway I did what any responsible homeowner would do to provide some entertainment for them. We broke out the radar gun and went to the end of the driveway to hunt for other prey. Much to my surprise 10 or so cars went by at the speed limit or below and my own private police force quickly grew bored and went onto greener pastures.

I’m glad we had a bear sighting. Yes, it’s made our strolls through our woods a bit more dicey and for the first few days and my late night trips to the hot tub weren’t quite as relaxing as they had been pre-bear.

So please stay alert when you cruise Gum Spring Road. We’ve always had a healthy deer population and now you have to be on the lookout for bears as well. For more information about growing population of bears in Northern Virginia check out this great video and Website the State of Virginia has put together: Living with Bears in Virginia

Mark Fleshner

I don’t know Mark Fleshner and sadly will never have that opportunity. Mark died on January 4th 2008 just North of our house when he lost control driving on Gum Spring Road. Until a few minutes ago I didn’t even know Mark by name. I only knew there had been a fatal crash just a few hundred feet North of our home.

A Google search on ‘Gum Spring Road’ brought up an article about Marks accident and a couple clicks later I found myself on a site Mark’s brother Chris setup as an online memorial of sorts for his brother Mark. You can find it here: Fleshner

In the days, weeks, and now months that have passed since Mark’s tragic accident I’ve appreciated the flowers and wreaths that continue to be placed up against the tree where Mark lost his life. His family must still be hurting over their tragic loss. We’re very sorry for their loss.

I couldn’t help but notice Mark’s birthday was on August 10th so I’m sure his family will find the day difficult as they remember Mark. If it’s any comfort at all they should know that we’ll say a little prayer for them and their Mark on his birthday.

Here’s a picture of Mark (L) and Chris (R):

Be careful people! Drive safe and never forget that all of those cars you call “traffic” have people in them. Most of them good people, like Mark.