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[SteveC]

Noah Webster's concept of spelling words phonetically (ironically not fonetically) in the USA falls apart by the fact there is one US State called Kansas and another called Arkansas yet the latter is pronounced by Americans as Ahr-can-saw rather than ahr-can-zas as it would be if the phonetic rule made sense and was applied uniformly, that's before we touch on Connecticut and Tucson havng a silent "c" and the "s" not being vocalized in Illinois... just saying.
Mind you, when I was a kid, all of my mates used to crack up laughing when the TV sitcom The Nanny would start and the jingle said "Til her boyfriend kicked her out in one of those crushing scenes, What was she to do, Where was she to go, She was out on her fanny..." because outside the USA, "fanny" refers to a different part of a woman's body than it does in the USA. Search the internet for the worldly meaning and imagine what 10 year boys thought hearing that in prime time TV every night hahahaha.

The funny thing is I had a great grand aunt whom everyone called "Fanny" (this was obviously in the US) which even just knowing the US meaning I thought was...odd. (She had passed long before I was born.)

As for Arkansas/Kansas, I am informed that people in Kansas do pronounce it "Are-Kansas" not "Are can saw." Including the Arkansas river, from which the state got its name, which flows from Colorado (where it's "Are can saw") through Kansas ("Are Kansas"), Oklahoma (no idea what they do there) and then into Arkansas where it's the "Are can saw" once again.

 

[SteveC]

I’m both old and experienced enough to know what a European fanny is , though the modern fashion of shaving is a bit of a shame IMHO.

Incidentally my American friends tend to get a bit tetchy if I point out they can’t spel.

It never occurs to you all, that maybe we are the only ones who CAN spell.

 

[Sporgon]

It never occurs to you all, that maybe we are the only ones who CAN spell.

Told you !

 

[kupus]

Long time reader, but making first post here just to say thanks for the ad-free option. I learned a lot from the community here, and am happy to help fund such a great website.

 

[stevelee]

As for Arkansas/Kansas, I am informed that people in Kansas do pronounce it "Are-Kansas" not "Are can saw." Including the Arkansas river, from which the state got its name, which flows from Colorado (where it's "Are can saw") through Kansas ("Are Kansas"), Oklahoma (no idea what they do there) and then into Arkansas where it's the "Are can saw" once again.

I was traveling in Colorado with my friend who lives in western OK. He called the river "Are can saw," but then he is originally from Mississippi, so maybe reflects how he always said it. We saw the river a number of times in our travels. One time I was quite surprised to see a sign that we were crossing it, because I thought we were still on the other side of the Continental Divide. We had apparently crossed it again at a spot that wasn't remarkable enough for me to notice.

 

[SteveC]

I was traveling in Colorado with my friend who lives in western OK. He called the river "Are can saw," but then he is originally from Mississippi, so maybe reflects how he always said it. We saw the river a number of times in our travels. One time I was quite surprised to see a sign that we were crossing it, because I thought we were still on the other side of the Continental Divide. We had apparently crossed it again at a spot that wasn't remarkable enough for me to notice.

If you were wandering around in the general vicinity of Leadville and the interstate north of it I can see where that would happen. Some of those passes don't seem like much--others are something else again!

 

[stevelee]

If you were wandering around in the general vicinity of Leadville and the interstate north of it I can see where that would happen. Some of those passes don't seem like much--others are something else again!

Yes, it had to be somewhere around there. We spent a night in Leadville. Interesting place. Our hotel was also an antique store and had the reputation for being haunted. We first crossed the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park, and afternoon Leadville took Independence Pass. Those were a big deal. Even the eastern divide here in NC on I-40 and I-26 are hard to miss.

 

[SteveC]

Yes, it had to be somewhere around there. We spent a night in Leadville. Interesting place. Our hotel was also an antique store and had the reputation for being haunted. We first crossed the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park, and afternoon Leadville took Independence Pass. Those were a big deal. Even the eastern divide here in NC on I-40 and I-26 are hard to miss.

Independence pass can actually be scary, but there's a road in Utah that beats the kapok out even that. As you approach from the north you are driving through kind of scrubby vegetation at highway speed, and you see the occasional sign about steep grades and curvy road ahead, But it's flat as a plate, and you see no mountains ahead. Suddenly you see that you are approaching a cliff (from the top side) and the very next sign you see is a hard left turn sign with "15 MPH" on it. (Roughly 25 kph for all of you non-Yankees.) The next thing you know, you are switchbacking down the nearly vertical side of a mesa that looks like something out of Road Runner cartoons. It turns out you had been on top of a mesa the whole time and didn't know it.

 

[stevelee]

Independence pass can actually be scary, but there's a road in Utah that beats the kapok out even that. As you approach from the north you are driving through kind of scrubby vegetation at highway speed, and you see the occasional sign about steep grades and curvy road ahead, But it's flat as a plate, and you see no mountains ahead. Suddenly you see that you are approaching a cliff (from the top side) and the very next sign you see is a hard left turn sign with "15 MPH" on it. (Roughly 25 kph for all of you non-Yankees.) The next thing you know, you are switchbacking down the nearly vertical side of a mesa that looks like something out of Road Runner cartoons. It turns out you had been on top of a mesa the whole time and didn't know it.

My friend did almost all the driving. His Prius got 50+ mpg during the 5300-mile trip. but the way it drove was scary. I thought he just wasn't very skilled at mountain driving, speeding up into curves and slowing down out of them. He said that was the way the car reacted more than what he was doing. Going downhill it uses the braking force of the engine to charge the battery, so that must be part of it. I didn't do any driving in really mountainous areas, so I don't know if I could have done any better. Independence Pass was pretty scary, particularly coming down the other side. It would probably have been worse coming east.

