Longitude: E 144° 22.386
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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 last month I visited vicariously (not actually) that are "off the blue roads".
- behind high gates and an equally high, secure wire fence on a deer farm in Victoria, Australia
- past Paradise Springs Winery in Virginia's Hemlock Overlook Regional Park, through the woods down a dirt road, then a short distance along the shore of Bull Run
- an unremarkable, typical Iowa floodplain dashpoint, along a narrow enough road it's almost in a cornfield tunnel
- in Nebraska, almost in the intersection of two gravel roads ("Fields in all four directions are soybeans.")
- in Missouri, in a field along a road just past where 6 or 7 vultures were feasting on a dead armadillo in the road
- in a field in farming country (some corn, lots of potatoes) south of Erie Pennsylvania, on the unfortunately named Bagdad Road
- in a dense thicket next to a familiar cornfield in flat farm country in Ohio within sight of the I-90 tollroad
- southwest of Chicago on a footpath in Island Prairie Park in Frankfort Square through a wetland of weeds and cattails that surround a lake
- on North Lake northeast of Flint, Michigan, scorable from a small public beach
- in Syracuse, New York, behind a white two-story, two-car colonial house with black shutters in a nice but older neighborhood
- in north-central Pennsylvania, next to a large industrial building and a two-story house partially wrapped in plastic during construction of an addition
- in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, inside a large, handsome old red brick building labeled with A.A.S.R. ("Ancient and Accepted Scottish Right of Freemasonry")
- on the banks of the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania, at the entrance to the Spargo Dairy Farm
- in Glen Waverley, an eastern suburb of Melbourne at the cyclone wire fence surrounding a house under construction
- in the Melbourne suburb of Essendon (w0ot, my old home), in a double-storey mock Victorian house with ornate balustrades
- north of Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the yard of a brown stone and wood house around the corner from a farm selling sour cherries but no one was in the shop
- south of Baltimore in front of an odd Cape Cod dwelling with a large dormer with four windows
- on the loading dock of Monroe Transportation, a trucking transportation business west of Chicago, and about 1km from Safari Land, a converted strip mall with sculptures of exotic animals out front
- in Iowa, in a Midwest cornfield ("not a wimpy New England cornfield with 6" high plants; this is as high as an elephant's eye")
- in a lawn in Cedar, Minnesota, near a pair of birdhouses on wooden fence posts with sheet metal shields to keep squirrels from climbing them
- in Virginia, down the side of a ridge paralleling the James River, right at the entrance to the Twin River Campground
- in Tennessee, in a recent subdivision with very large homes on largish lots, in a house that is two stories high in front, but likely has a basement that opens to the rear, where the ground level is lower
- in the Nevada desert, about 3km along a rough track, past a local party area, with remains of campfire rings and an assortment of empty beer cans, up a ridge line, about 350 meters from parking
- off a rural road in New Hampshire behind a house and a small barn with an orange tractor
- down a long driveway in Kentucky, behind a house hidden in trees with a half dozen outbuildings and several old cars and trucks parked around the property
- in Vermont, on the property of Ledgewood Gardens, containing several greenhouses, including one with a scarecrow inside
- and in the river behind the parking lot of the Maine Wild Blueberry Company in Machias, Maine (a new eastern extreme for the US)
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