We name the bike trails we ride in our rural neighborhood. There's the cemetery, the "L", the East Tex loop and one I don't ride too often we call the "T". I call it the "T' because you ride a long straight road and come to the choice of left or right and not being 100% where they go I turn and around and ride back because the distance I have covered has been enough to maintain the health of a 67 year old man, at least for this day.
Riding the "T' recently as I approached it I heard growing sounds of machinery that I had not noticed the last time I rode this route. I passed a couple of those country mansions that are springing up all around my area, places that sell for $300,000 to $500,000 depending on acreage and there was some type of well, gas or oil reared up above the tree line behind these homes.
Now of course I am guilty. as singer songwriter Randy Newman said, for the the rest of my life. I drive a big pickup pulling a camper and my preference for a hybrid car and the lithium ion battery on my e bike coupled with recent rare metal finds in the USA will threaten to turn Arkansas into a strip mine. It does appear that someone is going to have to have things like this in their backyard. From the looks of the clearing there will be more than one well going in here. So more noise and I would imagine these work places are pretty well lit at night. I live on a pretty dark dead end road and recently some new neighbors put up lights. Thankfully not permanent installations but shop lights and extensions cords strung through the trees while pretty bright are not showing signs of making it through the winter. I've been here 42 years and have lived through worse
After a couple of well photos I took a dirt track across the county road into another clear-cut area and spotted a deer stand and feeder. No one was around and there were deer tracks in the road so I would imagine while hunting success was possible is happiness possible?
Modern life has evidence of 1st world people who have everything being unhappy. This indicates that the quality of the experience might not be all that good. I can imagine a hunt in a wilderness area using ancient skills as enjoyable but sitting in a deer stand in the middle of a clear cut waiting for a deer or the rig workers to show up leaves a little something to be desired. Same with a spending a half mil on a house and having an oil rig running loudly and brightly next door.
Of course that will probably happen to me. A decade or so ago my neighbor's cow field was surveyed by crews drilling holes and setting off charges to sound for what was beneath the ground. My neighbor died a few months ago. The heirs are going to want that money.
I'll have to watch out for the oilfield traffic while riding my bike.
Labels: Carl, retirement, sensitive
