My photo walk of 9 June 2010

9 June 2010

95 minute walk.

Today I needed to drop my wife's car off at Andrew's Chevrolet on Cedar Street for servicing. So I packed my camera bag determined to have a nice walk on the way home. I headed back to an area explored last summer but not visited since. First I crossed the street from Andrew's and headed east on Buhl Street to visit the Ingham County Drain Commissioner building and the Animal Control & Shelter. The Drain Commissioner building has a fascinating piece of art on the front of the building and the Animal Shelter has those poke-your-head-through-the-hold cutouts. I also finally photographed one of the many trains that pass through Mason on a daily basis.

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I left my wife's car at Andrew's Chevrolet on North Cedar Street and headed east on Buhl Street towards the Drain Commissioner's building and the Ingham County Jail.

Drain Commission on the left, Jail on the right. I head towards the Drain Commissioner's building first. The two parking places marked for the handicapped have additional signs: "You have just parked in a space specially promised for the handicapped". I reached my main objective at the Drain Commissioner's building, the artistic figure on the wall named "Joy Child" which was commissioned when the building was constructed around 1978. To see my photos from 2009 click here and click here. In July 2009 the greenery had grown quite a bit more and partially covered the Joy Child.

An enthusiastic member of the Drain Commissioner staff explained the origin of "Joy Child" to me as well as describing some of the duties of the Drain Commission. They have a fleet of vehicles, including the big yellow truck in the right photo which is used to vacuum clean drains to clear them of debris.

The first photo above shows a drain in the road curb. When a drain is cleaned the entire grill is removed and a hose is inserted to suck out the debris. After cleaning a green paint spot is applied to indicate the drain has been cleaned. In time the green spot becomes weathered indicating the cleaning was in the past. A seal is currently being added to the drains. This one indicates that the water drains into Sycamore Creek and people should not dump trash down the drain.

The Ingham County Jail has a very attractive entrance. After returning to Cedar Street along Buhl I continued south to Curtis Street with A&W restaurant on one side and Baryames Cleaners/Subway restaurant on the other.

Continuing east on Curtis Street I came to the Ingham County Sherrif's office. I found the details of the building quite interesting.

In front of the Sherrif's office is the Ingham County Criminal Justice Memorial, showing a folded flag being presented in honor of a fallen officer. The brick pathway appears to indicate those who contributed to the memorial.

Also on Curtis Street is the Ingham County Animal Shelter. Here you can see two dog cutouts for posing for photos in front of the main entrance. I set my camera on the ground using my tiny Manfrotto ModoPocket support (like a tripod) to aim the camera. I had some problems with the camera being partly blocked by blades of grass. Here the articulating viewing screen really came in handy. In 2009 I posed in the other dog cutout but the Canon G9 (no articulating screen) required me to lay on the ground to compose the photo. I set the self-timer for 10 seconds and rushed from the camera to the cutout for the photos. To see my 2009 photos click here and click here.

There are plenty of signs warning against entering Ingham County Jail property. The photo here shows that the Animal Shelter is within the fenced area of the Jail. You can see one of the dogs and his doghouse in this photo. Also on Curtis Street is this storage facility for the Mason Fire Department and the North Storage facility of the Mason Elevator Company.

Two more shots of the Mason Elevator Company North Storage facility above along with an attractive lineup of buildings of the Mason Mini-storage company.

Here I reach the end of Curtis Street. Across a small field is the railroad tracks and past that North Mason Street. When I see North Mason Street I always think of a particularly long walk I took last year when I didn't notice the "Dead End" sign at the entrance to Mason Street. See Walk of 29 May 2009. The second photo shows the view towards the south standing near the tracks with North Mason Street just showing at the left. I heard a distand train whistle so I waited for the train to arrive. The third photo shows the train just coming into view.

Above is a series of photos showing the approach of the train. I had to wait for a while to see this train and watch it go by, since trains must go rather slowly through Mason due to the poor condition of the tracks. I had no problem getting fairly sharp photos of this moving train due to the slow speed.

The train has now passed me and is heading away. My fascination with trains led to this long string of photos showing this train arriving and leaving my position. Mason is a good place to live if you enjoy the lovely sound of distant train whistles.