Our gravel road washes away a bit more with every rainstorm. Hick and Buddy's (formerly) Badly Blacktopped Hill can no longer allow water to sluice down its surface. The residents who dug up that blacktop because it was too bumpy probably did not realize they were creating a far worse scenario. Now each drop of water cannot cascade over the bumps as directed by its BFF gravity. Each drop must navigate that hill like a Plinko disk, bumping along each individual rock in the gravel road.
Nature is all about efficiency. Those water droplets join together at the top of the hill, and cut a channel across the gravel road that runs into the ditch alongside. A ditch that grows deeper and wider with each rainstorm. Traversing this hill is now fraught with danger, should one encounter oncoming traffic. Nobody wants to get two tires off in that 12-18 inch ditch.
Because Val is always prepared, she puts T-Hoe in automatic 4WD each time she goes up the driveway, lest she be forced off the road. Just in case. That came in handy last week, when a small gray SUV refused to move over while coming up that hill. What in the NOT-HEAVEN? Life is a game of give-and-take. The driver with the safest option should GIVE right-of-way to the other! Not play a game of chicken.
I had to steer T-Hoe into that deep ditch, because the small gray SUV would not move over, would not stop. Just kept coming! Would have collided with T-Hoe, had I not moved. That's poppycock! I'm older, T-Hoe is bigger, and I have more insurance. But I DON'T have time to wait to file a police report in 93-degree temperature.
Once that small gray SUV proceeded up the hill, I tried to steer T-Hoe out of that deep ditch. But no. I was hung up in a pile of gravel that some clueless roadsman had piled in an effort to steer the water into a creek. I gave T-Hoe a little gas. Nope! Spinning tires. I tried reverse. It worked! T-Hoe's 4WD backed me out of that ditch.
On the way home, I stopped to take pictures. They do not do that ditch justice.
You can't really appreciate the depth from this side of the road.
This is one of the wider points of that ditch.
This photo does not do justice to the pile of dirt scraped over in an attempt to divert water to the creek below. That might be my actual tire tracks from where I came out of the ditch onto the dirt pile, and then down into the next section of ditch.
Here's the thing. All that small gray SUV had to do was move over onto the grassy area.
I do it all the time to let other vehicles pass when they are coming down the hill. It's just grass, with some rocks jutting out. No damage if you slow down and creep along. No ditch. Easy to get back on the gravel once the other vehicle has passed. But NO! Other drivers are so darn entitled that they daren't move off the road!
They may as well be sitting upon their high motorized horses, snooty snoots foisted into the stratosphere to avoid the stench of the common people, while refraining from dipping one tread of their metal steed's tire onto a blade of grass.
The same for the bridge-crossers who MUST go first, ne'er a thought to waiting a turn, while I pause and allow passage, only to be denied the thank-you lifted finger. As if it might result in a chronic injury requiring surgery, rehab, a state-of-the-art brace, steroids, opioids, and a permanent disability diagnosis.
The world is their oyster, and if it so much as rolls a pearl their way, they will sigh heavily, so very put-upon, before asking Alexa to call a lawyer.
No comments:
Post a Comment