Drive of Death: A Spectacular! (As seen on Broadway)

As we all know, I am a danger kind of guy. I drink my latte with whole milk.* I run over killer bunny rabbits without even flinching.** Snow, fog, goats, deer, ice, rain...often all at the same time...that's my daily commute.***

First, to catch you up, I drive through several third world countries just to get here, and I risked my life**** just to smuggle these photographs here and onto the web.



Wht do I call it the drive of death? For starters, because the danger is completely downplayed unless you're a local. Take this example: None of these signs state, "YOU ARE ABOUT TO DIE!!!" They all have numbers and shit on them instead. Misleading, I tell you.



This is often the first (or last ) thing you see on the drive. A giant truck, farm implement, construction vehicle, logging truck, manure spreader, military roadblock or whatever, flying at you from around a blind corner.

Even the roadblocks never come at you less than 70 miles an hour, unless you're behind them on a hill and they're trying to get you to pass them blindly. It's sneaky, they slow down to 20 mph, you think you can pass, and blam, you're dead. You've been suckered into a head-on with another coal truck.*****

You know what happens then? The truckers get to paint a silhouette of your car on the side of their door panel (only half a car if you were the one assisting on the hill) And their boss buys them beer (to drink as they get back on the road to hit more cars. they don't actually have jobs other than that, I think the whole thing is about population control).

You haven't lived until you've entertained the notion that you are about to die by slamming into a manure spreader.



This lovely barn is painted the beautiful color of FOG! Oftentimes the only way to tell you're no longer on the road during some of the worst foggy drives at night is to see the grass or bushes on the side of the road. Instead, during this section you get barn.

Speaking of fog, one of the nice things about the drive is that at night when I can't see the road, I can smell how close to home I am by what people burn in their outdoor wood boilers for heating.

When I say "outdoor wood boilers" I mean they're meant to burn wood. But actually, most of the people on the drive burn garbage, tires, bodies, whatever they feel like. And you can tell by the different hidoeus odor coming into your car where, exactly you are.



You would think that if you have to move boulders the size of a house just to build a house, you might be getting a subtle hint from someone about the place you've chosen to live.



Before cars were available up here (sometime in the early 1990s) people often traveled by covered wagon. This hub is all that remains of the Smithson family. Caught in a snowstrorm in 1986, All 17 of them were eaten by the locals and then their remains were used in the outdoor wood boilers. It was a warm winter, that year, legend has it.

At night, on a full moon in late October, they say you can hear the ghostly sound of young Emma Smithson saying: "I think we should have taken the turnpike."

Consider this a monument to them.



This would be artistic if it wasn't completely accidental. The point is they're sucking the energy from the air. This area only exists exists to be stripped of whatever precious little it has to offer in the way of resources. Thankfully, there's not a strip mine or rock quarry every 10 feet up here.******



This makes me laugh, because God knows there's not enough random shooting going on in these mountains that you need to entice some drunk Hillbilly to shoot at fake animals DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF YOUR HOUSE.

Thankfully, as the drunk shooter weaves, he's also got a decent chance of hitting the kids playing on the slides.



Oh, look, it's a rock quarry!



When an intensive investigation discovers an area along the drive of death that in no way can support human or animal life, officials have only one choice....make it a State Park.



My new apartment. This is actually just one of many lovely houses lying along the road. It might be inhabited. I just don't want to find out.



The antenna you see sticking up on the right is from a secret government facility that only looks like a complete junkyard. It actually broadcasts subliminal messages over the entire population, falsely convincing them that the area can actually support human life (and to buy lottery tickets, but that's another story, for another blog)



This is one of the many community playgrounds available for local children. The kids come from all over just to frolic on the modern and SAFE rides. Tetanus shots are free, btw.



Yes, children come from miles around to climb into the abandoned washing machine, ride the rusty car bumper see-saw, slide on the plate glass slide, or the abandoned shopping cart roller coaster.

Never let it be said the children were deprived of a safe playing environment. If they don't like the playground, they can always hang out at the strip mines or stone quarries.



Early on, I wondered why I never met oncoming cars flying at me 70 mph on the straight-a-ways. Then, one night, as I contemplated a certain death, I figured it out. There are no straight-a-ways.



These cows are just waiting until darkness to leap the fence and wander in front of my car. Fuck you, cows! Other people just roll down the window and say "moo."

Actually, a cow is just about the only animal I haven't nearly hit on the drive home. I'm sure it's just a matter of time. If all the smaller animals fail to take me out, they'll call in the cows. Bastards.

I'm up to goats. I must be a worthy adversary...



Call me sentimental, but I've always found these graveside markers very touching.

As local residents die by car accident, drunk ATV riding accident, getting caught in a threshing machine, mistaken for a deer shooting, knifed by a cousin for hitting on another cousin who's already dating that cousin, I'm moved to reflect on the harsh reality of living in this area.

These people mourn their dead with simple rolls of hay, representing how the body returns to the earth from whence it came, The circle of life and how we are all dependent upon the land for life.



2005: There were a lot of family reunions this summer (with drunk ATV riding).



And because the ride isn't scary enough, some yahoo had to build a haunted hay ride/militia encampment out here.

I'm told this is the site of one of the earliest forts in the county. Several battles were fought on this very ground. The earliest crops were fertilized with the blood of European settlers and Native Americans as they contested the precious land.

At night, on a full moon in late October, they say you can hear the ghostly sound of
members of the tribe crying in anguish over losing their home of centuries...

Ghostly Native American #1: We have come far to find the white man in our fields, taking the game, soiling our precious waters. Many ancestors have come and gone into our sacred ground in this place.

Ghostly Native American #2: Dude, you can't be serious. This place sucks. you've been here for how long? And why are we fighting? Have you seen the hide drawings Frank brought back from the west? Hot chicks everywhere, man. We should roll, seriously.

And in the background, if you listen closely, just above the silver-tipped leaves rustling in the moonlight, there is always young Emma Smithson saying: "I think we should have taken the turnpike."

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*Sometimes even cream, motherfuckers. I'm hard. You feel me?

**Actually, it still kind of bugs me.

***Not for long, hoo-rah. My ass is getting parked next month.

****Well, I did have to open up a second Flickr account. That should count for something.

*****Otherwise, why have radios.

******If you suspect I'm being sarcastic, you know me too well.

A DISCLAIMER: As with so many things you read here, none of this is real. Photographic evidence notwithstanding, the Drive O' Death only exists within my head.

So much of my life only exists in my head...what's that baby? Gee, you're up late. (Sorry, it's the one woman who's ever loved me with complete abandon, without reservation, for me.) You want me to do the male exotic dancer routine before I give you your nightly back rub? I know you love it. Thank you for saying how much hotter I am that Zach Braff guy you had to kiss in "Garden State." I know, thank you, you tell me all the time how you were imagining it was me the whole time. I'll be right there, honey, love you too. Gotta go, people, true love calls...*

*Lest you think real life isn't funny for me, I am currently being semi-stalked by a Buddhist, yoga practicing, singer/songwriter, Starbucks manager who's 20, btw and has been a pierogie in the PNC Park sausage races. Simultaneously, I am engaged to the younger sister of my pregnant boss, and btw, I haven't even met her yet.

Guys, live with joy. And if you can find someone to walk with you as an equal and share that joy, well, then you are blessed. God, I love life.