So, what’s with the Road Otter?
Long story, many pieces.
Piece One
I’m OtterGold Mistwalker. Started out as a nym for 2ndLife, and was just so cool, it now has a life outside 2ndLife.
Piece Two
I love to drive. Growing up out west, I had these lo-ong open roads, with wide open spaces. If I got the driver’s seat first, nobody else got to drive. Eight hours, ten, didn’t matter. If someone else started in the driver’s seat, as soon as I got it, yup, nobody else got to drive.
Driving from Kingman to Prescott, at night during a thunderstorm, where the only way to tell where the highway went was the truckers’ lights ahead of me. It was awesome! My passengers weren’t so thrilled, but hey, they weren’t driving. And no, I’m not stopping the night in Williams just because of a little rain.
Part Three
Many (many) years ago, my father and I drove down to Key West. Realizing after the fact that Key West was the south end of US Route 1, I sorta made a wish for myself of someday taking in the top end of US Route 1.
Part Four (are you done yet? no)
In 2011, I ended up moving from California to upstate New York. Where, as it turns out, I’m not that far from the top end of US Route 1. Well, it’s a lot closer than California.
Part Five (more? still?)
In the investigation of US Route 1, I discovered all this other stuff about other US Numbered Highways. I’m about a mile north of the longest Route in the country, US 20. US 9 runs not too far away. US 2 with its weird split, US 6 (which used to be the longest until the California legislature, back in 1964, decided the pur lil drivers wood be all cornfused by multiplexed roads, so they made all highways have just one number each, so US 6 now ends at Bishop), US 11. And AASHTO! I’d wondered how roads got and kept their numbering. AASHTO! And Route Logs! And all kinds of fun stuff. I’m a data junkie in my other life.
Part Six (don’t go ‘way, almost done)
I now live by myself. Well, me and the cats. I don’t have to coordinate with anybody about where I go and when I go there. Well, except Mother Nature, who on this beautiful day of beginnings, is dropping over two feet of snow on my car and the roads. I’m not enough of an upstate New Yorker to drive anyway, and I’m enough of an upstate New Yorker to know not to drive if I don’t have to. So install the WordPress thing, and get started being a published road geek!