Modern cruise ships are similar in harbor. Not that they’re going very fast, but you really can’t feel any sense of motion and depending on where you are aboard, no sense of vibration either.
So you’re saying the adventure was feeling especially joberous right then?
At work I often had a miniature version of that feeling.
I arrive at some sun 'n sand destination in February and say goodbye to all the happy people dressed for vacation and beaming at their SOs or happily herding their excited kids. Me? I’m gonna have five free minutes to pee, then reload this thing with fuel, food, and folks, and launch back for snow country in less than an hour to be there 3 hours later. Sigh. Take me with you, folks; I promise not to be a bother!
I recently watched a video of passengers on that very train getting mooned by people on the Colorado River. One was even spreading his cheeks. Whattya expect from a river rat?
Hopefully the resolution wasn’t excessive.
I missed @BippityBoppityBoo last night, we were about 90 minutes late leaving Chicago so our Lincoln tryst didn’t happen. Sniff.
The train is approaching Glenwood Canyon now, so another crack at moonbeams.
I’ve been at smaller lakes where the folk on shore and boats wave to each other. I often thought it was sorta a recognition of the fact that they may know each other.
I’ve also been places where there is a channel connecting a harbor to a larger lake (most often Michigan.) In such places it is common for folk to stand by the channel and watch the boats come in and out. A lotta waving from both the shore and the boats.
My previous house was on a busyish street. When I first moved in, it frustrated me that folk woul dhonk at me when I was working in my back yard. By the time I reacted, they were past me. My neighbor said, “Just smile and wave. Don’t even TRY to figure out who it is.” Good advice.
Some years ago I was touring USS Iowa. If you scroll up a bit on the map you’ll notice it’s only a few hundred years from the Los Angeles World Cruise Center and when I came on board there was a cruise ship berthed there – no idea which one. About an hour later when we were in the engine room part of the tour, well below the waterline, we heard screw noises through the hull and the ship, 48,000 tonnes displacement, moved a bit.
Nimitz was 90,000 tons at the time. Not sure what she weighs these days.
That first day heading out, she was solid as a rock all day long through Puget Sound and out the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Not until late that night when we were in open ocean did she begin a gentle roll.
The story I’ve heard is that it goes back to post-WWII, when returning soldiers were viewed as heroes, and it became a custom to flash the “‘V’ for Victory” sign at them. Of course, the “G503 Truck, ¼ Ton, 4×4, Reconnaisance/Command”, fondly known as the Jeep, having served us well in that war, was not needed in such large quantities now that the war was over, so many of them ended up being sold off as surplus, with war veterans who had become familiar with that vehicle in the service making up a very large part of the market for them. It came to be assumed that if you saw someone driving a Jeep, that he was probably a war veteran, and deserved the “V” salute.
Eventually, it mutated into a closed, two-finger wave, from one Jeep owner to another; and the tradition in that form remains to this day. If you’re driving a Jeep, and you see someone else driving a Jeep, you’re obligated to give the “Jeep Wave”. It’s a duty, an obligation, a responsibility that comes with owning a Jeep.
Of course, these days, there are vehicles bearing the Jeep brand that really aren’t worthy of it, and some variations in attitude as to just what constitutes a “‘real’ Jeep”. The most devout purists only recognize, among modern Jeeps, the Wrangler and Gladiator models as worthy. As the owner of a Cherokee Trailhawk, which is probably the next closest thing to a “‘real’ Jeep” below the Wrangler/Gladiator, I certainly think that any Jeep that is significantly more off-road capable than a normal car ought to count. Sadly, there are vehicles bearing the Jeep brand that are not 4×4, and not any more offroad capable than any normal car. Pretty much the lowest trims of any of the models other than the Wrangler/Gladiator, have 4×4 as an option, not standard. The Trailhawk trim is at the opposite for each of these models, the most offroad capable version of each model, with the Cherokee being the model that gets the most robust Trailhawk package.
I try to make it a practice to “Jeep Wave” at any other Jeep I see when I am out driving mine, and occasionally, I get a “Jeep Wave” back. I wonder to what extent the scarcity of being waved back is because too many Jeep owners these days are ignorant about this tradition, and their responsibility to uphold it; as opposed to Wrangler/Gladiator owners just not recognizing my Cherokee as a “‘real’ Jeep” worthy of the Wave.
