Likely roads

I turned off Missouri State highway N on a “likely road” south of Rockbridge. The road climbed a nice hill and eventually gave me this vista of verdant pastures, trees, a hay barn, and silo. I had just completed photographing another silo at the point where the road leaves Highway N. See that silo on the Corndancer Photo of the Week page. One would have never guessed this scene would be available. But for the turn down the likely road, we would have surely missed it.

 How to find a likely road

Check out this silo and more at Corndancer dot-com.

Since I have been plying the back roads, pig trails, pathways plus other odd and assorted byways in the bowels of rural areas, I have informally amassed information to pass judgment on the probability of finding something cool down a given road. The ones with the best opportunities I call “likely roads.” Likely roads are predominantly gravel or perhaps dirt. Most do not have utility lines running down the sides, although this is not a deal killer. Before we go to much further, we encourage you to check out the Corndancer Photo of the Week page where this story got its start.

This is a likely road off the famous “Pig Trail” in north central Arkansas. If it were less traveled, the likeliness index would be higher. If the roadway was less traveled and sunk below the roots of the trees, the probability of finding something cool to shoot is even higher. Its siren call is saying “travel me!”

Likely roads generally have trees butting up to the road bed. Since the current trend of highway and road departments is to make shoulders nude of vegetation, when you find a road with trees abutting the right-of-way, it is a good bet that little has been done to the road, other than occasional grading, since it was first a road. This is a good sign of age. The older the road, the better. Roads into timber dedicated areas are usually non-productive for camera fodder since producers want every square foot growing trees. This means that former buildings or other structures were probably flattened long ago.

Before I stumbled across the silo scene, I found these two old trucks, a ’54 GMC winch truck and a ’53 Chevy pickup at an abandoned residence on the same road. Further down the same road, I found the old barn you will find over the caption “Not so Big” on the October 19 Corndancer Photo of the Week page.

Here’s a second look at the old trucks.

A 1954 GMC winch truck individual portrait.

A 1953 Chevy pickup individual portrait

On another likely road, near Romance, Missouri, I found this “down on the corner” scene.

Still in the Romance MO neighborhood I found this old building.

On Souder Road near Rockbridge MO, you will find this old barn. I originally visited the old barn and property owners in October of 2009. See how the barn looked in 2009 in our October 26, 2009 post.

Here’s a second look at the old barn — behind a weather grizzled tree.

Further down Souder Road, this Angus heifer was a tad curious. Remembering the sixties TV show “Secret Agent” theme song, Secret Agent Man, by Johnnie Rivers, she seems to be saying “They’ve given me a number and taken away my name.”

With these handy instructions in mind you may now sally forth to discover “finds” on likely roads. In the event you become lost, if you happen across electric power lines, you can generally follow those until you find a hard surface highway or someone who can steer you right. If you take a few notes about landmarks as you go, you can refer to those and backtrack. Otherwise careful out there. There are booger-men lurking.

Thanks for dropping by,

Joe Dempsey,
Weekly Grist for the Eyes and Mind

http://www.joedempseycommunications.com/
http://www.joedempseyphoto.com/
http://www.corndancer.com/joephoto/photohome.html

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