Saturday, April 11, 2009

The Road to Nowhere



The road into my place is a bit sunken. That means that when it snows, it fills up. It takes a long time for it to melt, and when it does melt the road becomes a bayou.

No problem. I just drive out in the pasture next to it and all is well. The prairie is actually smoother than the road anyway. If we have a really bad snow storm this whole flat will become impassable and I'll have to work my way out across the tops of the hills to the right, where the wind keeps them pretty clear of snow. Usually, though, I just stay put. (Those flimsy little electric poles can barely be made out on the right as well.)

If the road continues to sink and the maintainer keeps scraping it ever deeper, I'm going to suggest to the county that they roof it. That'll solve the problem.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I trust you have some sort of GPS device. It looks to me like that landscape might be difficult to navigate if you get off the road, or it disappears under the snow.

Rio Arriba said...

Yeah, the truck has a GPS. It's only 1-3/4 miles to the main two-track so it'd be hard to get TOO lost. But your right: unless you know the country it all looks the same.

I'm just 500-yards from a national wilderness area and three winters ago the word went out that there was a hunter lost in it. Everybody saddled up and was heading in (no vehicles allowed) when the notice came that he had been found. It was a bad night and the guy almost died. (Got his deer, though.) The clincher is that he was a state fish & game employee and HAD a GPS-- which he had left in his truck!

Ryan said...

Darn hard to navigate without a GPS unless you truly dead recon (move at an azmith and keep pace count) unless there are some sort of terrain features or roads. If nothing else good backstops like roads are essential.

I like all the pictures a lot and would love to have that kind of isolation but I like trees a lot, curse my PNW upbringing.

Anonymous said...

I use GPS, both vehicle mounted and hand held. But I'm still pretty good with a map and compass. However, out there, with so few landmarks, it would be hard to get back azimuths on two points to exactly locate your position, and dead reckoning navigation would be more challenging.