US 40 is now a two lane road passing thru a lightly residential / commercial area in the pinelands. I walked thru Mays Landing en route to Buena.
I had a pleasant surprise when fellow LBW walkers Ellie, Barb, Janet & Ron stopped on there way home from Atlantic City to walk an hour with me. I was easy to find wearing the fluorescent green hoodie with a map of my route on the back. The Parkton's ordered it for me during the teal T-shirt sale which raised $325 for my lodging fund. The highway berm was plenty wide to walk two abreast.
After completing the walk I had to drive back past the start point to find the McKee City fire tower which is the location of the second picture in the "US 40 Today" book. The fire tower was padlocked. After seven phone calls I was able to find the person with the key. It was Fire Observer Larry Birch. Larry said that the fire tower was operational and that they were going to be starting their short duration controlled burn season soon.
The fire tower had 15 flights of stairs with a total of 136 steps. It was made from thin open steel girders like a huge erector set. WOW! The last time I had vertigo like that I was in VRC 40 as a co-pilot in a Grumman Navy C-1 aircraft during a night carrier landing. We climbed to the top compartment and I took the picture.
In the 1953 picture there was one small building, everything else was woods. In the 1983 picture there were two buildings some power lines and billboards. It has now become a commercial strip with a Volvo dealer next to the fire tower. I think (hope) the rest of the pictures in the book are taken from terra firma and not high rise roof tops and fire towers.
Hooray for completing Day 2 ! Nice that you got to walk with some supporters along the way !
ReplyDeleteFire Tower is neat . I will have to show my hubby that pix , as a retired Fire Chief he'll find it interesting. Keep up the good " walk " and stay safe .