Today I delivered some ammunition to a rancher friend who lives about fifteen miles north of me.The road to his place runs at right angles to the "main" north-south two-track. It's dirt (sand, actually) for about a mile and then there is a three-mile section of old, old macadam which is literally the Paved Road from Hell. (Not "to" hell, as they are real nice folks.) This is one of those 10-mph byways that are sometimes found in these parts.
At some point in the distant past the county must have been flush. How that happened is an open question, considering the population and the extreme sparseness of that population up in this end of the county. But anyway they paved a number of wee little roads and then more or less abandoned them. By now almost all of them are completely derelict and exist in random chunks.
They're a big nuisance, while a plain dirt (sand) road up here is often darn good and one can make good time on one. I wish they'd tear 'em all out and revert to sand. But I don't think that's going to happen. Not in these penny-pinching times.
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Any missle silo's near?
Nary a one. Nor any other kind, either.
We can't keep our roads up here either. They are just falling apart.
Seen a few like that out in the west desert of Utah. Basically a bunch of potholes and washboards with a bit of asphalt trim around them.
The section roads south of Cheyenne Wells where east-west US Hiway 40 bisects the prairie sea, are where we hunt antelope and plains deer. They are all graded. It can be treacherous and unpredictable, particularly for those unfamiliar with the sand and caliche clay formations. A fine autumn rain or early season snow storm can turn the cuts that fall of into the infrequent arroyos into slippery traps.
We hunt all the way down to Chivington along Sand Creek.
I am somewhat skeptical about most paranormal studies. However, finding myself in the cottonwood breaks, where winter springs still rise with fresh water; its common for the hair to rise on my neck and the back of my arms when we quietly wander the dry river bottom south towards the massacre site.
"I see dead people..."
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...
Where I grew up in rural Nebraska the county found in the long run it was cheaper to pave than to constantly send out road graders. But that county has most land in one mile sections of gravel, outside towns.
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