The Winding River Project

[NASCAR_Guy]

Isn't that plane an Antinov A-2?

[mrbisonm]

NASCAR_Guy. If you're talking about the Gabber's hydroplane, it is an Antinov AN-2/1954. A real tough cookie. The textures for this model I found on the net through Yahoo search. and I thought , just perfect for my CJ, but I didn't know that it was an army texture. Connaisseur in airplanes?

Fred




Edit, I just found this on the net.............




A few of the bushpilots up here in the north of Canada still fly this kind of plane.

[cowcorn]

Hey Fred! I've been away from the game for a long time just after my pluggins got crippled in late 2007. I got tired of spending more time maintaining my pluggins than actualy playing. I took over the task of rebuilding them just after I bought my new computer. It took me 4 months... I've started playing again only last january. I'm getting back in the game slowly but I'm still much of a lurker out here and I almost never post anything on Simtropolis anymore. As for my real life... I'm still in Sherbrooke for my bachelor degree in music. I will be studying part time next year and should hopefully head up to study music history for a master after that. I really should have finnished earlier but I have spent way too much time in student politics...

As for your MD I'd just say it's good to get back in your style. It kinda feels like home. I may not be the most frequent poster (espescially at the end of the semester like now...) but I assure you that I keep myself up to date.

Joel

[mrbisonm]

Thanks for dropping in cowcorn and I am glad things are going well. Wish you all the luck with your projects and come back once in awhile.

I have been very busy with the GRV II Challenge on this site, taken 90% of my Simcity freetime, so that is mainly why I haven't made an update this week for the Winding River Project, but I will give you all a good story and some nice pics before the next week ends with the sunday. Make sure to be back by then. Thanks for the patience.


mrb

[CaptCity]

...but I will give you all a good story and some nice pics before the next week ends with the sunday. Make sure to be back by then. Thanks for the patience.

Well, that'll give them a chance to finish the summer house... . As much as I'm enjoying watching it being built, I'm sure it'll be a treat to see it finished. Also, really like your various waterfront walls. Everything's looking very fine here... 

CaptCity

[danielcote]

Oh that is a nice plane you know panam use to use it

[soulchaser]

Finally, I had some time to read this MD and look at all the pics.

Very detailed, I like it a lot. You must spend a lot of time for all this. I bow in awe.

[mrbisonm]

CaptCity,thanks, but I have to disapoint you a bit here, only one person works on the Gabber's summerhome and it will take a little longer to see it finished, besides......well, read the story.

danielcote, no I didn't know,I wonder what for though?

soulchaser, I hope now that you read and liked it a lot, you'll come back?

Thank you all for being patient. I have been very busy irl and also with the GRV II challenge in the last days and therefore it was impossible to bring you another update. But today I was able to finish the continuing story of the Winding River Project.


Before continuing the story, let's have a short look of the Widing River map and its developments.



You are probably assisting in a major historical event in the Winding River Region with this update. Nowadays only very few places on this earth are the birth of a new city, because most of the bigger cities have already taken their place and newer ones will only be the follow-ups of larger towns and some villages.
Where did big cities spring up irl? In most cases it was a strategic point whether at a river, coast or bay, lake, mountain pass, rich and fertile valley or simply at a interjunction of two or more trails or roads. And this we are about to witness from the beginning in the Winding River Wilderness.

The Gabbers have been working hard for the year on the project to meet the new highway 15 that is being build at the entrance of the Wilderness Valley. The deadline is december 1959 and we are about to reach it. From there on, the contract to continue the highway through the whole region and bring it to the doors of the north will be taken over by the Gabbers.
Finally it was decided not to build the access road too close to the mighty river, because of the possibilities of floods, and a more inland like route was chosen, John Gabber and Mike Allheimer decided so.

Finances are still good but could be better if only the sawmill could be build and the lumber cut and sold. If you would drive on the access road for more than 10 kilometers, you would probably see more wood than road. Loggers who clear the way for the road, take about three times the width of the road itself to clearcut and this region is lumberheaven, not having been ever cut before. The loggers call it the Virginforest , fun to cut and money made easily accessible, a logger's dream.



Some parts of the road are a little wet and heavy traffic, such as trucks and machinery get stuck here and there. Since they don't have the time to fully drain the area for the road, they fill the wetspots with logs that have little or no value, such as white birchtrees and poplars. These logroads have to be constantly repaired all the time, but make it possible to pass without getting held up to drain the whole area first. Time is money as they say in simcity.



