x over it: road maps

Showing posts with label road maps. Show all posts

1 Aug 2015

Typed letter from the Highway Engineer

In an interesting crossroads of my typewriter and map interests, I present to you this 1951 letter from the State of California Department of Public Works, Division of Highways.

It looks to me like it was typed with an L C Smith—the numbers are unmistakeable and the slightly uneven look of the text reminds me a lot of the old L C Smith 8 I used to have. And I wouldn't be surprised if the machine they were using at the Division of Highways predates WWII.

The letter, along with the map, were preserved as a time capsule inside of the original mailing envelope. California official road maps are hard enough to find as they were not typically issued to the general public (the inclusion of the specially-typed letter backs this up as I doubt they would type up a letter like this for every single map they sent out!) so finding one with all the extras makes it just that much more special.

August is going to be a very busy month for me, so expect the current intermittent blog update schedule to continue! In less than a week, W and I are taking the train down to Portland for a couple days where I will finally get to meet the esteemed Richard Polt. As soon as we get back, my family is visiting for a week, and then the week after that a good friend will be staying over. Let's hope the weather only gets cooler from the current high of 92°F (33.33[repeating]°C).

30 Jul 2015

White Pass

Yesterday was time for another day trip, this time along SR-410, SR-123, and US-12 between Tacoma and Yakima.

I'd driven on parts of this loop before, but not all of it.

It's a really beautiful drive, including a stop at this waterfall (there's more of it upstream that is blocked by trees)

And Rimrock lake, a reservoir of the Tieton Dam. It's really stunningly beautiful with very blue water and trees and hills all around.

This is a volcanic formation—the less durable rock has eroded away over time, leaving this rock outcropping.

The weather was probably perfect for swimming, if slightly cool (while over 80 degrees in the lower elevations, it was nearer 75 here), but nobody was in sight.

Views like this are plentiful.

There were a few volcanic formations like this with crystalline columns formed from the lava cooling faster on the outside.

Nearing the intersection of US-12 and SR-410

A view of Mount Rainier/Tahoma from Tipsoo Lake.

Sunset over the Olympic Mountains on the way back.

30 Jun 2015

Mapmaking

Earlier this month, I posted on the map I created from the sketch I made while spending the afternoon outside. While those outside activities have had to be curtailed due to a stretch of uncomfortably hot weather (to anybody from the south this is going to sound silly, but it's been in the mid-80s [~30°C] for the past 2 weeks) I've continued creating maps of places both fictional and real.

This was done in black pen on a 5" x 8" Rhodia pad. It's some of the best paper for fine pen work, though if you're sloppy, it can sometimes smear a little. I scanned it in and colored it digitally to simulate a 3-color printing process. The area is loosely based on northwestern Michigan.

This map was created in the same way as the previous one, except it was based on central Nova Scotia. I used Sakura Micron pens for these two. Click to enlarge.

And this is a full-color (9 colors, to be exact) map of southwest Michigan, done with Sakura Micron (black) and Marvy Le Pen (colors). It's accurate for driving with and nothing on it is fictional, unlike with the others. Errors are therefore less forgiving because I can't just imagine a road or a differently-named city.

This gif shows the process of creating a black and white map of a fictional place.

1. Sketched out the coastline and major cities, and connected those with main roads and added small towns and county borders.
2. Added minor roads and sketched the names for major cities. Added highway shields to main roads.
3. Inked main roads and highway shields, adding road numbers.
4. Inked major city names and filled in the main road patterns denoting highway surface. (you'll notice here that I smeared the ink on the highway above White Cloud, the first error I made)
5. Inked small town names, then the coastline and water features. (my second mistake was inking a minor road near White Cloud as a river)
6. Added decorative lines to coastline and lakes, and inked county lines. Fixed both mistakes by turning the smudge into a minor road and re-routing the river. (this is why I like creating fictional maps based on reality rather than maps of real places!)
7. Inked minor roads, added hills, and added compass and title. Erased pencil sketch.
8. Scanned and colored digitally.

I just got this new old stock Berol RapiDesign general mapping stencil which will help out a lot!

25 Jun 2015

Us and them

from Estonian SSR to Estonia

I think Russians are seen as the oppressors and my "wanting the country to themselves" bit is not truly accurate. They don't want Estonia to themselves so much as they don't want to have to share it with historical oppressors, and are therefore oppressing people for what their ancestors and government did.

Sent from my Speedwriter

23 Jun 2015

Roads to the Factories: International Typewriter Day 2015

This year for International Typewriter Day I thought it would be fitting to make an internationally-themed blog post in celebration. Happy 147th birthday, first patent of Sholes!

I've chosen 43 of the most important and well-known typewriter factories around the world corresponding to typewriters I've owned (with the exception of 5) and found in my road map collection a map of the area around each of the factories from the same era as the typewriter.

Now, you won't be able to pick out the exact locations of the factories (I don't even think we know the street addresses of several of these) but you'll be able to get an idea of the landscape the factory is set in. As you may have noticed before, a surprising number of typewriter factories were located in small towns a fair distance away from main roads. (of course, rail access would have been most important).

I've placed the map and city name first, then followed by a photo of the typewriter built there around the time of the map's printing so you can play a guessing game if you like.*

Note that I am not 100% sure on a couple of these, but I have made my best guess.