Driven by the need for a durable surface to accommodate heavy loads, increased traffic, faster travel, and simplified maintenance, dirt roads are becoming less and less commonplace as they are being covered over with asphalt. Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of Little House on the Prairie, tells of her first encounter with an asphalt pavement. She was on a wagon journey with her parents in 1894 that took them through Topeka. "In the very midst of the city, the ground was covered by some dark stuff that silenced all the wheels and muffled the sound of hoofs. It was like tar, but Papa was sure it was not tar, and it was something like rubber, but it could not be rubber because rubber cost too much. We saw ladies all in silks and carrying ruffled parasols, walking with their escorts across the street. Their heels dented the street, and while we watched, these dents slowly filled up and smoothed themselves out. It was as if that stuff were alive. It was like magic." Source: History of Asphalt National Asphalt Pavement Association
As beneficial as asphalt may be, it is a nostalgic sound to hear the crunch of gravel through opened car or truck windows as tires slowly roll along on a dirt road. Or the rhythmic cadence of feet tucked into the confines of shoes pressing slightly into the rock embedded soil. And, if the ground should happen to retain the right amount of moisture after a rainfall prior to vehicles with varying tire treads traveling over it, a lovely patterned imprint remains. The chevron and rowboat shapes were so perfectly stamped that I would have liked to have not driven down our driveway ever again so as not to flatten them.
Growing along each side of our dirt driveway are lovely, tall, variegated native grasses. It wasn't anything I planted. They just started growing there. After convincing Dick that we didn't need to mow along each side of the driveway, the grasses happily thrive from early summer through late autumn.