Right passed the western half of Grasslake, the road was split into two. The highway access road continued to the west and another road heads southward into the hills. This is the land that the Racsan family bought. The Millionaire Mr Racsan bought this land of several thousands of acres about the same time as the Gabbers. They even paid a part of the access road. From here on though , they are on their own and Grandpa Gabber thinks that the old man Racsan has bought this land for his retirement that he thinks about in the near future. They even installed a gate with their name on it to keep the property closed and private. Maybe they even started building a home up there. I guess we would have to take the plane to see this.
The little hut beside the Racsan's entrance is an emergency-shed, little sheds that can give you shelter, water, warmth and protection when needed in this wilderness. Something that the federal Government made possible for regions with difficult access and should be build every 20 or so kilometers.



After 7 months of logging, bulldozing and graveling, the end of the access road has come to an end just two weeks before the deadline. They even had some time to build a road to a waterpoint and to meet the highwayconstruction folks coming downhill from the south. It was a great day for everyone.



The administrators, some politicians and even the governor, all came to visit the site in a small Cessnaplane that they landed on the gravelroad on the straight section. Congratulations were offered to both teams and new contracts were discussed and finalized after a good inspection of the work done.
Highway 15 is important to the rest of the country because it will bring the south and the north together in a much shorter way. Also it will give access to the giant region of the Winding River and the biggest river in the east. New ressources can be found, mineral and natural and oil-rich sands were already spotted a little further down the river.
The highway in this area is build on unstable sandy soils and therefor needs solid cement frames beneath the actual regular asphalt, but only for a few kilometers. After the land gets quite solid with rocky grounds and tapped brown earth that the glaciers weighed and flattened down many millenia ago. It will be faster and less costing to construct from there on. Soilsamples have been taken earlier this summer and they show that the soils are good until the second crossing of the Winding River, after, well.....this will be another story.




A nice overview of a good part of the construction site.



If one would count the number of workers that take part of this project, it would go into several hundreds. A job for everyone, as John Gabber always says.



For the event that the access road reached the highway 15 and that this contract was finished just in time, John Gabber and his company organized a big party for everyone that has participated in this yearlong project. A place close to the intersection of the highway 15 and the access road was cleared and temporarily cemented to have a clean and leveled location for the tents and the stage where he himself, his father , the governor and other VIP can present their speech to thank everyone and also to officially have the start of the 5 year Highway multi-million Project through the wilderness. After the speeches the musicband took hold of the the stage. It was one heck of a party, they even had someone that drank himself to death.



A few days after the party, the parking lot was sold, as did the lot opposite of it and within a few weeks two restaurants popped up. The party stage was abandonned. No electricity, but everything worked on natural gaz in these restaurants. These restos will be quite useful for most of the truckers and workers that will be working for the next five years on this project because finding something to eat nearby , one would have to travel about 50 kms to find a small canteen in the neighboring region only. The governor now has the whole area de-zoned and opened for residential and commercial buildings and many lots are offered for a small price.
John Gabber has the contract to build an offcial exit on the highway right here in Access Junction, as everyone is calling this place by now. I guess it will become the official name one day.



Once the land was dezoned and now on sale by the government, John Gabber bought many acres of it with the financial help of his father, knowing that this might be an excellent future investment. So did his friend and foreman Mike Allheimer and even some of the simple workers. In all some 740 small lots were sold within 30 days after the public offer. Young T. Slye (TS) and his partner John Gabber also bought a 7 acres lot just near the intersection beside the bigger restaurant and clearing has already started as a priority to build the new sawmill that will handle and take care of all the wood that was and is being cut for the highway project. Young Slye had bright eyes that day, when he saw the size of that lot and imagined their sawmill already built in. Now TS can't sleep quietly anymore knowing that his dream is coming true so fast.



Most of the lumber that is being logged on this lot will be cut right here with a mobile sawmill and the constructionwood will be used to build the sawmill and the buildings needed for this project.



Here's a nice overview of the junction itself, where the access road meets the highway 15. The road to the right leads to the waterpoint, just a little open well that is supplying the water needed for the people and the constructions.



Something that started a few months ago only as a little relaxation to change the long and enduring workhours of all hired hands, has today become a weekly miniature sportsevent, whether it is football, soccer, volleyball or baseball, everyone is invited for a couple of hours every wednesday afternoon to leave their job and participate in a friendly game or just to relax near the heavy machinery parkinglot. Surprisingly to most of the workers, even formen, the program manager and the owner of Gabber Mgt, John himself, participate in the event. More and more people get implicated each week in this activity.



