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I made an interesting discovery today.
Today was the preschool trip to The Pumpkin Patch. I went and surprised my daughter, and for the short time I was there we had what is, by Katie's standards, a good time. We stood in line, learned about pumpkins, stood in line again, fed (or in Katie's case, refused to feed) some farm animals. Then it was time for me to go back to my office, leaving the rest of the preschool to continue on their orange quest.
The pumpkin patch is on a gravel road a half mile off of new 210 highway, not far from Liberty. The directions on the website have you approach from the West, so naturally, when I left, I went East, just to see where the gravel road would take me.
Until this day, I believed that there were two 210 highways. There's the new 210 highway, which connects the small town of Missouri City to the rest of the world in more or less a straight line of two- and four-lane, well kept road. Then there's old 210 highway, which joins new 210 after only a mile or so after turning off of 291.
What I learned today is that the old Old 210 is still there, obscured by trees and overgrown hedgerows, running parallel to and between the railroad tracks and new 210, finally dying out a mile or so outside of Missouri City. At the end, it curves into an intersection with new 210. In the satellite photos you can see the old roadbed continue on until it fades away.
What struck me, and why I feel like writing about it, was what I saw when the gravel road arrived at old Old 210. Before me was some sort of industrial construction: rusty, tall, and very dead, made of corrugated tin and long thick posts, the whole of it obscured by trees. The road is crumbling, not busy but not unused. Asphault led away uninterrupted to both my left and right, and about the whole area was a feeling of unhurried decay. The truck driver one day locked the doors, got into his big Ford and drove away, leaving his work as it was, perhaps unfinished but definitely done.
That's speculation, of course, but it fuels my imagination. Now I have to find that intersection again, and drive the road.
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I felt a bit like that when Bruce and I were driving somewhere down here and he said, "There's the mother road, over there..." and I looked to my right to see old brokem pavement running alongside the new highway.
I looked a query at him and he said, "That's Route 66." Huh.
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We love finding little gems like that. I'm hoping K and J learn to appreciate this stuff, too, or they'll spend their entire lives (at least until they're living on their own) bored to death.
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I've not been in there - will definitely have to check that out. And I'd be very surprised if the the kids don't inherit that same trait; that's how I came by it. And have many fun memories of family vacataions to show for it too.
yeah...
Typically this was north to Maryville, west into the corner of Nebraska, south to Manhattan and back along I-70.
I got to spend a lot of time in my own Roadside Revelations, always chosing the curvy, scenic roads to the highway when time permitted.
I was always stopping in all the little towns, browsing the shops and flea markets.
I loved in the early summer when the storms would boil up to my east, between me and KC. Then on the afternoon return trip I'd race them back, watching them grow, and feed, and lightning ahead of me.
I miss how much I used to be not-in-the-city these days...
It had it's own spirituality for me, I think.
Re: yeah...
I know those storms, especially beautiful in the river valley North of Mound City. Many memories there, too.
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