Ever wonder what those signs on the side of the road are that say:Microndos Cerro Negro,
or other road signs that say Microndos something else??
There are lots of them on almost any road that you may be on for more than an hour.
There are at least 20 from Nogales to Morelia. I know exactly when they are going to pop up, kind of an obsession with me or rather just being observant.
You can't teach on old dog any new tricks so to say and you can make me take my eyes off of mountain tops no matter where I may be.
The US, Mexico, Honduras, Spain, Italy, any where that I may visit, my eyes naturally gravitate towards the mountain ridge lines.
There are some nice ones between Morelia and Guadalajara. The best one is by Los Moches.
There just outside town there is a ridge that has over 30 towers on it..... interesting, right?
Sure, I'll bet no one besides me ever gives them a second look!
Down here I am close to Cerro Burro, which is east of Patzcuaro. It happens to be the site that is used partially to blanket a majority of Michoacan.
Kind of sick , eh?
People ask me what I use to do, so here is a tiny part of how and what I spent the last 40 years.
I started out as a photographer for a daily newspaper in San Francisco, then did TV News for a few years and then got into radio and communications.
One of the benefits of that vocation was to be one of the lucky few to visit and have access to some of the most beautiful and peaceful places in the country.
One of my duties when I stared out in the radio business was to install and maintain two way radio equipment which was located high atop mountains in places located all over California.
Two way radios (before
cellular phones) were used by businesses to communicate with their offices and other trucks in the field for dispatching and coordination.Police and Fire services as well as public safety still rely on those types of systems even today because of their fast direct unit to unit operation.
Traveling to these mountain tops was the high point of my days.
Ask any old radio man and they will all tell you that it was the most rewarding part of the job.
No one wanted to stick around and sit at a bench working on equipment when it was possible to hop in the truck, usually a 4 wheel drive and go up to a mountain.
Quiet, serene, undisturbed, you would be privy to views and locations the normal person would never have access to.
Every half hour or so, if you were inside a building you would come out and sit in the truck or walk around gazing on the beauty, see some eagles flying around, views that often would span 50 to 100 miles on some days.
The only bad thing was when you had to go up there during winter. Often we would get about a quarter of a mile off the main road and we would be stuck in a foot or two of snow drifts.
Once I had to get a pair of snow shoes and hike up about 5 miles to the top of one mountain, that's something that I wouldn't consider doing nowadays....That was back in the early 70's.........Interesting what one will
do when they are young and adventurous......Once you left the office you usually were gone for at least the rest of the day. Most of these locations were a 2 to 4 hour drive, one way!
Depending on what the problem was it was either a real easy fix, something like a blown fuse or circuit breaker or perhaps a backup generator would not start, those calls usually always seemed to happen during storms or 2 am on Saturday mornings.
When I first got into the business, I was the one that had to respond to those after hour calls........ I saw to it quickly that there was someone else hired to get that responsibility......real quick.
Funny thing is I talk to lots of friends that depending on what they did in life they still have a habit of noticing things. Friends of mine who is an architects looks at building, shapes and styles. Another friend who was in construction looks at heavy equipment, structures, roads and foundations.
I look at mountain tops, radio towers and satellite dishes.
I can always tell you which direction is south.......
Oh, and if you click on the photo, you will see a high resolution image, that way you can see all the great detail in the antennas, feed lines and even identify the manufacturer of the antennas and frequency..........oooooouuuuu!
