When the sky is cloudy, the air has a bit of chill and, although its Friday, you still feel a little down, where do you go for that extra boost of energy? Friday Props! Now with flavor crystals! This week, we're going to focus on transportation. Yep, how we get from here to there. Our first props go to the canal boats of England. The Romans first built canals, primarily for irrigation, under Caesar's reign many, many moons ago. It wasn't until the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 18th century that canal construction truly blossomed for a variety of reasons: Roads couldn't handle the size and volume of the cargo traffic, fragile goods don't fare well on bumpy roads and, with canals, transport times could cut hours or even days off an over-land journey. At their peak in the early 20th century, there were over 4,000 miles of canals in Britain. Today, 2,200 miles of canals remain open, maintained by the British Waterways Board for commercial and "cruising" purposes, bringing us to the modern houseboat. Limited to 56 feet in length and 4 mph, these boats chug along the canals from town to town similar to the RV culture of the US....but a lot slower. Should you make it across the pond, you can rent one of these boats for a holiday or, if you are so inclined to leave it all behind, buy one and tour the countryside as a sort of aquatic gypsy.

From the water, we take to the rails with a fantastically strange idea we find cool: Houses on rails. Similar to the canal boats, these houses (mobile homes) take advantage of an existing transportation infrastructure to move you around wherever your vagabond wish takes you. You may have a recollection of a stranded caboose sitting our in a field in a place it has absolutely no business being. Now imagine yourself hitching up your multistory apartment in a rail yard and traveling across the country, shifting an entire community, perhaps.  Not a lifestyle for the sedentary and root-bound, for certain.

Flying Rail House Across water, across land, we now take to the air, celebrating the anniversary of the maiden and final flight of The Spruce Goose. Contracted in 1942 to delivery huge payloads to Europe in WWII and avoid the German U-Boats that prowled the Atlantic, Howard Hughes designed the H-4 Hercules, the largest aircraft of its time and the largest flying boat ever built. Unable to use aluminum due to war-time consumption, the plane relied on a wooden frame constructed of BIRCH, not spruce. Today back in 1947, the plane flew about a mile at

70 ft at 135 mph. It never flew again.