Sunday, August 30, 2020

Re-link or un-link?

 

The Julianne Hough - Brooks Laich marriage watch continues.  

Julianne Hough and estranged husband Brooks Laich fuel reconciliation rumors as they enjoy friendly lunch together following split


Another pretty girl found

 

As I promised earlier with my post featuring Ashley Smouter, I would revisit the theme of pretty girls/women.   

So, for the second installment, meet Taylor Bryant.









The scientific value of the Aguas Zarcas meteorite

 

When I saw this article, I remembered reading about the fall of this meteorite. But even as the labs were gearing up to study it, the excitement of the fall over Costa Rica was fading.

Scientifically, though, it stayed really exciting.

An unusual meteorite, more valuable than gold, may hold the building blocks of life

And it's pretty, too.









"The Field Museum team has also been combing through Aguas Zarcas for the calcium-and aluminum-rich inclusions, the earliest minerals to condense out of the protosolar disk. Drifting around the disk, they gathered a record of the young Sun’s unruly outbursts, as surges of particle radiation left telltale signatures of helium and neon in each grain. “They are like flight recorders,” Heck says. “We can just count those elements that form and learn about the activity of the Sun.” 

Several other teams are going after the meteorite’s complex organic compounds. They formed millions of years later, as basic carbon molecules reacted in the warm, wet interior of Aguas Zarcas’s parent asteroid. Some of the products of that early chemistry are volatiles—compounds, frozen in pockets when the meteorite floated in cold space, that are unstable at room temperature on Earth and escape with their telltale smells. Using electronic “noses” designed for the purpose, researchers at Brown University and ASU are hoping to capture the fleeting chemicals before they fade.

Other carbon compounds are sturdier. At NASA Goddard, for example, Glavin’s team ground up bits of Aguas Zarcas with a mortar and pestle, mixed them in pure water, heated the mixture to almost boiling, and, using a mass spectrometer, analyzed the compounds rising off.

The process spat out a graph crowded with unknown organic molecules of different weights. “It’s like, oh my God, there’s likely hundreds of different amino acids in this meteorite,” Glavin says. “Murchison, for 50 years, has been the gold standard. Aguas is comparable.” The team is now working on a lower temperature technique to hunt for peptides: multiple amino acids bound together. If found, they would illustrate another level of prebiological space chemistry, suspected but never seen."

We've just heard the beginning of this scientific quest, I think.

Lighthouse of the Week, August 23-29, 2020: Punta Arenas, Venezuela

 

Every now and then you discover a place that you did not know anything about, even though you'd seen it on a map numerous times.  Such is the case with the Araya Peninsula of Venezuela, which is an interesting place. But map-wise, it's overshadowed by the island of Trinidad to its west, and the city of Caracas to its east.

It's so interesting, in fact, that soon I'll be devoting a post to the intriguing history, both natural and human, of this location. 

But first, a lighthouse.  It's a small one, really a light tower and not a lighthouse (the latter being a place that housed somebody, which has been the case for most of the lights I've featured.  Most, but not all.)  

A lot of the lights in this region share the same design, but different colors.  Punta Arenas is orange and white, like a Dreamsicle. 

Basic info:

Date [established] unknown. Active; focal plane 42 m (138 ft); white flash every 12 s. Approx. 12 m (39 ft) hexagonal (?) fiberglass tower, upper half red and lower half white, mounted on a 1-story brick base.

Location, location, location.

Pictures, pictures, pictures:

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Let's keep going on Highway 41

 

After the side trip to West Lafayette and Purdue University, the trek returns to Highway 41 and keeps pushing north.


Here's where Highway 41 joins with Indiana 52, with wind turbine power generators nearby. Google Maps says this is "Earl Park, Indiana".



This is actually the closest Highway 41 gets to the little hamlet of Earl Park.



Crossing Sugar Creek. Not the same Sugar Creek as the one that goes through Turkey Run State Park, which was much more interesting.



Intersection with Indiana 24, which is where Kentland, Indiana is located.



The scenery will change soon, very soon.

Quite a life, hope it continues

 

Saw the news that Flavio Briatore was in the hospital with coronavirus.

That name rang a few bells.  The first one was that Flavio was the father (primarily in the biological sense) of Heidi Klum's first.  Child, that be what I'm referring to.  The second is that Flavio has a rather checkered -- 

career in Formula 1 car racing.  

