Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Retired People Problems: Trapped Like A Rat

Sweet Gummi Mary! These people putting in gas lines to (and from) nowhere are going to drive me crazy! On Tuesday, they had FOUR trucks parked along our gravel road. Each hooked to a long, long trailer. One had six or eight giant opaque containers of water. Dirty water. Like taken out of the creek. Obviously not for drinking. Perhaps for lubricating or cooling their digging equipment. The heat index was around 110. Due to last all week.

Anyhoo... they are parked on a hill curve! On both sides now! With orange cones denoting a slim path between their equipment. Oh, and none of the eight or ten guys working there are designated to direct traffic. So we are on our own. Take your chances! You can't see over a hill, and you can't see around a curve! It's daylight. So no headlights to suggest oncoming traffic.

So far, I have avoided meeting an oncoming vehicle. Until my trip home on Tuesday evening around 4:50 p.m. As I started down the hill and around the curve, I encountered ONE OF THE WORK TRUCKS, PULLING A TRAILER!

Of course I stopped. That driver, high up in his truck cab, motioned for me to COME ON! I squeezed T-Hoe as far to the right as possible. Two tires off in the mud of the hill, where there's no gravel. That truck driver stayed where he was. I suppose he was waiting for me to go by. 

However... even if I had been continuing straight, and up the next hill towards our other property where HOS (Farmer H's Oldest Son) had lived for a while... another of their trucks with a trailer was parked on that little low-water bridge, with four guys standing around talking.

I put on my left turn signal, though, because I have to go up that side road to get to the Mansion. I guess the truck driver finally noticed. His trailer was completely blocking the road I needed to turn onto. He gradually eased forward, until my path was clear.

I don't need this stress! I just want to be able to get out to town once a day, and get back home! Poor Farmer H! He needs to haul his lawnmower to town for mowing yards of our properties. Good luck getting SilverRedO and a trailer past this mess!

4 comments:

Rae said...

In Minnesota, we call Summer the road construction season. Due to winter weather and the inability to perform such necessary work, they hit it hard during spring, summer and fall. (Although, if we have more winters like last winter, it wouldn't surprise me to hear they are working on the roads then also.) It's kind of a not too funny joke that MnDOT executives stand around, looking at maps and someone will point out a road without construction on it, and he will get a pat on the back, and someone will schedule work for that road within a weeks' time. My husband has learned every side road and back road to and from work, due to road construction. I understand and sympathize your misery. Road construction can also include natural gas pipelines, cable lines, sewer etc. Anyway you look at it, it causes traffic issues. Ranee (MN)

Hillbilly Mom said...

Rae,
Heh, heh! I can imagine that being the way such decisions are made!

I know a lot of alternate routes, due to my phobia of driving on the highway, and past experiences with flooded roads, and needing to get to work on time. There are four ways out of here, but all hinge on me getting past that area where the gas line trucks are currently working! Farmer H said they are past that little section today, and starting up the other hill. So that will be a relief, unless they still have their trucks parked on my section! Farmer H tends to overlook stuff like that...

River said...

I was thinking you might have to carve out your own tracks over the fields, but then I read your comment to Rae that they are past that particular section now.

Hillbilly Mom said...

River,
They were past that section, but I still met two of the trucks there coming home! There was room to pass with the first one hauling its large trailer. The second was parked just far enough past my road so I could get through. Its trailer was having a backhoe driven up on it. Good timing, or I would have been whining again!