Category Maps

Spending Time With Dad

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I’d intended to write something and have it ready for Father’s Day this year. Unfortunately, it didn’t get started until today.

What I wanted to share is that while we’ve been close over the years, we’d reached a habit where we would only get in touch by phone every few months. That’s really changed over the last year or so. I’d say we’re talking about once a week.

The Mediterranean slides

Our conversational uptick started with him sending a bunch of Kodachrome slides for me to scan. They were taken at various places where he’d been on shore leave while he was serving in the Marines. He’d been on two Mediterranean cruises in the late 1950s. I remembered those slides being stored in a closet at our (Mom’s) house. I’d occasionally looked at them by holding them up to the light and wondered about the stories behind them. I didn’t have an easy way to discuss the slides with him as my parents had separated. At some point in those early years the slides were mailed to him.

One of the slides

I was glad to scan the slides on my Canon MP990 and get a really good look at the details contained in them. The next thing I wanted to do was have him tell me all about them. There must have been a zillion questions. Since we live several states apart, discussing them had some difficulties. Thankfully we both have access to computers and Skype. When it’s working right, I can show him the slides from my end and listen to him describe the story behind it. We can also turn it around where I can see his screen and can discuss what he wants to show me.

Skype

We can both attest to a steep learning curve in being able to just connect over Skype. It takes a certain amount of setup on both sides to get the connection working smoothly. My webcam and audio hardware has been flaky on this side, making things difficult. He’s got some computer support from local family that keeps him on the internet. I’m thankful for that. This would be impossible otherwise. Our first five sessions were at least a half hour of setup with one hour of discussion. I think the hardest part was teaching the language of computer use when you can’t see what the other person is seeing on their laptop screen. I’m happy to say that we’ve now accomplished building the bridge so that we can meet and share on a regular basis.

Back to those slides

I learned a lot about his travels in the Marines. He answered my questions about the places and people, telling stories as we went along. I was glad to hear him recall these things that were stored away in his head and would otherwise not have come out unless I’d asked. I do feel some of it might have been lost if I’d not started asking the questions.

My goal with the slides is to document the stories and subjects in a flickr photo album. He allowed me to make audio recordings our discussions so that I can be sure to get the details when I go back to write the photo descriptions. Another remaining step will be to arrange the slides in the right order. We’re going to keep the album private for now. Eventually we’ll be able to share the private link with others. I also think we might copy all of the photos and text into a hard-bound Shutterfly book when we’re done.

Part of the work we did involved identifying and locating some of the cities he’d visited. We mapped those out in Google Earth to help me develop a mental picture of the places he’d been. I can tell you that using the street view feature to land at the spot where one of those old photos was taken is exhilarating!

Dad’s blog

I’d say we’ve spent about a year getting to the point where we can move on to setting up another project: His blog. He can that carry on in parallel as I wrap up the slide project.

Several years ago, Dad had been working with a writing group. He was writing pieces on nature and his recollections from growing up. Recently he’d mused about getting back to writing “his memoirs”. I suggested he might consider a blog, but with much of the work remaining private as we work on the details. A free WordPress account pretty much is all that is needed for that. The works-in-progress can hang around forever in the drafts until they get enough shine to be published. Multiple editors can contribute and modify the posts on a particular blog.

He’d emailed and snail-mailed several stories to me in years past. As it is between us, we save each other’s correspondence. I typed in what I had into draft posts and we started going over those, releasing some items right away in the first few days. Now we Skype, sharing the screen of a draft being edited while the other comments or guides.

Going Forward

I think we’ve really become more connected by sharing these stories. Its a great collaboration in this time of isolation during the pandemic. Our discussions often lead us off on tangents to other topics, and those are interesting too. Here, I’ve been describing capturing his ideas, but this has definitely not been one-way transfer. He’s also hearing about my own blog work and the adventures of our household.


Austin Historic Aerials

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Austin Aerials from 1940 in Property Profile.
The path of the old Jollyville Road is shown
from MoPac to Spicewood Springs / McNeil Rd.

I’d previously mentioned finding online sets of historic aerial photographs of Austin, Texas and it’s surrounds. Those were found by following the link at the bottom of the Austin History Center‘s page for Aerial Photographs. Here is the direct link to that box repository.