The third is that he moved on from Heidi to this (Elisabetta Gregoraci), also providing her with the genetic components to assemble and carry an offspring.  They were married at the time.  They aren't anymore.


So I hope this isn't Flavio's endgame.  But if it is, he played the game for all it was worth.



Ex-Renault Formula One boss Flavio Briatore, 70, is rushed to hospital in a 'serious' condition with coronavirus after an outbreak at his Billionaire club in Sardinia



Dis que ce n'est pas vrai

 

That phrase translates from French as "Say it is not true".  I tried to translate "Say it isn't so", but couldn't quite get it right.

Anyway, this was apparently the reaction of much of the French populace when three women on the beach were requested to cover their exposed tetons (nipples, i.e., they were topless, as is customary on the beaches of France in many places) by the local police.

It turns out that the police may have too forcefully told the women to cover up, because there was another family with children that didn't want the children to see other women in their wild natural state.

But still, it was interpreted as an affront (as opposed to an abback) to traditional French practice.  

Now, I find it a darned shame when an otherwise artistically gorgeous nude photograph on Instagram is marred by some awkward and artificial cover-upping of the tetons.  I admit to admiring women in their wild, natural state.  I guess it's too bad I'm not French.

Fury as topless sunbathers are told to cover breasts by French police


You will note that I have practiced restraint by not illustrating this post.  I was quite tempted.




Sunday, August 23, 2020

One more girl in a shirt

 

Sarah Clayton, once a Playboy model, now her own model (and her own very active sexual lifestyle) at SarahClayton.com, does her own very good version of a girl in a shirt picture.


We're back on Highway 41, but we're making a side trip

 

Returning to the Highway 41 end-to-end Streetview Trek, but we're making a side trip here.

The last scene we saw was in Boswell, Indiana. Had to mention that Boswell is the home of the Benton County Fairgrounds.

  



About 30 miles from Boswell (take 352 east to 52, which will get you there without another number) is Purdue University in West Lafayette. To note the close passage, a scene or two.

Campus scene - I think that's the Purdue Memorial Union



I know that's the football stadium; not the most picturesque time to drive by.



Boilermaker statue



Recreational Sports Center -- there's a swimming pool in there somewhere, the Boilermaker Aquatic Center originally, now the Morgan J. Burke Aquatic Center.



Now back to Highway 41 north of Boswell.

Lost my respect

 

Even if he was the man that killed despicable Osama bin Laden, he doesn't have to be a jerk.

Navy SEAL, 44, who killed Osama bin Laden is forced to delete maskless tweet of himself on aboard a Delta flight - as the airline threatens to ban him

  • Former Navy SEAL Robert O'Neill, 44, posted a maskless selfie from a Delta flight on Wednesday afternoon
  • 'I'm not a p***y,' he wrote alongside his refusal to cover his face
  • The post faced instant backlash from the likes of actress Alyssa Milano
  • The tweet was deleted but O'Neill said his wife removed it as he hit back that masks weren't needed
  • Delta say they are aware of the incident and O'Neill could face an airline ban
  • O'Neill was the Navy SEAL who shot dead Osama bin Laden in 2011
So, you protected our country.  Now you should respect its citizens.


Lighthouse of the Week, August 16-22, 2020: Castillo Grande, Cartagena, Colombia

 

I decided to maintain my focus on the western coast of South America this week, and to do that, I'm featuring the well-named lighthouse Castillo Grande, which is now in a very urban setting in Cartagena, Colombia.  And actually, I overshot the mark -- it's really on the northern coast of Colombia, not the western coast, because of that little connection to Panama.  Details, details.

It looks somewhat historical, but it's quite recent.  Here are the basic stats from the Lighthouse Directory:

1973. Active; focal plane 24 m (79 ft); white flash every 7 seconds 22 m (72 ft) unpainted round concrete block tower with lantern and gallery. Lantern painted white. A 3rd (?) order Fresnel lens is in use.

To find it, click right here. The lighthouse crowns, er, is at the head, er, tip, of the peninsular projection Castillo Grande.  OK, you look at the satellite image and see if you can think of anything else.

Now, el pictoros.   And seriously, "pictoro" is not a word in Spanish or English, but it should be.



by nfin10

In case you missed it ... one of 2020's great sports stories

 

Sports in a world of coronavirus closures and lockouts and lockdowns and virtual events and fanless stadiums and artificial crowd noise -- well, it's been a mixed bag.  Baseball in the U.S. is trying a 60-game season (which could possibly yield a .400 hitter for the season);  NHL and NBA are in a "bubble", trying to have a championship;  Liverpool won a sprint-to-the-finish Premier League title;  they managed to finish the UEFA Champions League this weekend (Bayern Munich defeated Paris St. Germain);  men's pro golf had it's first major of three (the Brit is off) with a youngster winning it;  and the Indy 500 ran today, too.

Minor league sports are adrift;  most college sports are canceled;  the Olympics next year are still not a certainty;  tennis may get in the U.S. Open with a field missing many top stars, there's no Wimbledon but I guess there's still supposed to be a French Open in the autumn.  

So, for fans of sports, there's a lot missing and a lot of uncertainty.  But if you're looking for a real great sports story, in Britain today, there was a huge one.  Bill Murray could talk about the "Cinderella story" in Caddyshack, but when someone out of nearly nowhere, someone on the verge of quitting last year, someone ranked lower than 300th in the world -- wins the women's British Open of golf ("The Open"), that's a story of John Daly-ish proportions.   (And those are usually pretty big.)

But that's what happened.  Talented, but not accomplished, Sophia Popov managed to qualify for the British Open, showed up Tuesday, played one practice round, then just proceeded to hit fairways and make putts and get around the course in less shots than anyone else (that's how you win, of course), and won the thing.

And even though she's officially German (the first of that country to win a women's major, and apparently the only German man who won a golf major is Bernhard Langer), she played golf at the University of Southern California, and she's now based in Phoenix, AZ.  So we Yanks can claim her as one of ours (we actually can, she has dual citizenship).

Despite her struggles (and apparently in addition to injury she also had to contend with Lyme disease, no fun at all), she does have athlete genes.  This is taken from her USC player biography (from a couple of years ago):

"Popov's brother, Nicholas, is a swimmer at Arizona. Her mother, Claudia, was a top swimmer at Stanford while her father, Philip Popov, was a first division field hockey player ... Popov was an accomplished amateur tennis player and swimmer in Germany before deciding to focus on golf ..."

It's funny how that works ... being a champion requires a lot of dedication and work, but natural athletic propensity often seems to play a part, too.

Everything came up roses for Popov
 

Monday, August 17, 2020

Asking for a friend

 

I'm asking for a friend, Carrie Stevens, that you buy her new book.

Carrie and I go way back ... I admired her as a Playboy Playmate, and then, a few years later, we started exchanging messages on Twitter.  Not many, but she has replied, and I appreciate that.  She's a remarkable woman who has had a lot of experiences in life.

I want to get her book -- haven't quite figured out how yet, but I will.  Meanwhile, I will offer it up for perusal and purchase for my few followers.  

Revelations of a Rock 'n' Roll Centerfold

Here's a couple of pictures, since she is so admirable.  A tame throwback, and her 30-year challenge comparison.  All of which shows -- she's great.





Friday, August 14, 2020

Continuing the northward push on Highway 41 in Indiana

 

So we still currently in Indiana, with the goal of soon being out of Indiana.  Three more stops on this posting.


According to Google Maps, this is the Martin family farm. Looks like corn is their top crop. 


 


Crossing Indiana 64. And there is not another car in sight anywhere. That's strange.




Boswell, Indiana. This scene is just off Highway 41, by about 250 yards. Note the horse on top of the building.



What makes the white spots bright

 

If you've followed along on this blog -- or if you've followed the NASA Dawn mission -- you'll know that one of the great mysteries of Ceres the Asteroid was what the big bright white spots in Occator Crater, which were visible a huge distance away from the asteroid, were made of.

The white spots in the crater are shown below.



Well, the answer is definitively that they are made of slushy salts.  That might not sound so remarkable, except for the fact that they are on a small planetary body that should actually be bone dry -- and this small planetary body apparently has subsurface salty water.

Which is quite remarkable.  

So here's the story, straight from NASA:

Mystery Solved: Bright Areas on Ceres Come From Salty Water Below

"On Ceres' surface, salts bearing water quickly dehydrate, within hundreds of years. But Dawn's measurements show they still have water, so the fluids must have reached the surface very recently. This is evidence both for the presence of liquid below the region of Occator Crater and ongoing transfer of material from the deep interior to the surface.

