OTBR: A Farm on Galveston Bay

Latitude: N 29° 29.724
Longitude: W 094° 57.708

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".

---

• on a farm on Galveston Bay in Texas
• in a forest in Estonia next to some fallen trees ("During the walk there and back I ate blackberries, raspberries, wood sorrel and a single blackcurrant.")
• in a very narrow crescent of suburban cream brick veneer houses in Watsonia, outside Melbourne
• in the Chesterfield Cemetery (Est. 1846) on Maryland's eastern shore of the Chesapeake
• unreachable down a fairly-steep drop of about 60 meters, through thick chaparral, near Santa Clarita, California
• in the back yard of a house in New Lenox, Illinois ("It has a wide railed front porch, wonderfully suitable for porch swings and gliders and sipping lemonade on a gorgeous summer day.")
• on the edge of a pond in the center of an upscale apartment complex in Minneapolis
• along a reddish colored highway in Yankton, South Dakota ("There were two run down houses surrounded by encroaching trees along the road. At the corner was an abandoned flower bed with only 6' tall marijuana plants growing in it.")
• down a narrow paved street in the town of Vlasatice, Czech Republic, lined with mostly small houses, about half with fenced yards
• in flat, open fields about 50 meters down a dirt track off a narrow but smooth dirt road in Nový Zivot, Slovakia (the first dashpoint visit ever in that country)
• in Hungary, 168 meters out in a flat field planted in grass ("There is nothing remarkable here: no poles, no signs, etc., just large farm fields separated by tree lines or bushes.")
• on a narrow isthmus between Dahler Lake and Trout lake, where a lake cabin stands on the shore
• off Interstate Highway 15 northeast of Las Vegas, inconveniently placed midway between two highway exits
• on Upper Turtle Lake in western Wisconsin, home to seagulls, loons, and eagles
• in Lafayette, California, on the one block long Cavallero Lane, site of three small homes, two of which are built of red bricks--something of a rarity in the earthquake-prone Bay Area
• in Denver, in front of a T-Mobile store and right next to a busy Starbucks
• in Cachoeirinha, Brazil, in a yellow, one story building belonging to 26th. Battalion of the Military Police, with brown painted iron doors and window frames, a bunch of satellite dishes on the roof and three flags flying in front (State, Country and Regiment)
• and in Victoria, Australia, in long, wet grass of an empty paddock, next to paddocks containing black cattle grazing, a flock of sheep with young spring lambs frolicking and many water birds around a large pond