|
The f-ugly
Well it was that time of year again, time to get on the road for my
annual week long what ever you want to call it trip where I hit the
antique stores and abandoned lines hunting insulators and other
interests. This particular line I have been hunting for the last couple
years has been pretty sparse of any good insulators. But this was a new
section and you just never know what you might run across.  The weather had been
pretty crappy the whole week but this was my vacation so I had better
enjoy it since it would be another year before I got back out here. I
set off hiking the line as the rain drizzled down making everything
slippery and wet and headed up the side of the mountain following the
downed poles and pole stumps. The line was installed in the early part
of the 19th century to supply power to the mines and a small town in
the region. In the early 90's the line was rerouted along the highway
and the forest service required the power company to remove the old
line but they could leave the poles as long as no hardware was left.
Fortunately the contractors are not always very thorough in picking
everything up especially when there is no road following the line. I
stop at a pole stump and pick up half a pony insulator wondering
where the other half might be, not that it mattered any since it
wouldn't be very good whole anyways. Looking around for the other half
I spot it a short distance away and fit the two together. I looked up
and and spotted something under the small trees that looked like
hardware. I love pole hardware in fact I have a shed out back full of
all kinds of odds n ends, I call it my lineman's shack. There's enough
stuff in there to construct a small line for whatever the reason might
be. I reach down to grab it trying to avoid getting showered on by wet
tree branches. Funny thing was it didn't want to budge and I discovered
why. The ridge pin had a f-ugly growth attached to the end. Not exactly
what I had in mind nor the fact that it was cemented on the end and
couldn't be easily removed made my day any better. The f-ugly didn't
appear to have any damage so I left it there to pickup on the way back
down.  Oh, by the way, the
f-ugly is an M 3048 unmarked Lima with the small top. How do I know?
Well I do have a deserved reputation for an aversion to all mud but
that doesn't stop me from knowing enough to make a quick buck off one
of them mud daubers. I continued on not finding much along the way as
it seemed that this section was pretty cleaned up. I was really after
some of those cool cast iron pins and wire splices that were used along
this line.. just can't have too many of those! I come to a spot where
the young trees were growing thick in the right-of-way and come across
a sidepin with a CD 106 light aqua Star. Well this wasn't bad, in fact
this was the best thing I had found on the hike so far. I continue on
until I reach an embankment and notice down at the bottom another light
aqua insulator. I climb down and pick it up to discover another CD 106
Star. Well this is a good day! After seeing the way that f-ugly had
attached itself to that cool ridge pin I wanted and no way to easily
remove it I was feeling a little depressed. I head back and pick up the
pin with the f-ugly attached and make it back to the truck just as a
heavy rain storm hit. So what happened to the f-ugly? Well that's
another story for next time!
|
|
|
)
)
)