Yesterday, I found out that the City of Austin has provided access to some of the the photo sets in a more user friendly format. They’re provided in a map form like you’d find in the satellite view of Google Maps. Wow!

Let’s go look around

  1. Go to the Austin GIS Property Profile website.
  2. In the upper left corner of the map, click that button that looks like a less than sign to hide the Welcome pane.
  3. Start with the full map, or navigate to your point of interest.
  4. Click the button in the lower left corner (labeled GreyScale…), and then click the All Aerials button when it pops open.
  5. On the basemap slider that pops up, move the time slider to the left.
  6. Imagine a time machine noise as the map loads.

If your map goes/stays blank, your time machine landed off the map. There probably isn’t any aerial data for that year. Zoom out to see where the year’s data is.

If you want to fade the street labels layer into the aerial photo:

  1. Click the Change visible map layers button at the top of the page.
  2. Click the Aerial Street Labels checkbox near the bottom of the list
  3. Vary the slider to the right of the checkbox

You can also add other layers like the red centerlines of today’s streets as shown above.

  1. Click the Change visible map layers button
  2. In the left pane click the checkbox under Property/Address Information/Streets

The street centerlines only show up at higher zoom levels

What did you find?

I absolutely can not wait to find out what others discover or would like to share about Austin’s past. Do feel free to share something here. Also, consider sharing it in your own blog post or in this great Facebook group.

One of Our Big Bend Hikes

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Hike GPS data overlaid on the National Geographic topo basemap

Once you have a little ArcGIS under your belt, you find yourself applying it to the things you do. In late 2018, my son’s BSA troop went to Big Bend National Park, and I captured some GPS track data while we were hiking. When I got home, I merged the track data and some basemaps in ArcMap. Starting from my previous poster layout and adjusting to 8.5×11 was pretty straightforward. Now I’ll have something to work from the next time I need that size.

I really like the National Geographic USA basemap in ArcGIS for this kind of thing. I’d also purchased a physical, waterproof version of the NG map (#225) at the park store. You can get your own copy here. The trails for this area are not as detailed on the 1:133,333 physical map. I still think it’s worth getting.

Our partial hike up the Marufo Vega / Strawhouse trail was fun. We started at the parking lot along the road at the bottom of the map and went North. Where you see the tracks deviate under the E in VALLEY, we missed the Strawhouse Trail’s ascension out of the creek bed. We ended up hiking through a nice slot canyon to the West before we hit our 2.5 mile turnaround point.

Up and out through the slot canyon

On the way back we discovered the correct trail, and returned via the “high road”.

Down and back over the saddle

Both tracks were enjoyable for their own unique views.

I’ve got hundreds of great photos from the trip, and I’m considering working on full blog posts for those hikes as time permits.

1958 Aerial Mosaic, Steiner Ranch, Travis County

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50dpi version of the original 300dpi 16″x20″ print

About this Map

The main image was assembled in 2018 from several individual aerial photographs taken over 60 years ago. The public domain images are available through a web repository owned by the City of Austin. I learned about them while researching the path of a Boy Scout trail that used to pass through Steiner Ranch. The whole poster idea came about after I had created the mosaic for my research. My wife said “You should print that and put it up at Cups & Cones.” I listen to her most of the time. 😉 You can view it there if you’re in the neighborhood. I had the idea for the “classic” border. I’m open to ideas for other formats/media. Contact me through the e-mail link at to left if you are interested.

The Lone Star Trail

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Today Marks 69 Years Since The Opening Of The Lone Star Trail

4/23/2019

I’ve been researching the trail (off and on) since 2003 when I stumbled across a mysterious metal marker in Austin’s Emma Long Park.

Trail? There wasn’t a trail there as far as I could tell. I had no idea how old the marker was. The marker was just nailed to a tree, way back in the woods. The ground around it was undisturbed, maybe for a decade according to my first underestimate. Yes, this plaque turned out to be older than I imagined.

As I found it 11/14/2003

In 2003 I just took a picture and moved on. I was hunting something else, a geocache that promised to be somewhere nearby. I set the mystery aside for a while. I posted a photo of the marker with a question about its unknown (to me) history to the internet in 2005. I got the break I needed in 2012 when someone finally associated it with the old Camp Tom Wooten.

