Living The Life

Living The Life

Monday, October 24, 2016

The Briar Patch

My driveway is about 800 feet long of gravel.  When I first started, I mostly drove on the grass next to the gravel.  I only came onto the gravel for the garage and entrance to the yard.  The gravel feels harder to drive on.  However, each day I have to go across part of it.  In the start, I minimized that.

As I've been going out, I've been trying to drive on the gravel more and more.  The other day I came back home and was like I'm going to try to drive on the gravel.  I went fifty or so more feet before the steering took me to the grass on the other side.  It is a bit more tricky.

The next time though I took it all the way out to the road from the garage and back again when I came in.  Since then I've been getting better and better.  Today, I don't need to take the grass.  I don't need to hold the clutch, the brake, or put my feet out.  I use the throttle and the steering and can go up and down that drive way.  And every time I do it I get a bit better.

Today I was out, practicing roundabouts.  Whoever thought up round about?  Curves and corners are confusing enough without having to face a circle in the road.  But more on that in another post.  The key a round about is difficult.  It is a giant sharp curve.

I was in the round about, leaned in, taking the curve around the side.  What suddenly do I see in front of me?  Gravel and sand, all over the road.  It is like a dump truck took a dump on the road.  Not really what you want to see when your taking a curve, or round about for that matter.

But I was cool.  I thought this is my drive way.  I'm home in the Brair Patch.  I sailed right through okay.  Key lesson - practice on non-paved roads for when the pavement ends.  Lucky for me, I do a little bit every ride just to get out there.

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