Show Us A Picture You've Taken Of Something Unusual, Uncommon or Strange

Quite Unusual: Planes are not strange or unusual but what about a bunch of planes parked along a busy street many miles away from any airport?

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This one was a puzzler. Who did they belong to? Why were they there? How did they get there? Never did find out. After sitting there for years, one day they were gone
 

JonDouglas said:
Quite Unusual: Planes are not strange or unusual but what about a bunch of planes parked along a busy street many miles away from any airport?

sep_providenceroad_planes.jpg


This one was a puzzler. Who did they belong to? Why were they there? How did they get there? Never did find out. After sitting there for years, one day they were gone
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Oh we have that too... but in better conditions. Lots of people around here own gliders, and microlights, and keep them on their long driveways or garages
 
JonDouglas said:
I was hoping some woman here could explain that woman's behavior but will settle for a Clouseau response (e.g., "Not now Kato." or "Do you have a reum?"). :)
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May be she had always wanted to stop and take a look see, but didn't know if she should.
So...when she saw you guys , she thought now would be the perfect time.

If you were looking so would she...and she might of thought she'd be safe.
 
hollydolly said:
Oh we have that too... but in better conditions. Lots of people around here own gliders, and microlights, and keep them on their long driveways or garages
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Same here. We have an area called Sierra Sky Ranch, and people have their airplanes parked in their garages of their homes.
And there own little private air strip to take off and land. All right adjacent to a very busy road...
 
The Mystery Tower And The Swedish Nightingale: This was something unusual that we came across on one of our winter rides - a solitary castle tower or turret sitting on a hill above an abandoned air force base on Cape Cod. What was it and why was it there?

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We learned that the tower was connected to the famous opera singer and "Swedish Nightingale" Jenny Lind (1820-1887). In 1850, Lind went to America at the invitation of the showman P. T. Barnum and gave 93 large-scale concerts. One of these was at the Firchburg Railroad Station in Boston, which is where the story began.

The popular story is that the concert Jenny Lind performed at the depot in Boston was oversold with countless fans being left outside of the auditorium. These fans were understandably angry and were on the verge of causing a riot. In order to quell the masses Lind is purported to have stepped out into one of the two stone towers of the building and sang to the crowd from one of the turrets. This appeased the people and the show would go off without a hitch.
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The tower you see above is the very turret from which Lind allegedly sang to the crowd. Below is a picture of the storied railroad station in Boston before it was torn down.

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Many years later, in 1927, the railroad depot was about to be torn down when Boston lawyer Henry Aldrich, an admirer of Lind’s, stepped in. He purchased the tower where the ‘Swedish Nightingale’ had purportedly sung during her 1850 concert. The tower was dismantled brick by brick and moved to property he had purchased in North Truro. Today, the tower stands next to the abandoned air force base, whose antennae also appears next the tower. The tower is located at coordinates 42.034672376007954, -70.05528264946412.

Jenny Lind lives on today as part of the Lore of Cape Cod, not to mention a number of other places in the U.S. It would be hard to overstate her popularity back on those days.
 
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A Big Rock Is Not Unusual But This One Has An Unusual History:

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The above outcropping of granite ledge is inscribed with the story of the colonial hostage negotiation and release of Mary White Rowlandson from captivity. Angered by the spread of colonial settlements, native chief Metacomet (known to European settlers as King Philip) led the Nipmuc, Narragansett, and Wampanoag in defense of their land. In February 1676, several hundred indigenous peoples attacked Lancaster, MA, and captured Mary White Rowlandson, her three children, and 20 others, and took them into the wilderness for several months. They returned to Lancaster in late April 1676 where, as the inscription says, John Hoar of Concord negotiated Mary’s release at this huge, flat-topped piece of granite ledge. Thus, it is known as Redemption Rock and is on what was once the mid-state trail at coordinates 42.50659456480648, -71.86983948429713.
 
A Plaything For Giants: I ran across this rather large trebuchet up in NH. They could toss refrigerators and cars at the castle with this beast.

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Although these playthings are not all that unusual (there's several just down the road from us), one this large is quite rare, if not without peer.
 
Out Of This World: Below is a steerable radar antenna that is part of MIT's (Lincoln Laboratory) Haystack Observatory.

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What makes this unusual is that it is a 1950s sputnik-era radar that has been totally updated to track space objects in conjunction with two other facilities, ARPA Long-Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar (ALTAIR, in the Marshall Islands) and Globus II (in Norway). Together they track thousands of objects to monitor the increasingly cluttered geosynchronous orbit to reduce the probability of collisions. The three also monitor satellite and spacecraft launches. Below is another picture, taken from the parking area by the scatter array facility.

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The Haystack facility is very active in tracking orbital debris and other space factors.
 
JonDouglas said:
Out Of This World: Below is a steerable radar antenna that is part of MIT's (Lincoln Laboratory) Haystack Observatory.

apr28_2014_haystack_spaceradar.jpg


What makes this unusual is that it is a 1950s sputnik-era radar that has been totally updated to track space objects in conjunction with two other facilities, ARPA Long-Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar (ALTAIR, in the Marshall Islands) and Globus II (in Norway). Together they track thousands of objects to monitor the increasingly cluttered geosynchronous orbit to reduce the probability of collisions. The three also monitor satellite and spacecraft launches. Below is another picture, taken from the parking area by the scatter array facility.

jun12_2020_haystack_satdishgs.jpg


The Haystack facility is very active in tracking orbital debris and other space factors.
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I'm amazed there hasn't been a collision yet (that I know of) what with all the satellites plus debris, not to mention hurtling space rocks. And I've wondered if there's a built in technology that makes satellites collision-proof, and maybe that's what they're using in self-driven automobiles.
 
Have A Seat:

I had ridden by this place numerous times but this time I stopped, which turned out to be both interesting and unusual.

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The building was what was left of an old, smaller chair factory in a city that was once the chair making capital of the U.S. The back half had burned down. Inside was an older (than me, which made him very old) gentleman who was owner, operator and chair maker of the place. He had a lot of trouble just getting around but seemed determined to keep the place going. There was really nothing extraordinary about the chairs made there but he said he sold some every now and then. Being into woodworking, I asked if he had a pattern lathe. That question got me somewhat of a rebuke and was told I couldn't see it. Not wanting to upset the man, I thanked him for his time, wished him well and left. It has been over 5 years and I haven't been back. If he's still working, it would be a miracle.
 
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