Just a quick note: The trail is not to be confused the Lone Star Hiking Trail that winds through the Sam Houston National Forest. This trail is older, and was opened April 23rd, 1950.

Camp Tom Wooten was the big Boy Scout camp near Austin, operating from about 1937-1972. It was out where The Courtyard neighborhood is near the Pennybacker bridge. Eventually, I found Frank Hilton’s Lone Star Trail website, and the hand drawn map shown above. Wow, a real treasure map! Frank’s site is loaded with information. I greatly appreciate his efforts to keep and distribute the history. Since then, I’ve been looking into where the trail went. From the map, I found out that trail winds through the area where we live in Steiner Ranch, and through City Park / Emma Long Park where I found the marker. I’d already been to many of the places it passes through.

Recently, I’ve been using old City of Austin aerial photographs as overlays in the free Google Earth Pro desktop program to find the latitude and longitude of various places and trails I can see in those aerials. When I take the old overlays off, I can see the locations on a modern satellite image. Most of the trail is invisible from the air in 2019. I can see quite a bit in the 1966 aerials. There were less trees then. To date, I have not yet found any of these concrete milestone markers beyond the one for the start that has been moved to the museum (see below). I suspect they were all gathered up when the trail closed.

I’ve also contributed some to Frank’s web page. Namely the modern map (still incomplete) at the bottom of the page and the photo of the aluminum marker.

The trail started at Camp Tom Wooten (now closed and re-developed) and Frank’s website has some pictures of some spots along the trail. I have actually visited the cave shown in those pictures while geocaching.

During my research, I found that there was an exhibit for the trail at the Frank Fickett Scout Training and Service Center, and a bigger exhibit in the left half of the log cabin (below) at Lost Pines Scout Reservation near Bastrop.

Original Camp Tom Wooten administration/headquarters building
(now at Lost Pines Scout Reservation)
Camp Tom Wooten museum in the Log Cabin at at Lost Pines.
LST exhibit inside the Camp Tom Wooten museum at Lost Pines

In 2018, I retrieved the metal trail marker I’d located and turned it over to the museum. By then, it had fallen neatly from the tree and was ready to go.

I’m now using a much more powerful mapping program called ArcGIS Desktop, and am learning that to finish up a nice printable map.

2/27/2021 update

Another Lone Star Trail Marker, as found 6/1/2020

My son and I like exploring the trail area above the cliff near the camping area in Emma Long Park. We were out there last June and were having a hard time finding a geocache container that had been innocently moved from its original location. As we wandered around and around looking everywhere, my son shouted out: “Dad, I think I found another marker!” Sure enough, he had. In fact we’ve probably walked right past this one every time we’ve been out there. This marker does not have the extra arrows found on the first marker. I presume those were there to mark a turn on the trail. It also has a bunch of .22 bullet holes in it as well as some kind of yellow paint or sticker that has peeled off over the ages.

Sources

Starr, Te (2012). Making a Difference Every Day – 100 Years of Central Texas Scouting – The History of the Capitol Area Council, Boy Scouts of America 1912-2012. Austin, Texas: Capitol Area Council

http://westtexasscoutinghistory.net/CTW/lonestartrail.html

Mapping Tools

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Google Earth Pro showing a 1940 Travis County Highway Map overlay and some waypoints

Continuing on the mapping theme, I wanted to talk about a few tools I use for my mapping activities.

MapSource

I use an old Garmin eTrex Legend GPS receiver for my geocaching hobby and backwoods exploration. I purchased Garmin’s MapSource Topo in 2004, and I still use it today. The software isn’t updated much anymore, but it reliably moves waypoint and track data to and from my receiver. My map database is still original, but it isn’t a big issue as I don’t tend to use the unit for street navigation. I usually save “raw” field data in .gdb files, and also save a copy where I’ve cleaned up the tracks or edited waypoint symbology and labels. These files can be converted / imported into the programs below.