There are various accounts of how the “Jeep” name came to be. One obvious origin is Ford’s model name for their version of the original—GPW. It’s easy to see how “GPW” would give rise to “Jeep”. And ironic, if that was the origin, that it was Willys that trademarked the name, claiming for themselves the exclusive right to build and sell vehicles as Jeeps.
Willys got bought out by Kaiser, which got bought out by American Motors, which got bought out by Chrysler, which got bought out by FIAT, now called Stellantis. The Willys name lives on, as a rim name for the Wrangler and Gladiator models, which are pretty much direct descendants of the original G503.
My late father told me once that, when returning from having been a POW since before the V concept was launched, he and his colleagues were surprised to see so many women making what they misinterpreted as the obscene version of the gesture - and enthusiastically reciprocated in kind.
One aspect of the change is everyone driving with windows rolled up and air conditioner running. A proper jeep has neither windows nor air conditioners, so waving is both easy and obvious.
The modern penchant for darkly tinted windows. At least around here (SoFL) probably half of all cars on the road have windows tinted so darkly you can’t tell if there’s a driver in the car or not. It’s illegal, and mildly dangerous, but nobody cares. But once you can’t see them and they can’t see you, waving at one another is pointless.
My late wife drove a Wrangler roughly 1995 - 2002. Soft top, windows open when midwestern weather permitted, no tint → lots of waves.
I now drive a non-jeep convertible with lightly tinted windows. I find it a lot easier to interact with other drivers with the windows and top down; I can gesture out the top, they can see my face, etc. Conversely, once all buttoned up, nobody seems to see whatever I’m signalling by wave or focus or … . Is that a matter of they physically can’t see me, or they’ve simply learned not to bother looking for those sorts of signals from any driver since most of the time it’s impossible?
That’s an interesting story by itself! At least some people were already familiar with the word in 1936 with the introduction of Eugene the Jeep in the Thimble Theater comic. There’s also speculation that ‘jeep’ was in use as early as WWI as an Army-based slang term for new equipment or people, and that it was overheard by someone at Willys-Overland (many sites say it was Barney Roos) when the vehicle was presented at various bases for testing.
And among Jeep’s many owners, don’t forget Daimler; they discontinued the XJ Cherokee.
I bought a Jeep in 1990. I pretty much wanted the stock, standard issue, and the dealer was trying to discourage me from that. “But with the stick transmission, you can’t have air conditioning! You need an automatic transmission for that!”
I informed him that a Jeep wasn’t a real Jeep without a stick transmission. “Nobody would sell a Cadillac with a stick transmission. Similarly, nobody should sell a Jeep with an automatic transmission.”
I got my Jeep just the way I wanted it, over his protests. And yes, I waved at other Jeeps.
I was standing on a platform in Replin RU, and saw a cool locomotive and stopped, looked toward the cab and made the “up and down” gesture with my hand held up. No idea if it was universal or anything.
*TRAIN HORN HONK!” x 2. I smiled and gave a thumbs up.
I always wave at trains when out cycling. It just seems like the right thing to do.
Had a neat experience on the weekend. I was cycling up a local climb south of town and a tractor was in the field next to me doing some sort of tractoring thing with the crop. I turned my head to look over when I was next to it and the farmer inside the cab gave me an enthusiastic wave. I returned her wave with one of my own and had a smile on my face for the rest of the climb.
I also wave and say hello to the cows, horses, llamas, sheep, goats, birds and anything else I see in the various fields. Hey, whatever it takes to pass the time on five hour rides in the country.
When I was a kid, and safety standards hardly existed, we played a game. Three kids standing in the bed of a back of an open bed truck. We would pretend to recognise oncoming traffic and wave, as if we knew the people.
The aim was to get the driver of that car to wave, and we were hoping that our driver would wave in response. Oh, the fun we had.
I had a powered paraglider, and I was low flying next to some tracks when a train went by. I pumped my right brake a couple times, and they honked for me.
