Travels Down I-85: A MD of the North Carolina Piedmont (Update 9.15.07)

[Pat]

Aaron a time away and come back in August to find yourself in OSITM... congrats man!!! 



btw welcome to pg 6 here Aaron... woohoo

[bat]

Congrats for this award, Aaron! Looking forward to the next update...

[stewart_garden]

Great to see one of my favourite MDs in OSITM.. Congratulations Aaron!

Stewart

[emilin]

Congratulations on the reward! I have to appologies for being a bit slow on commenting while looking at your stuff (I guess the word I'mlooking for is "lurking" ). It's hard, because you play the game in a very different fashion - unlike anyone I have seen. I look at it and go "ooohhh... that looks very advanced" but I really don't have the knowledge about traffic to give any qualified advice.

So, anyway: ooooooooooooohhhhhhhhh.... that looks very advanced. And good! Keep it up!

[sebes]

Wow... This MD is one of favorites - and had my Special Interest already. Good choice David!  Congratz Aaron    

[Snaper]

Congrats Pickled-Pig 

Good luck for the next 

[pickled_pig]

Wow.  I come take a quick peek at SC4D between other stuff - packing up my half of the dorm room; studying for the final for my linguistics class; summer reading assignment I have procrastinated on - and I see that my MD's been nominated "Of Special Interest" for August.  To that I give thanks to David (he presented the honor) as well as everyone who's ever commented either here or at the Simtropolis version of Travels (which would be a lot of people, so no names).

Brief aside to Thundercrack here - I ended up seeing the Pirates play the Astros two weeks ago and I must admit that it was a very emotionally-loaded game for the fact that both Pittsburgh and Houston have second rate teams.  The bottom of the ninth was quite climactic - the Pirates had men on first and third (I believe) and were losing by one point, and there was a lot of tension in the audience, who were practically screaming, for the Pirates to score that one run and tie the game.

...moving on...

Pittsburgh's a great city in that it's actually a city.  Though from being in a college campus in a relatively university-geared section of town you don't get much of an idea of what the true grit of the city is - what your typical Pittsburgher is, basically.  So on that there isn't much room to comment.

I've practically forgotten how to play SC4 up here so it'll be interesting to watch my relearn the ins and outs of the game and apply whatever new stuff has been created by the modding community.

I'll be down in NC again on the 11th - next saturday, basically - ready to transition into the next section of life, now that I can come close to saying "mission accomplished" in regards to this challenge.

-aaron

[thundercrack83]

Welcome back, Aaron! I'm glad you got to a Pirates game, too! Last time I was there, they played Milwaukee and the Brewers weren't very good yet either, and that game went into extra innings. I'm also glad to hear that you're doing well with your schooling, too. I'll be looking forward to seeing your next update. Take care, my friend!

[Pat]

Aaron welcome back and hope to see an update soon and hope all is going well with the new lifestyle...

[pickled_pig]

...and we're back on air...

I quickly assembled this picture set to keep this MD, well, alive.  That means that we probably won't be looking at this area (the village of Rutherford and the area around it) in context with the Graham-Wellington MSA until next update (update 20... that's it?).

But until then, a bit of important info:

Rutherford (as it says in one of the pics) is a small farming village at the intersection of two (currently) back roads, which are named Raccoon Mills road and Pentecost Trail (how fitting...)  Sometime in the '70s, to provided the necessary power any growing New South MSA needs to develop, a nuclear plant was built about a mile northwest of the village.  Eventually, in the early '80s, US-174 was routed from its original route through Rutherford on Raccoon Mills Rd and Pentecost Tr onto a four-lane divided highway, so to provide better access to the nuclear plant and to provide a high speed connector with towns north of Graham.




If it weren't for the power plant, this area would have flooded over with residential sprawl from cheap land and convenient access to the Graham-Wellington corridor.  In the past five years, this area has developed into an industrial park.

[urban]

I like the forest, maybe it's good that there is the power plant, so at least the nature remains..

[Pat]

Sweet Aaron great update i loved it...  Man i wouldnt want to be around if that plant did blow but at least there would be open land if it did lol

[Snaper]

It's beautiful, very realistic 

Perhaps to fill the empty zones, for even more realism   

[stewart_garden]

Great to see you back here Aaron and an awesome update. 

I love your trees - sorry if you have already mentioned this, but how do you forest your cities?

Stewart

[bat]

Wonderful update, Aaron! Great rural area!

[amapper]

Very realistic journal you've created. One thing that stands out for me is how it is spread out, not every square has something on it, more like real cities and towns. Good job. 

[Eddie]

Whooaaah, pickled_pig. Long time, no talk. 

I have to say--you're rural areas are quite amazing and nice use of the RHW. The trees are wonderfully placed and there's a sense of openness with the farms and surrounding neighborhoods.

I'll be stopping by more often.

[dedgren]

Yes, more rural North Carolina!  It's great to see you back, Aaron.


David

[pickled_pig]

Urban - Good point - but, as Pat says, who'd want to be there when the plant melts down?  I imagine that the people who live in the few houses within a kilometer's radius got well compensated.  Thanks!

Pat - Yeah, but imagine the environmental disaster that would create.  Thanks for commenting!

Snaper - Empty zones... could you elaborate?  Are you referring to something in this last update (#19) or something in a previous update or region pic?  Thanks for dropping by!

stewart_garden I forest them with lots of time and patience.  I use a combination of Jeronij's, Pegasus', and Cycledogg's trees, foresting one type of tree after the next.  It can take a couple hours to do half a city tile - certainly there must be a quicker way to do it but I don't have that sort of Lot Editor/Prop skills.

Bat - Thanks for dropping by here!

amapper - Good point there.  Except for in the Midwest of the U.S., things aren't regular every set number of miles or kilometers.

Eddie - Yeah, I've not heard from you in forever... perhaps because I'm not on ST anymore and barely even here?  Thanks for commenting here!

David - Thanks!

Anyway, I figure I can get in two updates before school starts... and then I'll be on pseudo-hiatus.

In other words, after school starts on the 27th, I can't predict whether there will be any more updates for the next four or so weeks.  TO predict such things requires actual, non-anecdotal knowledge of what the year is asking for.  The year could be asking of nothing and classes could be easy.  Conversely, things could be the other way around - I don't know.

These three pictures are from a work in progress, the town of Oilton.







-aaron

[rooker1]

Interesting update.  Can we get some pics of the cemetery?  Other than that great work.

Robin