{"id":985,"date":"2007-08-02T09:02:04","date_gmt":"2007-08-02T16:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/?p=985"},"modified":"2012-05-11T08:36:20","modified_gmt":"2012-05-11T15:36:20","slug":"depending-on-roads-and-overpasses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/2007\/08\/depending-on-roads-and-overpasses\/","title":{"rendered":"Depending on Roads and Overpasses"},"content":{"rendered":"

I live in a desert.
\n\"IMG_1350\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Asphalt and chapparal <\/a>cover the earth that is my chosen homeland.<\/p>\n

The chapparal will always win, but the asphalt is gaining territory.<\/p>\n

\"North<\/a><\/p>\n

It is getting vertical, too.<\/p>\n

Layered like a cake, or like strata in archeology.<\/p>\n

\"10<\/a><\/p>\n

Or stacked like firewood.
\n\"10<\/a><\/p>\n

VERY stacked:
\n\"IMG_0936\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m counting six layers of lanes in that intersection. Six seems to be the limit. I’ve never seen seven.<\/p>\n

I live in a desert, so these overpasses are over earth.<\/p>\n

But it shook me pretty badly when a bridge collapsed <\/a>yesterday.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t stop watching the news. My first thought was whether one of my favorite writers, James Lileks<\/a>, was okay.<\/p>\n

Lileks blogs the way I wish I did. He talks about his wife and a LOT about his daughter. I was very worried for him, and for his family. I imagined what sort of sadness it would be if one of them had been killed in this horrible tragedy.<\/p>\n

For me, he was the personal face of Minnesota during this time. I couldn’t turn off the TV until he posted online and I knew he was okay.<\/p>\n

The sad part is, there are other families that are not okay.<\/p>\n

Trying to whistle in the dark, I said to Chris, “At least I don’t have to cross any bridges when I am driving around.”<\/p>\n

‘Yes you do!” he said.<\/p>\n

“Well, not over water.”<\/p>\n

right. But if I fell through onto asphalt or chaparral, it would be even less forgiving than the Mississippi river.<\/p>\n

I’ve admired the beautiful freeways and overpasses I travel for a long time now. But what are they hiding beneath their swooping exteriors?<\/p>\n

I can look down, when I am traveling on the higher of the six layers, and think about what holds me up.
\n\"710<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_1334\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_1333_2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Or what keeps me safe as I travel under:
\n\"IMG_1009\"<\/a>
\n\"IMG_0990\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How safe <\/a>am I?<\/p>\n

My heart is with the Minnesota people. I hope the best for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I live in a desert. Asphalt and chapparal cover the earth that is my chosen homeland. The chapparal will always win, but the asphalt is gaining territory. It is getting vertical, too. Layered like a cake, or like strata in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookworthy","category-random-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}