Saturday, April 2, 2011

OTBR: Pinyon-Juniper Woodland in the Uintah Basin

Latitude: 40.3128 N
Longitude: 110.4005 W

A child on a road trip with his family asks, "Where are we?" and the father answers, "Let's check the map. We're off the blue roads [the Interstate Highways marked in blue on the road atlas]. We're off the red roads [the US and state highways]. We're off the black roads [the county highways]. I think we're off the map altogether." It was always my dream to be off the map altogether.

After the jump, a few of the random places (and I mean random literally) that I visited vicariously last month that are "off the blue roads".


  • in pinyon-juniper woodland in Utah's Uintah Basin
  • behind a row of houses in Germany, with the corner shop, formerly a bakery, now a kiosk for collecting packages
  • in Tuscany, in the middle of a vast olive grove with views in every direction
  • in California, near the peak of the CaƱada de Pala trail in a county park along the winding road that leads up to Lick Observatory
  • in an empty paddock in Victoria, Australia, near a lake that had been bone dry for a few years but now is full to the brim
  • on the edge of a wetland near Linnuraba, Estonia
  • in California's Sacramento River, with picnic tables on the banks and million-dollar boats bobbing in the marina
  • in Ohio, in front of a house with bushes landscaped in a way that make them look like soft-serve ice cream cones and a cupid-style statue/bird bath thing in front
  • in South Carolina, in undeveloped land that is thickly overgrown with brush and pine, along a road with widely dispersed single-family residences
  • in New South Wales, on a street with impressive homes where not long ago was open farm land
  • on a sandy road in Georgia, a forest on one side and a unplanted field with last year's stubble on the other
  • off a road in Illinois, with farm fields on both sides, a bit wet but nothing serious, a bit of corn stubble left from last year
  • off another road in Illinois, with farm fields on both sides, ... and another ... and another, only this time with snow cover
  • in Washington state, in a field planted with winter wheat about 10 cm high
  • in a construction site next to the car park of a business center in Battipaglia, Italy, reached after dusk with rain pelting down
  • in Virginia, in the parking lot of a strip shopping center near a vacant store with a large "Space Available" sign
  • on Reseda Blvd in southern California's San Fernando Valley between a Payday Advance check-cashing place and coin laundry
  • on I-70 near St. Louis, Missouri, in front of a good sized building housing "Warehouse of Dinettes"
  • in Minnesota, 300m from the bank of the Mississippi River in the southbound lane of MN-252, less than 300m north of the clover-leaf junction of I-94, I-694, and MN-252
  • about 0.4 miles down a very faint track off California's world famous Zzyzx Road
  • and in the small valley town of Corticelle, Italy, below a hill with the remains of a fortress with walls and watchtowers

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