May the (black) road rise to meet you…
Shiny, shiny! Ooohhh, look at that reflection.
The photographer in me couldn’t resist.
Sorry. Where were we? ‘Shiny’ distracted me for a second there…
Anyhoo, a nice group of men then gathered in various vehicles and implements (a little Mad Max-ish, without all the pent-up aggression!) and started doing this…
to our very dusty red gravel road…
You need to understand just how much dirt we drive on – and how much of that vibrant colour makes its way into every crevice of the cars that drive it. The novelty of country roads, when you are attempting to remove its evidence from the carpet and door seals, wears mighty thin my friends! 
As my Dad used to say, as the tyres of our white Valiant wagon hit the the bitumen almost 20km from home:
“Aaaahhhh! Gotta love that black stuff!”
And as picturesque as dirt roads may be, the sight of a strip of sparkly blue metal stretching through our hills, well… it sure made this skirt fly up!
Even the smell of steaming liquid bitumen was somehow sweet… and exciting…
And you have to trust that I wasn’t the only soul wound up by the roadwork activity… here comes my uncle in that ute to the left of this photo. It was his birthday, the day the bitumen went down… and he took it as his very own personal gift.
(Sure it was a gift he had significantly contributed to. We all had. But the timing was immaculate! Happy Birthday T!)
Go you good thing!
Nice clearance I must say – those old rodeo knees were feeling NO PAIN this day. And Bon Bon’s still got plenty of lift in those slender pins! Go girlfriend!!
And for many weeks after that fateful day last October, the two-way radios in these parts were abuzz with bitumen-inspired conversations…
“How’s that road of mine looking today?”
“You’re not driving bloody dirt onto our new road, are ya?”
“Gotta love that black stuff, mate!”
Sure, it’s a strange things for a city chick to get excited about… it’s not a sale at the upmarket clothing outlet, or a Robbie Williams concert, but I’m back into the swing of things here. And my bells were a’ringin!
What rings your chimes??
10 Comments
Andrea
Our dirt road just recently got oiled and rocked!! That was sooooo awesome!! I now ride my bike down it and only wash my car about every other week now!! I think getting a oil and rock road was one of the best things to happen out here!!!
Jayne
Can’t really think of anything at the moment but if they ever asphalt the road to our block of land in country Vic I’ll be doing cartwheels lol.
debby
At this point, I think what will ring my chimes is dry feet. As in, please, please, let it the rain slack off. I wish I could send this weather where it’s needed because we do not need it here.
Some of your expressions just made me laugh out loud. Good post to start the morning!
dykewife
this might sound a bit odd, but flush toilets thrill me. really, they do.
when i was a young child we had no indoor plumbing. this meant that there was a honey pail that had to be hauled to a dumping ground. the stink could make a buzzard drop out of the sky.
this also meant that there was an outhouse in the yard. the smell of that, especially in summer, was enough to make me try and figure out how to induce kidney failure.
add onto that years of camping for holidays with parents and having to use outhouses in camp grounds that were run by rather “lax” owners and you’ve got a woman who is thrilled with flush toilets.
yeah. the first thing i did when we moved from the small town to the city was flush the toilet i found in the house. and to thrill me even more, there was not just one, but two toilets in the house.
toilets float my boat.
steviewren
Red is the color of the ground where I live too and even though we have asphalt roads I have had my share of contending with that staining dirt. When my sons played baseball getting their uniforms clean and bright was no small task. That dirt stained everything. Enjoy your clean ride!
Pencil Writer
Red dirt roads just might be universal. Either that or we’re nearer neighbors than previously thought! We have ’em round here in great abundance! They are, as you mentioned, very picturesque, though not so much fun to drive upon. Love the asphalt ones for driving, esp. long distances, as in the next couple of weeks we’ll be driving 1500 miles (more K’s than that, of course, but I forget the ratio).
I tell you that one thing I truly am grateful for is running water–much like the toilet thing–I often give thanks for the warm water of my shower as I enjoy the refreshment (and cleanliness it brings with it). I guess I’ve been camping enough (and remember the stifling heat, humidity following Hurricane Rita that resulted in NO electricity, hence neither running water–the pumps for city water didn’t work w/o electricity) that having warm, running water at a fingertip is SO wonderful. Plus, I often think of the thousands of years people on the earth had to walk to the stream, or river or well to procure their daily water rations. MAN! I’m SO GRATEFUL for running water (and water heaters, too!)
Bush Babe (of Granite Glen)
Nice to see I’m not the only sucker enduring red dirt roads… sigh. And that I am among friends who revel in the everyday stuff. Driving on bitumen (even if it is just a tiny strip in the many kms of dirt we traverse each day). Having dry feet. Running water and flushing our loos.
But DW… seriously. Flushing floats your boat? Is this a Canadian thing? Thought flushing was supposed to remove all floating objects?
Sorry. I’m kidding. It’s late. Tired turns me into smart a****!
BB
steviewren
Bush Babe, you’ve been given an award. Pop over to my blog and check it out!
Hazel Owens
As much as I love the look of red sand, I can definitely see how it would be exhausting to drive over it constantly. I can see why your dad was so happy about hitting the bitumen after driving on it for so long. It’s great that your road got to have some bitumen laid down; maybe your car can stay clean for a bit now. Thanks for sharing!
McKenzie
What a fun post! Although the feeling of being around dirt roads is cool and all it isn’t cool to become a part of your cars ha! Thanks for sharing!