The scientists found two main pathways that allow liquids to reach the surface. "For the large deposit at Cerealia Facula, the bulk of the salts were supplied from a slushy area just beneath the surface that was melted by the heat of the impact that formed the crater about 20 million years ago," said Dawn Principal Investigator Carol Raymond. "The impact heat subsided after a few million years; however, the impact also created large fractures that could reach the deep, long-lived reservoir, allowing brine to continue percolating to the surface."

Thursday, August 13, 2020

There is a village named Hard

 

Yes, there is a village named Hard, in Austria.  


I tried briefly to find somewhere named Soft, but was unsuccessful.  

However, here is Søften, Denmark.


Vanessa Hudgens all over the place

 

Seems this summer of COVID-19 is not keeping Vanessa Hudgens from advertising her luscious fit availability after her surprise breakup from Austin Butler.

She's been well-covered, though mostly uncovered, by the on-the-job Daily Mail.

Vanessa Hudgens shows off her taut summer bod in white string bikini as she catches some sun with her dog Darla


Vanessa Hudgens looks ethereal in white as she indulges in a sunset photoshoot during trip to Turks and Caicos


Vanessa Hudgens sets pulses racing in a pale blue bikini as she takes a dip in the ocean during her break on the 'paradise' beaches of Turks and Caicos


Vanessa Hudgens flaunts her killer physique in a leopard print bikini and cowboy hat

You don't think I'd post all of those links without at least one picture, do you?

Of course not.



Lighthouse of the Week, August 9-15, 2020: Kermorvan, France

 

OK, I found this one by searching Google with the phrase "sexy lighthouse".

This picture showed up high in the search results.  The model is the remarkable (and sexy) Galina Dubenenko


She's not really there, obviously. 

However, this picture made me decide to feature the lighthouse behind her as the Lighthouse of the Week.  First, though, I had to find it.  All I had to go on was from the page with the picture, which had this available as a wallpaper, and said "Lighthouse in France".  So I searched for "lighthouse square France" and found this rather quickly, at the Lighthouse Directory.

This is the Kermorvan Light, located right at the tip of Brittany on the Pointe de Kermorvan. I zoomed way out on the map to orient on the English Channel.

It's an important light at an important location;  according to the directory, it's the front light of three separate ranges.  Across the nearest channel is the little town of Le Conquet, so the lighthouses in this area are in the Le Conquet section of the directory.

Here are the basics from the directory:

"1849. Active; focal plane 20 m (66 ft); white flash every 5 s. 20 m (66 ft) square stone tower with lantern and gallery. The three seaward faces of the tower are painted white; the landward face and the stone gallery are unpainted. Fresnel lens in use."

 So it is square.

There are lots and lots and LOTS of pictures of this one;  so I am only providing a very limited sample below.


by rollier

            










by Nicolas Rottiers


Tuesday, August 11, 2020

This is not an April Fool's joke

 

This Troll toy was withdrawn after it turned out to have some, ahem, questionable toy engineering.

(Seriously, I couldn't believe this one.)

Parents slam Hasbro over 'disgusting' Trolls doll that has a hidden button between its legs, which makes her gasp, giggle and say 'wee!' - forcing the company to pull it from shelves


But Mitch! It's a Presidential election year!

 

Two quickies based on Daily Mail articles.

If you'll remember (and many of us certainly do), when Justice Antonin Scalia passed away, in February of 2016, detestable Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the same day that the Senate would not consider a nomination by President Barack Obama during an election year.

When asked what he and the Senate would do if there was a Supreme Court seat open in 2020, McConnell clearly smirked and said "We'd fill it".

And now this:

I'd nominate a Supreme Court justice if there's a vacancy before the election says Donald Trump as he claims that a Joe Biden victory will mean 'you'll have to learn Chinese'

"You mean if something happened like now?' Trump asked when radio host Hugh Hewitt asked him if he would nominate a justice, an issue Trump is already seeking to elevate in the 2020 campaign. 

'Absolutely, I’d do it. Sure,' Trump says.

They are SO scummy, which is very mild for what they really are.  And McConnell is also a hypocritical bloviating ass.