Here's a view of the highway 15 that was built by the company from Beecher Falls down to the flatlands of the Winding River Wilderness where the Gabber's will take over. A project that lasted one year and was quite hard to achieve because of the rough terrain it was chosen to be built on. We can barely see on the bottom right the intersection of the access road and the highway.



Oh....... I almost forgot to tell you about the Gabber's cottage construction on the Grasslake.

«« This week my brother John Jr came up to me and told me that I should forget about the fishing for good on Grasslake because Dad sold the cottage already and he really started nagging me about it. `You should buy yourself a guitar and do something more useful than go fishing for these ugly creatures`, he told me. Ha, look who's talking? Mr Juniorrrr is always studying and doing nothing useful anyways besides tuning his guitarrr every night, I thought. Pffff, what a bummer he became since he turned 18. I can't wait until he leaves home with his so-called-beautiful-girlfriend for good.
I asked Mom about it but she doesn't seem to know a thing about the cottage. It left me frustrated not to know what happened and if it is true what Jr says. Dad is always gone to work these days and I don't see him at all anymore.»»

But this changed since the thirteenth birthday of charlie was in a week. Father John took Charlie on his birthday fishing for the last time this year and before the lake freezes over for a month or so for the whole weekend. As they almost reached the cottage site, Charlie asked about it being sold and John told him to be patient, he will explain everything once landed.
«« " You know Mike?" father asked me when we went into the new cottage which seems to be enormous and which now had a roof or something like it already, I nodded yes, " Well, he has been bugging me for some time now to buy the summerhome with the three acre lot, and yes, I sold it to him"...he didn't even let me ask him why when he continued,",....and before you panic let me tell you, that it was a darn good deal and a just great idea." Speechless I didn't know what to say.....a good idea? I couldn't give a darn about the deal, but why the good idea? What the heck is this about? How can be seeling a dreamhouse on a dreamlake in a dreamland be a good idea?, I was wondering...," Just about a month ago", father continued," I went with the Company's arpenter to the other end of the grasslake to draw the line between our lots and the ones that belong to that rich fellow Mr Racsan, when I saw the most perfect spot for our cottage and believe me, it is ten times better for everything than this bay with shallow waters and surrounded by mosquito infested swamps, you'll see." I was suspecting something fishy here, and I wanted to see this place as he described it right now, but Dad told me to be patient. I don't believe until I see I told him.
Father told me that the waters were deeper, much more fish and bigger too, privacy was even better and most of all it is on a landpoint that reaches far into the lake to give the best view of the whole area. He said that he bought some 40 acres of land around that point and the site to build on was already chosen. He's just waiting for Mom's approval. Then he said, " Besides, a young fellow with the name of Michael Arven, a student in architecture in the Bluebay College that uncle Gary teaches, has made a plan of a beautiful loghome that I couldn't resist when I saw the plans. Exchanging our cottage here with the freshly designed one by the Arven fellow was not hard to decide. It'll be very nice and I'll show you the plans when we get back tonight, I am sure you will like it also. ...Now let's get that boat started and do some serious bass fishing around the bay," and off we went fishing for the day.»»


Two stories in the frontpart and cathedral ceiling on the back part, probably the whole backwall will be windowed, this will become a dream come true for Mike Allheimer.



Here we can clearly see the so called *Mousquito-infested swamps* surrounding the cottage, and maybe it was a good idea to have chosen the other place.....hm....I wonder if it was.??



So I hope that it was worth waiting for this update and also hope you liked and enjoyed it. The next time we will visit the new highway again, take a look of how they're advanced and has been constructed in Access Junction and surely come back to see Mike's new cottage and maybe the beautiful location of the new cottage for the Gabbers. I wish I could see the plans of that new summerhome John saw , which Michael Arven designed.......

Comments are always welcomed and appreciated. So let's hear what you like and don't. Have a nice week and weekend, be back as soon as I find the time.

Fred

Members that have a character in this story:

NASCAR_Guy ................ Guy Racsan, son of Mr Racsan, the millionaire.
mightygoose ................ Michael Arven, the young architect.
threestooges ............... TS or T. Slye, Not sure what the T stands for, the new sawmill co-owner.

Now, I could use some more folks to join with a character, no matter what profession, sexe and no matter what age they enter the story. I am sure I'll find something interesting for them. I will take a max of 10 more to start off with, but make sure that you come and visit sometimes and leave a comment, otherwise I will let the character die.

Fred

[mightygoose]

brilliant update here fred, love the the loghouse and the birth of the city, cant wait to see it develope

[mrbisonm]

Thanks mightygoose......

