The Newtown Pentacle

Tuesday

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Catchup from yesterday: your humble narrator had accidentally gotten ‘turned around’ on a local road, called Becks Run, after having made a wrong turn at the start of a scuttle. This set me on a less than salubrious pathway.

I’ve mentioned, many times, that one of the things you have to watch out for when taking walks around the Pittsburgh metro area is finding yourself trapped into a ‘cul-de-sac’ style situation, while ‘on-foot.’ You find yourself with limited options, as far as where you can go and even when you do, or the path that you’re walking on just kind of terminates at a highway, or a cliff.

The highway scenario was the case, on this particular day.

I ‘effed up, alright.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Lovely little ‘zone’ back here, have to say. The wooded hills behind the neighborhood are at the edge of a natural area called Hay’s Woods. Bald Eagles nest in those woods, which is kind of cool. Lotsa critters.

Becks Run Road has been receiving an awful lot of attention from the State’s water control people, who are quite concerned with flooding, and the broader region that Becks Run Road is a part of has been displaying opened up streets and busy construction crews for the entire interval that I’ve been living out here in Pittsburgh.

History of coal mining hereabouts, as a note.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

At the end of Becks Run Road, there’s a fantastic ice cream joint called Page’s, and an enormous rail trestle which carries trackage for the Norfolk Southern RR outfit. Becks Run disappears into the ground there.

A ‘local’ street is present, which interesects to the ‘South Side’ section of Pittsburgh to the west, or becomes a de facto highway heading eastwards towards Homestead and Duquesne, along the shoreline of the Monongahela River. That local east/west street is called ‘East Carson.’

About a mile to the west, it’s a normal street with lights and crosswalks and sidewalks, but here…

This is where I found myself in a pickle.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

I walked up on top of a hill, along this de facto highway, to see if I could spy some way to get from ‘a’ to ‘b’ without having to walk the better part of a mile along the shoulder of East Carson Street.

No bueno.

This view looks eastwards, as a note. The ground level set of RR tracks on the left of the shot belong to CSX.

‘Feck.’ I’d just have to ‘do it,’ and walk alongside a high speed road.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

As an omen, as soon as I began my tremulous passage, the realities of this plan asserted themselves.

There was an abattoir’s worth of dead animals lying on the shoulder side of that curb. It was so dangerous a walk that I didn’t shoot any photos during this section of things, as I couldn’t take my eyes off the traffic lane in case I needed to leap for safety. Of course, the curb disappears after a few hundred feet and then you’re just walking on the 18-24 inches of space between the painted white line and the grass.

‘Sheiste, en mi pantalunes,’ lords and ladies.

– photo by Mitch Waxman

Cannot begin to tell you how happy I was when I saw that guard rail above appear, and then when I stepped over it. Whew.

I was still walking alongside a highway, but now there was 10-20 feet of space and a steel rail between me and oncoming traffic. That’s opposed to about 18 inches of space, with buses shooting by me at 50 mph.

Wow. How stupid was that? I really am a moron, just like everyone says I am.

Back tomorrow.

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