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Wednesday, October 23, 2002 So I hauled my carcass out from under the nice warm covers early enough that I was out the door and on the way into Montpelier by 8 a.m. Another cold morning, the sun dragging itself up from behind the cover of gray clouds that masked the lowest part of the eastern sky. On impulse, I turned left at the end of the driveway instead of right, heading up the gravel road instead of down the hill to Route 14. The road makes its way up a gradual incline, past a huge barn owned by my uphill neighbor -- a beautiful old building, three stories tall at least, constructed a century or more ago using enormous planks of dark, weathered wood -- then past my neighbor's house, situated right on the road, as opposed to mine, which lurks at the end of a 150-foot-long dirt 'n' gravel driveway. To the right of the road, all the way along, is wooded land, rising at a steep angle toward the top of Peck Hill. In fact, most of the land here is wooded, most of the leaves gone, so there's more sky to be seen as one moves along the road, more glimpses of green/brown slopes falling away at places on the left or climbing out of sight on the right. Up at the top of the hill, maybe a third of a mile along, the gravel road branches off to the right (called Fifers Ride, curving around Peck Hill to terminate a mile or so along at a house) and to the left, that branch the continuation of Peck Hill Road. It becomes a fourth-class road there, one notch up from a track, plunging down through more densely-wooded land and out of sight. The Town doesn't plow fourth-class roads, and as a consequence only three families live along that mile-and-a-half length, the last residence a house that used to be the local one-room schoolhouse. Making my way along that rough, fourth-class road -- containing enough rocks and ruts that one really needs to pay attention -- I listened to the morning weather report, which mentioned that quite a bit of snow fell in central and southern portions of the state overnight, anywhere from one to six inches. I gave groveling thanks to the Universe at large for not pelting my neighborhood with several inches of snow. As the fourth-class road approaches the former one-room schoolhouse, it gradually transforms from a rough ride to something more civilized -- still dirt and therefore muddy in inclement weather, but not peppered with rocks and ruts. There it crosses a small bridge under which runs a creek, after which it's flanked on both sides by cow pastures. The cows' owners rotate the pastures the cattle are kept in, so you never know whether there'll be a bunch of heifers watching you go by or not. I love driving these back roads. I've been told this town -- Calais, VT -- has more miles of back roads than any other town in the state. True? Don't know. There's a whole lot of back-country mileage one can cover here, though, something I find seriously therapeutic at times. It's the remedy for years of driving in Boston, N.Y., L.A., etc., and as I drove it this morning, gradually waking up while I tooled along, I began realizing all over again how beautiful it is. This area is looking classically autumnal right now – I hate to inflict a word like this on y'all, but it's breathtaking, even with the colors mostly gone. You drive these roads, going up hills and ridges, down into hollows and lowlands, you find yourself as far from the city as if you'd been dropped down in the Sahara. Only without the sand. And the camels. And the heat. And with rain and lots of trees. [Continued in entry of 10/25] rws 9:15 PM [+]
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