DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Pictured is the least “green” thing I’ve done all year: I had the driveway paved. As I was composing this article, I pondered color metaphors for being unmindful of the environment, eco-hostile, non-conservationalist… essentially, not-green. The best color word I came up with: “asphalt.”

When we bought the house, the driveway was gravel. Whoever had most recently worked on it had carefully scraped away any semblance of a crown, creating a tremendous drainage problem. In the heavy rains of last winter, water coursed down the driveway in line with the tire tracks and carved foot-deep ruts into the surface.

On my motorbike, this was particularly challenging to traverse. It felt a lot like riding a slalom course. On gravel. Bikes and gravel do not go well together. Bikes and gravel and riders inexpert at both go especially poorly together; in fact, they’re a recipe for road rash.

That’s not the real reason we paved it, though. One more rainy season would make the road impassable. We had to either regrade and re-gravel it, a process that might need to be repeated yearly, or pave it. I’ve never liked quick fixes — seems to me we’d end up spending more money and, worse, more time dealing with it if we tried to take the “cheap” way out. Fortunately, the neighbor (with whom we share this road) was willing, so we split the costs of a more-permanent solution.

Here’s what it looks like at sunset.