The Railroad Tracks

Our next adventure began at the base of the smoke stack on the south side of campus. The part of campus on that side of Spring Garden St is an addition from the original boundaries of campus even though the smokestack dates back to before the 1920s. The building fits in with the buildings on campus with the continued theme of arched windows, a brick medium, and the impression that it sits above the landscape. Not on a hill, the building seems to be elevated by the lighter stone the first floor is made of. The location, at first does not make sense because it is so far away from everything on campus today even, but after some thought, the light bulb went off. The train delivers the coal to the smokestack building, so why wouldn't it be as close to the tracks as possible? I would have never made that connection on my own. In Boone, my home town, the only train we have is Tweetsie Railroad, a small amusement park based off of the old railroad system. The train runs around a mountain top carrying families, stopping occasionally to see some cowboy and Indian interactions. We actually got to see the train go by, which was exciting to me, but not everyone. As the conversation was lead back to our reading, and applying the terms we have been studying, I had a hard time making the connection that this was the campus' sink. The noise from the train makes the area not appealing for residence or classrooms or anyone having to spend too much time nearby. As a result, the campus leaders had the good idea to put everything else no one wants to see in the same area; those items include the radio tower, the water tower, and the only above ground power lines on campus. Our adventure that day gave us examples of a sink, a strip, a front, and an edge. What a day!