I had to re-upload some of the pictures because some were missing, others were doubled etc in my imageshack account, some mixup of the site I guess. So, this should be fine now. It's all fixed.....sorry for the confusion it could have caused.

Fred

[RustyXL]

Hey Fred, great new update. Sorry I've never commented before, but I've been enjoying this MD since you started it. I really like the story, it's like a good book you don't want to put down. You've also made some great BATs for this MD, it must've taken you a while to make them all.

[threestooges]

Sorry to hear someone died at the party, but at least everyone had fun. Access Junction is coming along nicely. I like the truck stop you've created (and the area for the sawmill is shaping up nicely, so many trees, so little time). The detail you put in your lots is excellent (such as the residence behind the restaurant) and is simple at the same time; a difficult task to pull off. The house on the lake looks like an amazing spot, but I sure Mike Arvin probably has something up his sleeve if it's good enough to leave that place behind. Mr. Allheimer certainly didn't do too bad on the deal. Nice work on the log road. I've seen it used in other places before (though occasionally with the logs parallel with the road) and it seems like a good solutionto keep things moving. Great story and neat developments to go with it. Looking forward to what's next.
-Matt

[BarbarossaS]

Lovely update as always!  I'm glad to finally see some highway
I know your busy playing GRVII, so take your time to update this MD, we'll be patiently awaiting it 

[JoeST]

Excellent update Fred, glad you decided to use RHW. I wonder how you will make the junction at Access Junction, will you be removing the buildings that currently reside there?

Joe

[mrbisonm]

Thanks folks for the comments.
RustyXL, glad you like the story although I'm not a great writer at all. Come back.
threestooges, glad you like the start of your character's sawmill, I have some nice BATs for it in store. I have seen those parralel logroads too, only one problem though, when it gets really wet the logs will be puched aside by the weight of the vehicule and then get stuck in between, even worse than not having any logs at all. This way it's a bumpy, but solid ride through the wet areas.
BarbarossaS, I will have no other choice than to slow down a little with the MD since GRV II and real life take a bite out of my time. Thanks for being patient.
JoeST, the RHW exit will be a little more further up than the actual junction, so not to interfere with the already existing buildings too much. It will be something like on the picture below.

Here is a little jump into the future. Slye's sawmill construction has started, the highway is done although the exit is only temporarily and only traffic for the constructions are allowed onto the highway, some more houses were built . Have a nice weekend.

Fred

[JoeST]

thanks for the info Fred. Another question, your RHW looks like it is just two lanes of RHW2 rather than a set of RHW4 going in each direction. It seems to be the same with your previous RHW pic too  . If you dont know, there should be a puzzle starter-piece (that you lay down and then drag the RHW two tool through) to create RHW4.

Joe

[threestooges]

That's a good point about the parallel roads, I guess that land down there is swampier than I thought. As for the sawmill, what can I say besides "prime real estate"? Really cool to hear it's going to be a custom job, and being right off the new highway is indeed a plus.
-Matt

[mrbisonm]

thanks for the info Fred. Another question, your RHW looks like it is just two lanes of RHW2 rather than a set of RHW4 going in each direction. It seems to be the same with your previous RHW pic too  . If you dont know, there should be a puzzle starter-piece (that you lay down and then drag the RHW two tool through) to create RHW4.

Joe

To be honest Joe, this is the very first time that I use the RHW. And even worse....I have no idea how it is done....lol. But now that you mention it, I think I saw something like a starter piece but it only was a two lane also. I will go through all the RHW pieces again and see what I can and/or cannot do. I might even be missing some files (hope not). Question: Is there a sort of an explanation or tutorial how to use the RHW pieces somewhere? I would really love to have the RHW at least in the countryside. Thanks for waking me up.......I'll be back maybe later tonight.

Prime real estate it seems, Matt. It will take some to bat and lot the new sawmill, I really want to give it the custom look. Maybe I should continue to finish my Nexis Mega sawmill that I started 4 years ago....... (that gave me an idea....back to the drawing board and looking through the old 3d files)




Fred

[Jmouse]

Hi Fred, been trying to find time to catch up with Winding River. The pics are some of the best rural shots I've ever seen. Truly you have captured the essence of a weekend retreat. The details are especially eye catching - the "under construction" elements are are a great touch. It will be a pleasure to watch further development.

Later...
Joan

[JoeST]

Hey Fred, sorry for posting many times.

There is a guide for using the RHW in the RHW readme file

Joe