Well, Not-Heaven's bells! All I want is an uneventful trip to town once a day. It's a 10-minute drive. Five miles. Is that too much to ask? Apparently, The Universe thinks it IS.
Just when those "communication cable" guys finally finished blocking our gravel road, I thought things were back to normal. Sure, it's now bus-waiting time for the middle-of-the-road parkers down by Mailbox Row. But with clever timing, I can avoid the 20-30 minutes they're there. Which I've been doing, leaving a bit earlier than usual.
Monday, as I cruised toward the low-water bridge, I saw a glint of white at the top of the hill past it. Huh. Must be a car coming. The road gets narrower at the top of that hill, so I dallied a bit, waiting for that car to come down first. Nope. It wasn't moving. That was unusual. So I went on.
At the top of the next little rise was a white utility truck. Parked on the wrong side of the road, facing me. Orange cones were lined along the side of it. Over where the center line would be, if a center line was painted on our county blacktop road. This left a little strip of pavement to drive by. Except I could see NOTHING as far as oncoming traffic! Two guys in bright yellow-green vests were walking along, adjusting the cones. Neither of them appeared inclined to direct traffic!
I had no room to turn around, unless I backed up T-Hoe (no backup camera, beeper not working) and tried to get into a driveway. So all I could do was proceed, slowly, hoping nothing was coming the other way about the smash into me head-on. I got past.
I've been worried about this scenario for about a week. I'd seen THREE giant poles lying alongside the road, on the other side of the ditch, along people's fences. The fear being that either the telephone or electric poles were going to be replaced. Of course that would happen during regular working hours. The time I make a trip to town.
NOW IT WAS HAPPENING!
I went on to town. Toyed with the idea of taking a different route home. Then I thought maybe those guys had been picking up the orange cones. Maybe they were done for the day. It was 2:45 when I started to town. I don't know what kind of shift they work. It was now about 3:30. So I returned the regular way.
Bad idea. Those guys had just moved their truck (and trailer with a strange contraption on it) a couple hundred feet up the road towards town. But now it was turned around, at least on the right side of the road, but still taking up all but a strip of pavement, still with cones, and now with those big brace thingies that go out for lifting heavy objects.
At least this was on a straight stretch of level road, and I could see that nothing was coming as I inched T-Hoe along as if his tires were on a tightrope.
Today (Tuesday), I'm taking the alternate route. Hoping there's not also a crew working on that road.
4 comments:
Perhaps you could lobby for widening of the road? That way at least you can inch past things like this with more than a whisper of space.
Road work has been going on since we moved here. It is the road we need to take to our doctor appointments in Georgia. The part of the road is in North Carolina and the longest part, when you hit the georgia state line, the work stops and it becomes just a two lane highway. The highway will be nice if they ever finish it. You think they are done with a nice long stretch, then the next time you attempt a trip, they have ripped up the brand new road and have begun digging a hole deeper than my ravine. No apparent reason, maybe water is not draining from rain? We have yet to be able to use the road as a four lane highway and the contstruction started before we moved here! No idea when it might be finished and have just accepted that it never will be finished!
River,
I doubt that will ever happen. After all, there's the low water bridge that floods out about a dozen times a year, tearing away huge chunks of the pavement, which get replaced within a week or two. I don't think the county road commission gives a hoot if we have to inch by utility trucks, since they've never attempted to put in a new bridge.
The road used to be okay, but every time it gets re-surfaced with a new layer of blacktop, they stop an inch or two from the edge. So it continually gets narrower with each re-surfacing.
Kathy,
I hate it when that happens! There was a 20-mile section of highway that was under continuous construction when we visited The Pony at college in Norman, Oklahoma. For ALL FOUR YEARS! Stupid me! I kept thinking maybe they'd be done next time.
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