Thursday, July 3, 2014

OTBR: A Cycle Path in England

Latitude: N 52° 54.558
Longitude: W 001° 50.070

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".



  • about 500m down a footpath and cycle path amid the quiet side roads and country lanes in northern England
  • in a deep and steep valley in South Dakota's Black Hills National Forest, in a mixture of aspen and pine, some dead, probably beetles
  • on a forest ridge, facing a 10 m vertical drop, in New South Wales' Watagans National Park
  • in a large farm plot near Camarillo, California ("a green, leafy plant, with very crinkly leaves...kale, or maybe even turnips")
  • in a field of barley near Wennigsen, Germany
  • in the big swamp next to village Korkkula, Estonia ("very nice and hot and sunny and no mosquitoes")
  • in South Dakota in fenced natural grassland pasture ("pretty much identical to my last 150 miles of driving since leaving mountains")
  • by a house in Las Vegas whose owner has a boat for sale ("at a bargain price of $2500")
  • in a field in Alberta, Canada, near a field full of ancient farm equipment
  • outside Phoenix, in an empty field with scattered saguaro that looked like it would soon be a subdivision to mirror the new Rancho Cabrillo subdivision across the street
  • off the coast of Estonia ("in reed over my head, mixed with some 'fabulous' nettles")
  • off Lighthouse Road in Wilmington, Delaware, behind a row or two of tank cars near a Dupont chemical processing plant
  • in Wisconsin at the end of 350 m long gravel driveway leading to a home in the woods for sale ("with siding that simulated a log building
  • in a soggy pasture near Ballarat, Victoria, Australia ("Nearby there was a Polocross Club and the Ballarat Aerodrome Aviation Museum")
  • on a dirt road in the sleepy town of Neola, Utah
  • near a small, newly-planted vineyard east of Santa Margarita, California, among a few scrubby oak trees dotting the very dry landscape
  • on a green, grassy field near a playground in Rancho Palos Verde, California, where the a climb up a hill affords a good view of the Pacific Ocean
  • and in a mixed agricultural field, reached by bicycle down a minor road in Austria ("Sometimes, you can see some Alpine mountains, but today this was not the case")

No comments: