A random neighborhood exploration pays off

A couple of years ago for lack of something better to do one day, I fired up a snowmachine and took a run around the neighborhood. No one, including me, likes the sound of machines roaring close to houses so I headed toward the woods down the street as quickly as possible to get away and just to see where the road went, expecting a dead end. Instead of stopping me, the road extended on into the woods in the form of two ruts of little more than a trail and I followed it.

After a couple of hundred yards it intersected with another trail, this one much wider and obviously used more often. I turned north onto it just to see where it went and eventually it came out behind an elementary school and then joined the same street where the local trash transfer station is, which in turn led to the main road. After turning around I went the opposite direction on the trail until it crossed the Butte International Airstrip, joined a gravel road and led me out to the other main road that serves this subdivision. Across the road lay the huge recreation area and maze of trails that eventually lead to the river. I made a loop through that and ended up back home from the opposite direction to the one I followed when I started out.

Some time later, just because I could I hooked up a sled and hauled my trash to the transfer station with the snowmachine. Along the way I came across a pickup truck coming toward me using that trail, information to be filed away.

Fast forward, now to yesterday. I was happily cruising the internet at home and contemplating a trip into town for mail and groceries when I heard a loud bang outside somewhere. Then the power went out. That kind of made the decision for me and I figured I would make the trip while the repair was under way. That journey came to a halt quickly when I encountered a line of cars near the curve that gets you onto one of the two main roads into the subdivision. A fellow had hit a power line pole and a live wire laid in the road.

First of all, no sympathy for the driver. Apparently this guy had been seen racing along that road before at speeds up to 50 and 60 miles an hour in the 30 mph zone. A proof of his speed, the collision was violent enough to break the pole off entirely and it had fallen by the side of the road too. Someone said the driver wasn't hurt but was obviously drunk.

A worker at the scene said it could be three hours before the damage was repaired. Figuring someone would work out a way for traffic to get around it fairly quickly I waited patiently. We waited because the other entrance road also was closed for some construction around a bridge. After about half an hour, I was talking with a kid who had been driving the dump truck in front of me in the line and complaining a little about the wait when it hit me.  I told him, hey, I know a back way out of here.

I pulled out of line and went back to my own street, drove to the end and straight onto that trail and then turned onto the one that took me toward the transfer station. Already three others had figured this out and were moving along the trail ahead of me. In short time we emerged from the woods, drove onto the main road and I was on my way to town, smugly telling myself how great an explorer I was.

As it turned out the power was off for about five hours, a good portion of which I spent running my errands and bringing home the groceries instead of waiting in line for traffic to move, all in all a satisfying outcome to what could have been a frustrating waste of time.