Drama Along the Road

Snow, more spring-like in its composition, falls lightly. The patches of exposed grass are covered with a thin layer. According to the thermometer, it's above freezing. It's supposed to be a little cooler in the next few days, before warming once more. Even though it's late winter, I think of a folk cliche that speaks to the shadow of the season;

Springtime in the Rockies...

Further west, about one-hundred miles away, in Glenwood Canyon, which stands as something of gateway a western end to the mountains, the Road has been closed by a massive rockslide. The story goes that great rocks, some the size of transport vehicles, punched holes into bridges and the Road itself. Traffic is being routed along other routes, some of which are hundreds of miles out of the way.

Sabina told me stories of what the Road through Glenwood Canyon used to look like, before it was expanded. Like parts of the Road through our Sahel, there was a fair amount of blasting to set the Road where it was, instead of switching back around mountains and following the lay of the land. To this end, Sabina could not help but wonder if all that blasting, all those years ago, did not destabilize the canyon walls and something like this was just a matter of time.

There's some validity to that supposition. It wouldn't surprise me if the weather, like the snow that falls outside of our front door, doesn't have something to do with it as well. That over the years of wind and rain and snow and erosion and hot and cold, along with the vibrations of the thousands of vehicles, which pass daily along that stretch of the Road, had an effect.

Thankfully, none of our travels in the foreseeable future involve going that far into the American Maghreb, although we find ourselves wondering about how this will affect commerce. The Road is the main east/west route through this part of the world, so hopefully, this won't last long. In the meantime, me have ample food and wine presently. I've already resolved to get fuel to top of the tank on the oft chance prices go up because of this. Be that as it may, whilst this is an interesting bit of news to follow, it's probably not something to worry too much about for the time being.