Been Muddin’

Another WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge

I just returned from a ladies’ conference on top of a beautiful mountain in Arkansas with outstanding scenery.

It was raining.

But that’s not all.

The road up the side of this mountain is normally composed of the natural rock we naturally find under the scant soil of mountainsides.  This usually is quite rugged, as roads go.

Bumpy. Bouncy.

But reliable and great traction for steep climbing.

The county road department, however, decided it might be a bit too rugged. They spent hours, I am sure, in grading it to fill potholes, and for the final touch, added about an eight-inch layer of gravel.

Gravel, in the Deep South, often is a euphemism for dirt. And dirt, down here, is often a euphemism for clay.

Eventually clay will pack down almost as hard as brick, in our heat, given the right amount of moisture at the right time.

We recently got about 5″ of rain.

Or more.

So, forty ladies drove nearly as many vehicles straight up a mountainside through about eight inches of extremely saturated good ol’ Southern Clay.

Oh.

I meant to say “gravel”.

We jokingly called it the “slime climb”.

We left zillions of lines and patterns in this new roadbed–left them to dry hard as brick in our sun–but I wasn’t ABOUT to get out of my truck to take a shot of that.

I mean, friends, it was ankle-deep and slick as . . .

So, instead, you get to look at my truck.

Lines.

Patterns.

Muddin’: