Bridge Builder

Today I was doubly inspired while visiting an SMP server. I was trying to find an area that wasn't extensively built upon so I could survive relatively uninterrupted and I noticed what appeared to be a huge cobblestone aqueduct like what the Romans built. However, when I pillared to the top I discovered it was in fact a very long railroad bridge. I followed it down and passed a minecart before reaching the train (or minecart?) station, and kept going. Sadly, I was exploring some new parts of the map and the server was lagging like crazy so they told me to stop. I teleported to the place of one of the people who were there. This person had a floating island structure he was working on, which had a sign that read "Welcome to Heaven!" this inspired me to perhaps build something like that. For the longest time I could not find my way down and said I was about to jump and hopefully land in water. The person then suggested I just take the stairs... which I noticed a few seconds later.

I got to my own world and decided to experiment with making a bridge over the relatively big ocean separating my island from another one. Over the course of an hour I build a cobblestone bridge and laid tracks on it. On the first attempt, I discovered the minecart went pathetically slow. Then when I browsed the wiki I discovered something about using other minecarts to boost the speed. I implemented a simple system and so far it only sort of works right. I have no problem getting the speed. I just need to figure out how to get into the minecart and get it moving before it gets the speed boost. I don't know if there's a trick to that.

I also spent another night shooting from my sniping platform and downed a few more mobs. While collecting the drops I noticed a nice semi-underground gravel vein and mined it out, getting some gravel. Being an archer can be quite expensive when you go through arrows like me. I don't want to use an inventory editor and load up on arrows that way. I am seeking for this game experience of mine to be as close to proper gameplay as possible. Even using Minutor to spot dungeons is pushing it for me. I may go into the tunnel complex underground and clear it of whatever gravel I find, in order to get flint.

Also, I'm using a second piece of software, which is probably going to replace Minutor for my common mapping: Minecraft Topographical Survey, or MTS for short. I used to have its shoddy Java version, which lacked the features of the C version, because I didn't have a good enough computer. Now I'm more than set. I'll probably still call up Minutor for more dungeon searching. Minutor also allows me to see the x-y coordinates of where I am and where blocks are, which enables more precision.