Sunday, August 9, 2020

Kelly Brook is still in a class of her own

 

One of Britain's bestest babes, Kelly Brook, subject of numerous posts on this blog, has changed since I first started admiring her.  But I still do admire her.   She is a world-class beauty, and she is now lusciously curvaceous.  And because she's still Kelly Brook, she's still doing a calendar.

As she should.

Below, a picture from the calendar shoot.  Still magnificent, still tremendous, still Kelly.



Public service - what the USA did wrong with coronavirus response

 

Saw this today - interesting read.

5 former CDC directors on where US went wrong in its COVID-19 response 

"The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 is higher than anywhere else in the world with at least 159,000 deaths. Nearly 5 million Americans have been diagnosed with the virus. As 31 states see a rising number of daily deaths and 25 states see increasing rates of positive cases, President Donald Trump in recent weeks claimed the U.S. has the virus "under control" and that the country is in "really good shape."  
 
"Every one of those falsehoods drives away our opportunity to improve our mitigation efforts… and it causes confusion in everyone's mind," said Koplan, who directed the CDC from 1998 to 2002. 

He said that even when the information needs "sugarcoating or even if it's something that seems bad news and people will be upset, the truth is really what counts."

Except -- it doesn't count with one particular individual in a particularly influential position.

PUSHing north on Highway 41 in Indiana

 

Though I'm not pushing as hard as I expected to, here are more stops and sights on Highway 41 in northern Indiana.


Downtown Attica, Indiana; looks like a nice tidy place.



Crossing the Wabash River



According to Google Maps, this is the Martin family farm. Looks like corn is their top crop.


Exciting, isn't it?   So we'll keep going.



Thursday, August 6, 2020

White Supremacy and current American evangelical Christianity

 

An eye-opening, troubling op-ed by the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin;  and I'm sure the book she bases it on is much more of that.

How white supremacy infected Christianity and the Republican Party 

Just two quotes to spur my tiny readership to click the link:

1. 
"Most tellingly, Trump’s ascendancy has snuffed out the White Christian character and virtue industry, at least as these ideals apply to our political leaders. One jaw-dropping statistic: In 2011, only 3 in 10 White evangelicals said that it was possible for a political leader to commit immoral acts in his or her private life and still be able to fulfill their duties in their public life; by 2016, with Trump at the top of the ticket, 72 percent of White evangelicals had decided this was no longer a problem."

2. 
"The one enduring, animating issue that fueled white flight from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party has been civil rights for African Americans. This was the issue that originally pulled Jerry Falwell Sr. out from behind the pulpit and into organizing the Christian right political movement. This white-supremacist undercurrent, tied to White Christian identity, is the key to understanding our current political polarization and the transformation of our two political parties over the last few decades."

Maybe, just maybe, this November will turn the country in a new direction, because the direction that Trump has been steering us is the wrong road to take. 

Oops, never mind that

 

Several months ago I posted that lovely actress Odette Annable (House, Supergirl, Banshee, The Astronaut Wives Club) had splitted from her husband Dave ("Annable Available", October 2019).   I suggested tongue-in-cheekily that this consituted an opportunity for someone to give romancing her a try, after waiting a few minutes for her to emotionally get over the ending of her marriage.

Well, I read in the Daily Mail that this window of opportunity has closed.  Due in part to the forced proximity of coronavirus quarantine, Odette and Dave are back together.  And I am indeed happy for them;  I don't like to hear about marriage difficulties for anyone, even though Hollywood / entertainment category marriages seem somewhat more volatile than average.

So, good luck and keep up the good work, Dave and Odette.

Dave and Odette Annable confirm they've reunited 10 months after separating... as they've been quarantining together for months 


Yes, I'm sure it is

 

Even though, happily, I have not contended with the condition addressed by this advertisement, it still caught my eye.

The reason it caught my eye is that I recognize the model -- her name is Ekaterina Zueva (on Instagram, Zuueva), and she could definitely be a treatment for the dysfunctional condition, and in many cases provide a superb augmentational incentive to any medical procedure or prescription.

I've featured Ekaterina a few times before.  She's lithe but curvy, and she's also a mother of a tot; she has posted pregnancy pictures to prove that she was.  The female body is capable of amazing things.

As you'll see below.  These are all pictures of the lovely and astonishing Ekaterina, doing her best to make men feel masculine. The third one, especially, works for me.








Sunday, August 2, 2020

First Arab nuclear power plant starts up


I haven't commented on nuclear energy for awhile, because the industry has been somewhat moribund, particularly in the United States.  But I have previously noted that the wealthy Persian Gulf countries who are wealthy mainly because of oil had used some of their wealth to finance the construction of new nuclear power plants. 

A milestone was reached this past week as the first of the reactors at the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant reached criticality and began generating energy.  The other three are expected to come online shortly, according to this article.

Now, I have maintained for a long time that this makes a lot of sense, to finance the future with money of the present, especially for the Gulf oil states.  They will have a long-range energy future, and have plenty of energy to make freshwater via desalination.  And they're going to need both energy and water in the future as their population grows.

So this is a step toward the right direction.  I still think the key is a modular "plug-and-play" plant that is as well known to nuclear engineers as the Model T Ford was known to early auto mechanics.  Something such as that could be deployed quickly and reproducibly.

And of course, parking lot solar panel fields would help a great deal, too. But I have to find new places to make that argument.


Unhingedness


I purposefully accidentally clicked on a link to a column in the conservative blog-blast titled TownHall.com.  

The level of unhinged hatred and irrational despisement of our previous President exhibited here is astonishing -- but actually, I personally knew someone that harbored nearly the same views.  The thought processes illustrated here explain how there can be 30-35% of the population who support President Donald Trump no matter what he does, even though he may now be in the process of threatening the entire democratic institutions of this country.  And I don't say that irrationally;  I could, if called upon, easily find a dozen well-reasoned discussions of how he's doing it and how he's been doing it, since he was elected.

Back to the column.  I'll extract the primary over-the-top quote.  Basically, the premise is that Barack Obama acted like a crime kingpin.  Now, given that Trump provided a direct statement that was recorded sounding exactly like a mob boss ordering a hit on an enemy, and also given that some of his former associates (particularly ones with Italian sounding names) say that he acts like a crime boss and knows it, this is pretty hard to swallow.  But as I already noted, it's basically unhinged from reality.

The title:

The author claims that Obama's IRS "thugs" targeted Obama's "enemies".  And that he ordered them to do it.  While there were a couple (and yes, only a couple) occurrences in which right-wing groups were audited, there never was any credible connection to the President having any input on this activity ever. 

But it still gets more unhinged.

The quote:
"I have no doubt Obama ordered the spying on the Trump campaign, the unmasking, the fake FISA warrant. And after Trump's victory, Obama ordered Trump framed for Russian collusion. Obama's loyalists leaked the Ukraine call. I have no doubt Obama directed the entire impeachment behind the scenes."
Are you kidding me?  Sadly, no.  He's serious.   

Seriously nuts.


As the saying goes, "Wow.  Just wow."


Lighthouse of the Week, August 2-8, 2020: Punta Panul, Chile


After last week's lighthouse in Chile, I decided the nation deserved one more.  So for this one, I looked for the lighthouse closest to the Chilean metropolis of Santiago.    The lighthouse that I found this way is the Faro Punta Panul, officially in San Antonio, Chile.

Let's mix things up a little and watch the video first;  then learn a bit more about it and view a couple of pictures.


 


So now the basics:

The Lighthouse Directory says:
1924. Active; focal plane 89 m (292 ft); white flash every 10 s. 9.5 m (31 ft) octagonal concrete tower, painted with red and white bands. 1-story keeper's house, white with a green roof, is staffed. The light was upgraded with a more powerful lamp in 1999."
And here's where it is,  zoomed out to also show where Santiago is.  The lighthouse is about 50 miles from the city.

Below, a trio of pictures.







Highway 41 end-to-end Streetview trek: the push north in Indiana


We are now pushing northward on Highway 41 in Indiana, and there is not a lot to note for awhile.  But still, the trek continues with scenes along the way.




Highway 41 crosses Interstate 74




Highway 41 and E. Stone Bluff Road




Rob Roy, Indiana.  Wikipedia tells us "The town of Rob Roy was named after the Scottish patriot Robert Roy MacGregor by local John I. Foster, a lover of literature who was especially fond of Walter Scott's novels. Foster, described as an inventor and a worker of iron, lived in Rob Roy for six or seven years and founded a Methodist church there."   It also has a covered bridge.  In fact, if we turned left at the next intersection norrh of this location, the covered bridge would be reached in just a short distance.  But StreetView didn't make that turn. 



More to come, and soon.