On the Side of the Road

It has been a busy week for me riding my bike. I started on Sunday by finishing a 40 mile ride in less than 3 hrs. In fact, I rode the fastest average time (14.1 mph) that I’ve ever ridden over any distance. And that was the longest distance I’ve ridden. I discovered the benefits of eating and drinking while on long rides and it really makes a difference! Then on Tuesday I followed up with a 23 mile ride and I hope to do between 20 and 30 miles tomorrow morning. I am trying to increase my mileage and time on the bike so I can build up to longer distances. This weekend I’ll shoot for another 40 miles or maybe a bit longer if I can make it.

While logging miles on the roads of the South Carolina Midlands, I’ve seen all kinds of interesting things. As an archaeologist I am trained to look for patterns in material objects and to use those patterns to interpret human behavior. It is hard to leave that training behind when I am not playing archaeologist. So here are a few observations I can make about the stuff I see along the side of the road.

1. You See Dead Things

No real surprise there, right? I’ve seen lots of dead things. Some of them are really flat and desiccated, while other things are more fresh…and graphic…and gross…and smelly. The array of species is interesting. Sure, I’ve seen cats and dogs and squirrels. Those mostly occur on roadsides in town. Out in the country, the dead things get a bit more exotic. On Sunday, my ride took me a ways out into the rural country side. In that area I saw a dead gray fox. It was pretty fresh and twisted and I can still see it in my mind’s eye. I also saw a rattle snake. It was pretty flat but still colorful, smelly, and fully identifiable. It wasn’t very big, maybe 2 feet long. It was a youngster that didn’t get the chance to feast on too many Yankees before he met his maker. I also saw a dead field mouse. It had almost made it back to the field before it passed on.

It is fun to keep a list of the species I’ve seen dead on the roadside. I am sort of like a birder. I should keep a journal specifically of the dead animals I’ve seen and make a list of the things I want to see on the roadside. I can cross them off as I see them. It’ll be fun. Maybe I can include my kids and make it a home school project. I should take photos.

2. Lots of Interesting Trash

Oh yeah, there’s tons of trash on the roadsides. You know, the usual things…cans, bottles, food wrappers, etc. I’m not just talking about those things. Here in SC people put much bigger things on the roadside…and they create big piles of those things. In town you’ve got trash day and recycling day and then you’ve got yard waste day and also big crap day. The stuff people leave in the road next to their house for big crap day is pretty amazing. You get an assortment of big boxes—incidentally, if I were a thief I’d just drive around on big crap day to see who just got a new big screen TV or computer. You also get an amazing variety of other stuff: unwanted chairs, old bread makers, broken furniture, bird cages…you know, crap. Now I haven’t read the city regulations on what they will pick up on big crap day, but it just amazes me what people put in the street. It all disappears by Friday evening—poof. The evidence of our hyper-consumption disappears leaving us guilt free and ready to buy more!

Out of town I saw lots of big piles of crap next to the road in front of people’s houses. Sometimes the crap was even bigger and scarier—large appliances, car batteries, old bikes and other kids’ toys plus a fine assortment of household waste. The difference is that those piles out in the country look a bit more established than the ones that disappear each Friday in town. I’ll let you know after tomorrow, but I’m thinking that those piles in the country don’t disappear every Friday. Those piles may represent a bit more of a permanent local trash solution. Then again, maybe they represent caching behavior. Since folks outside of town generally have to take their trash to the dump themselves, maybe they just store it on the side of the road in front of their house until the pile is big enough to warrant a trip to the dump. I wonder if this keeps them from over-consuming like us city folk. I’ll keep an eye on this and report back.

3. The Rural Romantic Encounter Site

Some archaeologist colleagues recognized these as a particular kind of site based on patterns of material culture found while doing archaeological site survey on the Savannah River Site (A Department of Energy Facility). The original name given to these places was a bit off color, so I've changed it to make it more palatable. In the woods they noticed a pattern of material objects from which they inferred the behavior implied by the name. The material objects—repeatedly found in association—included 5 empty beer cans and at least one used condom. They presume the 6^th beer was for the ride home afterwards.

On the roadside in the country I’ve seen the partial remains of similar sites—beer cans in association with used condoms. In my case, I am viewing objects on the side of the road and not in the woods. Therefore, it is probably safe to assume that I am dealing with secondarily deposited materials not in their original context. Most likely the behaviors creating the material pattern took place inside the car and were discarded. I would probably need to do more systematic investigations, but I’ll bet the pattern of 5 beer cans with the 6^th missing applies to these secondary deposits. If I get a chance, I’ll check this out too.

I hope to add to this over time and maybe someday make a coffee table book out of the roadside. As I go on longer rides, I’ll have more time to investigate the roadside (and I will be in more need of things to distract me from the pain), so I should lots more to talk about. As the length of my rides increases so too will the periods of wild delirium—so the stories should get more interesting, too.