Don't Go Where The Road Don't Go...

 Three things you should know about me. (if you've been reading this blog for any of the past 13 years you probably already know much of this.)

1. I'm a huge Beatles Fan.  If you are too, then you might recognize that the name of this post is a Ringo Starr song from his album Weight of the World.  The chorus is the simple name of the title an there's a bridge that refers back to another Ringo hit:  "Well, I said it don't come easy. Well, I sure know how it feels."  This and another Ringo song, "Private Property" ("Have some common sense, you get off the fence, don't go fooling with private property.  It's known when we're in a crowd, that there's gonna be no trespassing allowed.") were floating around my head the other night.  
2. I get up early (for example the other day I woke up at 3:20 or so and couldn't get back to sleep knowng that my alarm would go off around 4:45) and I go to bed/sleep early.  I like sleep so I often close my eyes around 9.  The lights are usually off by 8.  I'll be awake, but ready to doze.
3. Our house in the Poconos is on a private drive.  It's kind of strange (as I've said before), but if you turn onto my street from Oak, there is a small portion (on which there is one house) that is paved and not private.  The road forks...the left is White Birch, which is paved and the right is my drive which has a sign that says private and is NOT paved, it's gravel.  The gravel road goes past my neighbors' houses (one of the south side and one on the north, next to mine...and this house is not technically on our drive, but on White Birch) and when it gets to mine it is sort of paved again.  (I'm thinking that's because our horseshoe shaped driveway is paved and so when that was done, they did the portion of street as well.)  Then the road sort of stops.  You could say the gravel road continues, but not really.  
   
   (You'll also note my sign...but with all the snow that's been plowed over, buried and possibly lost.) This path, if it were a road, SHOULD continue straight, but there are rocks, so again it kind of ends.
   
   If you look closely (I know it's hard to see) there are two boulders, so the road doesn't continue.  Instead there is a curve and it becomes my neighbor's paved driveway (again if you look closely you can see a sign that says private property).  My neighbor also has a horseshoe shaped drive and the east end of the drive leads you to a gravel road.  This portion of the road (which is still private) takes you down quite a ways and ends at Spruce.  So (and I know this has been a long "fact"), if you enter my street from Spruce, you can get to my neighbor, but not to me.  If you enter my street from Oak, you can get to my house, but not to my neighbor on the east.  I realize that this all is a bit confusing, especially since GPS will lead you to believe that this is all one road, but it's not.  And if you look at the map on the top of this post, you will see that the road is shaded darker gray where it is public and lighter gray where it is private.  There are also signs at both ends of the road that say private drive.  We have signs up (that are still visible despite the snow) saying it as well:  
   
   
   And, as might be obvious, when it snows, our plow company comes and plows out our driveway.  In order to access that, they also plow the portion of the road that leads to our house.  They DO NOT plow past our house. 
     
   As you can see, not plowed.  Now somone in a large vehicle (truck) DID go down that way, even though it wasn't plowed.  But it's not something I'd advise.

anyway...

The other day, after a LONG day which started when I woke just after 3 in the morning and included going to the office in Newark for work, driving back to the Poconos and doing grocery shopping before dinner, I took a nice hot shower.  There is a window in the shower stall that looks out to the wooded area to our east.  IF it is light out you can (barely) make out part of my neighbor's house to the east.  At night, you can see the stars, moon and the shadows of trees.  But I could also see blinking lights.  The hazard lights of a car.  They were NOT in my neighbor's driveway, but at the section where the road ends and her driveway begins.  (At least that's what I think...it was dark and there are a lot of trees.)

Cars are a rarity. (Although becoming less so as people start to rely on GPS and ignore physical signs and common sense.)  I ignored the whole thing, got out of the shower and into my pjs.  Then it was in to bed and time to watch some mindless tv which would lull me to sleep.

I was relaxed and had closed my eyes when I heard another car.  Again, this is strange.  So I got out of bed and looked out the front window.  There was a car parked in front of our driveway/house (east end) with its hazards on.  Then I went into the bathroom to look out that window and sure enough in the distance I could still see the blinking hazard lights of the first car that I had seen about an hour and a half previously.

What followed over the next hour or so would have been funny if it weren't so pathetic.  The driver from car two walked (through the snow that was still not melted and had never been plowed) to car one.  I have no idea what their plan was (if there was one).  Car one attempted to back up.  It would go back a few feet and then go forward.  (Again it was hard to see because it was dark and a distance away.)  After a good 20-30 minutes driver from car two came back to the car (I could tell by the flashlight) and instead of backing out of the street or using our driveway as a turnaround (which annoys me, but...), attempted to do a k-turn, but the road is narrow and the sides have snow drifts, so this was a bit of a problem.  Eventually the car got turned around and left.

Car one is still trying to slowly back up.  Something and/or someone was doing something to help.  Eventually they back up far enough so that I could see that a person (not the driver) was doing several things.  One was shoveling out the non-existent street with a shovel/snow thrower.  Then the person would put mats (?) down by the car's tires.  Finally the person would go to the front of the car and push (?) as the driver tried to back up.  This process was repeated over and over again.  It was slow going and often it seemed like there were more losses then gains.

Then car two returned.  (At least I'm assuming it was the same car.)  This time the car didn't park in front of my house, but much further back.  Driver got out and I'm assuming helped the other person as they tried to get the car out.  One the of the problems was that it wasn't going straight back and staying in the ruts/depressions that whatever vehicle had gone before (and was better equipped for snow/ice).  So it kept getting stuck on lumps/humps of snow and ice.  The "helpers" were shoveling and walking over the piles of snow/ice on the sides of the road.  (It wasn't terribly cold, but still...)

Eventually, and I kid you not this took over an hour to do, the car made it to the plowed section of the street.  At this point, I gave up and closed the curtains again.  I'm assuming that both cars backed up and made their way out.

Now, perhaps I was not a good person in just watching all this.  Perhaps I (and my husband) should have gotten out of our pjs, gotten dressed and gone out in the dark to help the person who clearly ignored all the signs and purposely drove into an unplowed path which led to nowhere.  But we didn't.  (Although I have to wonder if one of the people helping was my neighbor's son.)

Once again, I'd like to remind you all that if the signs say "NO THROUGH STREET" or "DEAD END," they mean what they say.  Driving into an area that is not plowed is not advisable (especially if you are in a car that is low to the ground and NOT in a jeep, SUV or truck).  And private property is just that, PRIVATE.

Finally, remember the words of Ringo Starr, "don't go where the road don't go."