Saturday, August 8, 2015

OTBR: A Bug in the New Mexico Desert

Latitude: N 34° 35.712
Longitude: W 106° 49.950

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".



  • near a large clump of bushes in the New Mexico desert, the only recognizable feature around besides the road
  • in a corn field in Drebkau, Germany, with corn as tall as a man ("nothing but corn")
  • in a field of almost-ripe wheat close to road from Mysletice to Kosteni Myslova in the Czech Republic
  • outside Melbourne, on a steep hill where trail bikes had been gouging the soil, overlooking Maribyrnong River Deep Creek, mature gum trees, lush green grass and small farms
  • just off the A6 in England, in the Fens which was once a wetland area before the drainage systems were dug some one hundred or so years ago
  • in Sycamore, Illinois, where the Emerald Ash Borer is taking its toll on trees in the area
  • in New South Wales, in reasonably open forest, with a lot of fallen branches and limbs hiding in the long grass
  • in Aguoro Hills, California, in knee-high foxtails in a dry arroyo with a few oaks scattered here and there in the grass
  • on the side of the road in Vermont, near a black mailbox and patches of wildflowers, including Black-Eyed Susans and Queen Anne's Lace
  • in a recently harvested alfalfa field in Utah
  • in the UK, in a very small village containing just a few houses and a pub on the edge of Dartmoor National Park
  • in Alexandria, Virginia, behind a split-level red-brick home with a tan door and fancy etched windows ("the house next door has a mermaid over the garage door")
  • on the edge of forest and swamp Tagamõisa peninsula in Estonia, with a lot of abandoned ruins of Soviet military facilities around
  • and in sparse vegetation 500 meters off state highway 375 in central Nevada ("In the entire time I was away from the dashmobile, not a single vehicle passed.")

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