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The end of the road
It's a quiet day in the office. As is often the case at most companies on the Friday before a holiday weekend, there are a lot of people who didn't come in today. Many of those who did come in this morning left early. It makes the day seem to drag on when there are so few folk in here.
Yesterday, I had my hands in the pockets of one of my cold weather coats and found a few unintentional mementos of the work trip to NC a couple weeks ago: the casings from a couple oddly short 9mm rounds that'd been fired and some bolts.
The trip was an odd one. I and a coworker drove down to an installation in North Carolina about 30 miles south of Norfolk VA. We were doing basically the same thing we did earlier this year, supporting the tests of some stuff my and a couple other companies are working on. This test involved 3 sites on the installation, one of which was a huge area full of hundreds of vehicles in various states of decay.
Most of the vehicles there were former military ones. While there were only a couple Hummers (both in conditions that indicated they'd been in bad accidents), there were a lot of the old Chevy C5 trucks (suv's) that the military used a lot in the 80's. Tons of old K cars were there too, many in that odd pale green the army liked ot use a couple decades ago. Adding to the variety were rows of heavier vehicles, including construction equipment, fire trucks, ambulances, 40' trailers, cargo modules and more. There was even an RV there that looked just like the one at the end of the movie Stripes, complete with Army numbers on the doors.
It wasn't so much a graveyard as it was a sort of vehicular purgatory. The vehicles there had outlived their useful life in service and brought there. The ones still in halfway decent shape were kept running to be used by the people working on the base (No off-base vehicles could be driven around the base. You came onsite and were given vehicles to drive around while working there). The rest were parked on the big lot. When the ones used on base no longer ran, they were parked there too. Fuel, oil, freon, and other such things were drained from them and they were left to sit. Most had been in place so long that their tires had gone flat and begun to crack and rot away where the wheels rested on the deflated rubber. When needed, some would be selected and hauled to other locations to be used in projects like the one I was there for, or simply to be used for target practice or other tests that'd destroy them.
It was almost eerie in a way. Rows upon rows of derelict vehicles, waiting silently to be taken away to their eventual demises. I found myself really wishing I had a camera and a bunch of rolls of black and white film. There were so many wonderful shots to be taken there. One picture I really ached to get would have been of part of a bit of construction equipment. One area, just in front of the operator's cab had accumulated some dirt and there was a pile of moss growing there. Sticking out of the moss were some dead wildflowers. Sadly, cameras were very much verboten on the base. Ah well.
I'm not sure what the odd sort of attraction for the place was to me. I guess it was kind of a vehicular version of an abandoned building. While working there, I'd find myself wondering about the stories some of those vehicles could tell.
It was an interesting place, and about half of the work I did while down there was at that particular location. I really wish I could've taken some pictures. About all I was able to take from there were the impressions I got and the knowledge that I'm now very good at removing and reattaching vehicle hoods very quickly in frigid weather. Now there's a skill that's in high demand. I guess I can also say that if anyone ever needs a person who can jump between and walk along the tops of 40' trailers that are slightly icy, while carrying expensive electronic equipment, I'm yer man.
Oh, and the 9mm shells were found in one of two cars that I'd nicknamed "The Bonnie & Clyde Death Cars" because they'd been used for some kind of small arms practice. The things were riddled with holes. The shells couldn't have been from the rounds fired through the vehicles, since there were a number of hollow plastic slugs in there too. What I'm told were "rat rounds." I'm guessing someone just fired 'em near that vehicle at some point and the ejected shells went into it.
The bolts were from some of the hoods I removed and subsequently reattached quickly without using all the original bolts.
Yesterday, I had my hands in the pockets of one of my cold weather coats and found a few unintentional mementos of the work trip to NC a couple weeks ago: the casings from a couple oddly short 9mm rounds that'd been fired and some bolts.
The trip was an odd one. I and a coworker drove down to an installation in North Carolina about 30 miles south of Norfolk VA. We were doing basically the same thing we did earlier this year, supporting the tests of some stuff my and a couple other companies are working on. This test involved 3 sites on the installation, one of which was a huge area full of hundreds of vehicles in various states of decay.
Most of the vehicles there were former military ones. While there were only a couple Hummers (both in conditions that indicated they'd been in bad accidents), there were a lot of the old Chevy C5 trucks (suv's) that the military used a lot in the 80's. Tons of old K cars were there too, many in that odd pale green the army liked ot use a couple decades ago. Adding to the variety were rows of heavier vehicles, including construction equipment, fire trucks, ambulances, 40' trailers, cargo modules and more. There was even an RV there that looked just like the one at the end of the movie Stripes, complete with Army numbers on the doors.
It wasn't so much a graveyard as it was a sort of vehicular purgatory. The vehicles there had outlived their useful life in service and brought there. The ones still in halfway decent shape were kept running to be used by the people working on the base (No off-base vehicles could be driven around the base. You came onsite and were given vehicles to drive around while working there). The rest were parked on the big lot. When the ones used on base no longer ran, they were parked there too. Fuel, oil, freon, and other such things were drained from them and they were left to sit. Most had been in place so long that their tires had gone flat and begun to crack and rot away where the wheels rested on the deflated rubber. When needed, some would be selected and hauled to other locations to be used in projects like the one I was there for, or simply to be used for target practice or other tests that'd destroy them.
It was almost eerie in a way. Rows upon rows of derelict vehicles, waiting silently to be taken away to their eventual demises. I found myself really wishing I had a camera and a bunch of rolls of black and white film. There were so many wonderful shots to be taken there. One picture I really ached to get would have been of part of a bit of construction equipment. One area, just in front of the operator's cab had accumulated some dirt and there was a pile of moss growing there. Sticking out of the moss were some dead wildflowers. Sadly, cameras were very much verboten on the base. Ah well.
I'm not sure what the odd sort of attraction for the place was to me. I guess it was kind of a vehicular version of an abandoned building. While working there, I'd find myself wondering about the stories some of those vehicles could tell.
It was an interesting place, and about half of the work I did while down there was at that particular location. I really wish I could've taken some pictures. About all I was able to take from there were the impressions I got and the knowledge that I'm now very good at removing and reattaching vehicle hoods very quickly in frigid weather. Now there's a skill that's in high demand. I guess I can also say that if anyone ever needs a person who can jump between and walk along the tops of 40' trailers that are slightly icy, while carrying expensive electronic equipment, I'm yer man.
Oh, and the 9mm shells were found in one of two cars that I'd nicknamed "The Bonnie & Clyde Death Cars" because they'd been used for some kind of small arms practice. The things were riddled with holes. The shells couldn't have been from the rounds fired through the vehicles, since there were a number of hollow plastic slugs in there too. What I'm told were "rat rounds." I'm guessing someone just fired 'em near that vehicle at some point and the ejected shells went into it.
The bolts were from some of the hoods I removed and subsequently reattached quickly without using all the original bolts.