Monday, May 6, 2013

OTBR: An American-Themed Diner in the UK

Latitude: N 52° 20.778
Longitude: W 000° 10.602

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 the gardens behind a block of maisonettes in the UK, reported from an American-themed diner called the OK Diner
  • in the middle of Tallarook State Forest, along a ridge following Horans Track with some of the best scenery of rolling hills covered in eucalypts in Victoria, Australia
  • in undeveloped land near Scottsdale, Arizona, where the close-to-the-ground cacti were in bloom with lovely shades of yellow, pink and purpose
  • in the middle of Maine's Etna pond ("still ice on the pond, but considering the ice was beginning to melt around the edges, I decided not to take the chance")
  • in a cattle corral in central Oregon, a kilometer down the road from a llama ranch
  • off a gravel road in very rural Arkansas, in a grassy pasture with small pond and a horse
  • in England, a short walk from Shepherds Bridge, down a path heavily worn across fields with new lambs, in a wood across another field and two walls
  • in a pasture with some hay piles and one horse, down a very small road in a pretty valley in Tennessee ("we were getting the evil eye so we just took a quick look")
  • in very rural Missouri, in a grassy unfenced field with a pond in the distance and rolling wooded hills in all directions
  • down a dirt lane into scrubby woods in Virginia, mostly pine with minimal undergrowth
  • in Estonia, through a nice coastal pine forest, on a bushy meadow in the middle of junipers
  • in Victoria, Australia, under a lone tree in long, wet grass -- between a housing estate, an asparagus field, and a field with three alpacas
  • along California's Salinas River behind a very secure wire fence in a lettuce field
  • in an orange grove in Riverside, California, where most of the fruit is well along to ripening
  • in a broad little ravine off a dirt/packed sand road in a mature forest in Florida's panhandle
  • in National Wildlife Reserve land in Virginia a half mile from a Northern Neck winery
  • in the Harcourt Valley Vineyard in Victoria, Australia, amongst the vines that were just starting to turn with their autumn colours
  • in a small park on California's coastal Hwy 1, unreachable this day because of the running of the Big Sur International Marathon
  • in front of a green ranch-style house in Kansas City with a vintage blue Corvette in the driveway
  • near Clipstone, UK, a nice easy driveby on the entrance road to the Sherwood Forest Holiday Park, just off Goosethorpe Lane
  • in Veterans Woods in suburban Chicago, unreachable to a recent flooding and a swollen creek, but the hiking was great
  • and in Ullin, Illinois, in an old cemetery with many old graves and unreadable stones

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