Road-be-gone!

In one of my earliest posts, I wrote about being one of the first cars across the new bridge out to Talavera. The road has been a persistant problem -- it washed out in the rainy season , and no fixes seemed to help.

So in came a bridge! And under flowed the mud! And as the water arose, the road washed away yet again.

The water that flowed over the bridge left mud on the road. And took away some asphalt. The guard rail is just hanging between a couple of the anchors.

Bridge to Talavera

Stu and I were the third car across the new bridge this morning!

(In Southern New Mexico, you take your excitement where it comes...)

This bridge has been years in coming. When we first moved to Talavera, 3.1 miles of the road from town was dirt. Back then, fewer people were willing to drive to Talavera, and our area grew slowly.

A couple years before the millenium, the road was paved, bringing an explosion of development to our area.

As the area developed, runoff from big desert storms increased flow down the main arroyo that leads into town. The road was not designed to handle the flow, and the road regularly washed out where the arroyo crossed. We watched for years as the county graded, rip-rapped, regraded, repaved, and re-rip-rapped the area, only to have the next storm again wash it all away, leaving exposed utilities and dramatic cut banks by the side of the road.

So no more speculating on the extent of the damage each storm brings as we drive into town. Unless, of course, Mother Nature again figures out how to best the efforts of the humans who keep trying to win... Will let you know!