Google Earth Pro

I know most people know about Google Maps in their on-line or phone app form. Fewer people know about the free, downloadable PC/Mac app called Google Earth Pro. In addition to allowing you to view zoom-able maps of the entire globe, you can also make your own maps to share with others. The features I use are:

  • Satellite basemaps (recent historical imagery is available)
  • Track and waypoint overlays from my collected GPS data
  • Photo overlays of old maps and aerials (zoomed and rotated)
  • Getting coordinates of features in the overlays and basemaps.

You can also make cool map fly-over videos. It’s an awesome tool and a great place to start learning about making maps.

ArcGIS / ArcMap

Sometimes you need the real deal for mapping. In my case, I found that building a composite aerial map of around 16 photos in Google Earth Pro was bogging down the computer I was using. I also needed to stretch a hand drawn map in a non-uniform way to match the basemap. That task exceeded the capabilities of Google Earth Pro’s zoom and rotate (AKA affine transformation).

Esri’s ArcGIS / ArcMap does all of this work very well. It’s not so easy for casual users without mapping experience, but it’s definitely the way to go for people who are really into this stuff. It lets you stretch maps and aerial images to fit other maps (georeferencing) and uses variable image resolution to speed screen update time. This is the tool that makes most of the print maps you see today. I’ve completed a lot of on Esri’s on-line courses. It’s the next best thing to community college courses on the subject. I find learning this tool to be quite engaging, especially when paired with my interest in local history.

QGIS

QGIS is another fantastic Geographical Information System program. It’s open source and free to use. It has many of the features of ArcGIS and its components. I did have great success in using the program to get beyond my issues in assembling the previously mentioned composite. On-line training is also readily available. I stopped using the program when I decided to start learning the more mainstream ArcGIS.

My Addiction to Maps

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If you read my last blog post about Rutledge Spur, you might have noticed I’m into maps and aerial photos. I’m not just sort-of into them. Definitely addicted.

I’m not really sure when it started. I can vividly recall an early memory from when I was 7 years old. My family was moving from Ohio to Arizona and the moving company had supplied us kids with maps and an atlas. I remember following along from the back seat of our Fury III as we got to each town along the way, marking the progress along the highways we traveled. I was already pretty comfortable with maps at the time.

In grade school, a graduate student from the University of Arizona came to try to find out what skills our young minds used for navigating. He brought an aerial photo of the area around the school, and told me to walk us to a spot he was pointing at on the photo. I’d never had access to an aerial that showed our neighborhood before. My first question was “Where do you get these?” I knew it didn’t come from the gas station. I was thrilled to show him how to get there, using my skills counting streets, turns, and houses, but also using visual cues like trees and driveway styles. That guy did not expect a 4th or 5th grader to have that knack yet. He also told me he borrowed the photos from the U of A library. “Mom? Can we go there?” It turned out the graduate student’s borrowing privileges were higher than my elementary student privileges.

I enjoyed learning orienteering, compass, and mapping skills in the Boy Scouts. Gaining access to great topographical maps of the Santa Catalina Mountains fed my addiction, also prompting me to ask where they’d come from. That’s where I found out about Tucson Map and Flag. “Mom? Can we go there?” Alas, time, distance, and money kept me away.

In college, my eclipse chasing buddies were into maps too. At one point my housemate had plastered an entire wall with adjoining sections of the Baja peninsula. By then, I was able to provide transportation on a few trips to the map store.

My interest in aerial observation also stemmed from an interest in flying. I’m a window seat guy with a sore neck. I complteted ground school for becoming a private pilot and also did a few hours of flight time, but job changes kept me from continuing toward that goal at a couple of critical points. I still have lots of old aeronautical charts from those days.

As a defense contractor employee, I learned to use early military GPS receiver data streams at work. When they made accurate GPS available to regular citizens, Geocaching became possible. That was a real marriage of tech and the outdoors. That turned out to be a great match for me. Wow, how great is it that we have all this stuff on our smart phones now?

So, what’s the big draw maps for me? Probably the alternate way of looking at the world around me. Sometimes it’s getting the big picture: “How big is this park?” Sometimes it’s time travel: “What was here before?” Sometimes it’s getting there: “What way do I go?” And sometimes it’s a treasure hunt: “There’s something here I want to see.” The ultimate “treasure” for me is finding out something unexpected or unusual about a place.