 

[stevelee]

And getting back to photography, sort of, I have a few pictures from Leadville on this page, and pictures from Independence Pass are on the top of the following page.

 

[Ozarker]

I’m both old and experienced enough to know what a European fanny is , though the modern fashion of shaving is a bit of a shame IMHO.

Incidentally my American friends tend to get a bit tetchy if I point out they can’t spel.

I cain't spell and I am dern prowd of it! 'Merica! BTW: What is a European fanny?

 

[Ozarker]

My friend did almost all the driving. His Prius got 50+ mpg during the 5300-mile trip. but the way it drove was scary. I thought he just wasn't very skilled at mountain driving, speeding up into curves and slowing down out of them. He said that was the way the car reacted more than what he was doing. Going downhill it uses the braking force of the engine to charge the battery, so that must be part of it. I didn't do any driving in really mountainous areas, so I don't know if I could have done any better. Independence Pass was pretty scary, particularly coming down the other side. It would probably have been worse coming east.

Two stories about Colorado: I used to drive big rigs. 1. I once missed a shift coming out of the Eisenhower tunnel and had a load of nickles headed for Las Vegas from the Denver mint. My weight was grossed at 80,000 lbs. There was no slowing the truck down. It was a runaway. By the time I got down into Silverthorn on I-70 I was going way over 100 mph with no way to stop... praying nobody would switch lanes in front of me. 2. Another time, as I was heading west on I-70, it was snowing like crazy and the tunnel was closed. For some reason, US-6 over Loveland Pass (This goes up and around the tunnel.) was not closed. It was about 3am. I chained up and took US-6. Extremely stressful. Sorry. Sometimes I like to share adventures.

 

[Sporgon]

I cain't spell and I am dern prowd of it! 'Merica! BTW: What is a European fanny?

Shoot some of your models naked and you’ll find out

 

[stevelee]

Two stories about Colorado: I used to drive big rigs. 1. I once missed a shift coming out of the Eisenhower tunnel and had a load of nickles headed for Las Vegas from the Denver mint. My weight was grossed at 80,000 lbs. There was no slowing the truck down. It was a runaway. By the time I got down into Silverthorn on I-70 I was going way over 100 mph with no way to stop... praying nobody would switch lanes in front of me. 2. Another time, as I was heading west on I-70, it was snowing like crazy and the tunnel was closed. For some reason, US-6 over Loveland Pass (This goes up and around the tunnel.) was not closed. It was about 3am. I chained up and took US-6. Extremely stressful. Sorry. Sometimes I like to share adventures.

I can't remember for sure, but I think we missed the Eisenhower Tunnel. We crossed the Continental Divide in the national park, and after the park we got on I-70 for just a short stretch before we went south to Leadville. As stated above, we unwittingly crossed the divide back east before Leadville. Then we crossed it at Independence Pass. I've posted pictures of me at both the park and the Independence Pass crossings. From Aspen we headed north to I-70, but headed east for a bit. That portion of the road had not been open the last time my friend had been through there. Then we turned around and headed on to Grand Junction for the night. I found the bridges inside the tunnels interesting and took a few pictures.

 

[stevelee]

Actually, it is a viaduct. Cue the Marx Brothers.

 

[SteveC]

That was one of the last stretches of mainline interstate to be finished. Great care was taken not to trash the living things while building all of that. The piers were built, then the bridges extended from the bridges *without* working from the ground. Another stretch of I-70 in Utah was two lanes as late as the mid 1980s.

 

[stevelee]

That was one of the last stretches of mainline interstate to be finished. Great care was taken not to trash the living things while building all of that. The piers were built, then the bridges extended from the bridges *without* working from the ground. Another stretch of I-70 in Utah was two lanes as late as the mid 1980s.

Yes, I read up on it later. I could see why my friend wanted us to backtrack to see how it turned out. I was pleased to get the pictures through the windshield. There was certainly no place to get out and take pictures. That was my first trip using the G7X II. It acquitted itself quite well on the trip.

I had never been to Colorado before, so everything was new to me. Living in western Oklahoma, he had been to Colorado many times taking his family. He told me to get a one-way ticket to OKC, and after we explored Colorado, eastern Utah (another state I had not been to), and a swing through Santa Fe, he would bring me back to NC via Pensacola, Charleston, and Savannah, places he had never been. When people question my visiting an college friend in Savannah as part of my Rocky Mountain trip, I say that it didn’t make a lot of sense to me either.

 

[HankMD]

I visit a few times per week, rarely participate in forum discussions. But I do hate ads and appreciate the service, so now I'm a "lifetime" member.

 

[Ozarker]

The funny thing is I had a great grand aunt whom everyone called "Fanny" (this was obviously in the US) which even just knowing the US meaning I thought was...odd. (She had passed long before I was born.)

As for Arkansas/Kansas, I am informed that people in Kansas do pronounce it "Are-Kansas" not "Are can saw." Including the Arkansas river, from which the state got its name, which flows from Colorado (where it's "Are can saw") through Kansas ("Are Kansas"), Oklahoma (no idea what they do there) and then into Arkansas where it's the "Are can saw" once again.

Yes, but Kansas is pronounced "hell" in Texas.

 

[SteveC]

Yes, but Kansas is pronounced "hell" in Texas.

And Missouri is pronounced "misery" even in Missouri.