Thursday, March 10, 2011

OTBR: A Narrow Track in Italy

Latitude: 42.4598 N
Longitude: 12.2907 E

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 Italy, down a narrow, pot-holed dirt track called Strada di Poggitella between small farms
  • on a motorway in the UK looking out across the fields near Derwent Reservoir
  • in Estonia, in the snow-covered Kaugatoma-Loo landscape protection reserve
  • in Pennsylvania, out of reach down an unimproved road going to a farm, probably owned by Pennsylvania Amish or Pennsylvania Dutch
  • on IH 35 just south of Minneapolis, scoreable from all lanes and passed by about 158,000 drivers daily
  • on a very fast, busy road connecting Grosseto and Siena with low hills, green fields, double-storey block villas, pencil pines and Mediterranean pines typical of Tuscany all around
  • in western New York, on a dead end road with grape farms on both sides that dies at the border with Pennsylvania
  • in Oregon, 72 m beyond a barbed-wire fence on nothing but flat, monotonous juniper sageland
  • in Oregon, on a small rise next to a large flat surrounded by pumice, a volcanic rock that is less dense than water
  • in Germany, in a slightly grown field with barley (or wheat?) outside the little village of Hary
  • in a mountainous area of Italy known as the Garfagnana in a small field containing olive trees and grape vines on the main (and only) street of the village of Posara
  • southeast of Munich, Germany, on a farm where turf has been (or still is) harvested
  • in Illinois, in a small rolling field with several sets of tire tracks thru the snow and last year’s corn stalks poking thru the snow
  • at about 9 o'clock on the clocklike layout of the campus of Chabot College in Hayward, California
  • in the parking lot in the Morrisville Shopping Center, in Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania
  • in the front yard of a very secured house with a gated driveway in Morris County, New Jersey
  • and in the western districts of Victoria, Australia, with the small Mount Vite in the distance ("There are some strange double name localities around here, namely Vite Vite, Nerrin Nerrin, Pura Pura and Wool Wool. Interesting interesting!!")

No comments: