Friday, December 2, 2011

OTBR: An Unpaved Forest Road in Finland


Latitude 60.597400° N
Longitude 22.563200° 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".



  • down an unpaved forest road in Finland
  • in Utah sagebrush country with mountains in the background, two miles down a rough up-and-down 2-track then a half mile hike on cool, cloudy day
  • in a harvested soybean field in Ohio, across from a harvested corn field
  • on a gravel road in Indiana just over the border from Ohio surrounded by harvested soybean fields, within site of a wind farm off to the east in Ohio
  • west of Mojave, California, in an area full of fairly-new wind-powered electricity generators
  • along a rural road in Hungary, with large, flat, harvested fields and a couple of farm houses further north up the road
  • in Arizona, in flat, sandy, scrub desert, directly opposite a cotton field that has recently been harvested
  • in a harvested soybean field in Nebraska near an abandoned WWII munitions plant
  • in Missouri, at the back edge of a small harvested field near a small creek with several trees growing along it ("One of the trees had what looked like large florescent green tennis balls hanging from its branches.")
  • in Estonia's Kaugatoma-Lõu landscape protection reserve ("I'm not quite sure, what's so special in this place that it needs to be protected, but anyway, it's surrounded by a fence and that's how the area is called.")
  • easily accessible in fairly open dry forest near Moliagul, Australia ("gold fossicking history but there wasn't much evidence here")
  • in Victoria, Australia, on the playing fields, green from recent heavy rains, of St Pauls College
  • in Victoria, Australia, on the lawn tennis court of an attractive estate hugging the curved boundaries of Rosebud Country Club golf course
  • in Melbourne's busy Springvale Rd, near Century City Walk, home to a Novotel Hotel, Village Cinemas, The Pancake Parlour, a bowling Alley and several cafes
  • and on ice plant-covered land on the northernmost part of California's Monterey Peninsula, with the Pacific Ocean and the Point Pinos Lighthouse visible from the parking area

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