#144 - Cutting 'Em Off at the Pass

[nathansnider]

The Passage of a Few People Through a Rather Brief Moment in Time
#144:

CUTTING 'EM OFF AT THE PASS

Topography often prevents idealists from bringing order to the world.
Routes and timetables that seem to possess an undeniable elegance when
seen from above may seem hopelessly flawed when viewed from below. The
Donner Party, for instance, had a brilliant plan to get to California,
but in retrospect, they might have been better off toning down their
optimism a bit. Theirs was a route that didn't exist, at least not in
the way they thought it did. But no trail exists until it has been
blazed, and there are so very many lines that one can draw on a map.
How are we to know whether our route over the mountain will work until
we try?

Our city is full of notional boulevards, most of them invisible to the
world, products only of someone's imagination, but there are others
that have made their way into various forms of being - streets that
never existed except on paper (or the digital equivalent thereof),
streets that still exist but only for some, streets that have been
erased by the politics of property values, and streets that may yet
be.

Come out tonight for a ride on these streets that may or may not
exist, a study in illusion; perhaps also allusion; certainly some
elusion and elision; but (at least this week) nothing Elysian.

-20-ish miles
-Rather hilly
-Some off-roading/walking