WARNING: This is not for the faint of heart!
Every time I leave the house to head to the big city
(Fairbanks, that is!),
I drive a stretch on a dirt road.
It happens to be downhill a fairly good grade
and I never have to have my foot on the gas.
As a matter of fact, I have to brake much of the way because
of the challenging course near the end of said road.
(note: When wet, dirt roads become slippery mud roads.)
Within 2 tenths of a mile there are warning signs
that rightly need obeyed. Starts with this one:
Then this one comes up quickly.
Just ahead on the right is a steep drop-off into an abandoned
gravel pit. The guard rail shows lots of bumps and bruises.
This sharp corner is at the bottom of the hill.
That gravel pit is just beyond the sign.
No problem hitting a guard rail here, at least.
This sign marks the very bottom of the hill.
Miss this one and you'll find yourself nose down in a deep pit.
Josh and Kathleen say that many cars end up here when the road
is a frozen sheet of ice--say, November till March...
They don't salt roads here as it is too cold
and you can't sand a dirt road too effectively.
Once you turn that sharp left, the road begins to straighten and flatten out.
And just before the last curve, a right hand one this time,
this warning of a stop sign ahead stands pretty hidden in the bushes.
Can you find it? Neither can I.
Warning signs are NOT suggestions.
Just a few days after I took these pictures to share on the blog,
I came home to discover the initial sign (going in the opposite direction)
warning drivers to SLOW DOWN had met with a conflicting opinion.
And by the looks of it, I wonder how the other guy had fared!
Oh this blog post makes me laugh. My texan mother who is used to pavement and lots of traffic. Driving this road in the summer is a breeze compared to the winter which is actually more like October to end of April. The bottom curve doesn't have a guard rail just because it is easier to pull a car out of the ditch when it flies off the road then it is to fix a car that has hit a guard rail. Thus Josh's statement the other day, "it seems to be that people who live out of town don't own really fancy cars. We own more SUV's and trucks."
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