Slightly Off the Mark: Roadwork? It Must be Spring in Indiana

With spring comes--that's right--road work! Since I walked right by it on my way to work, I naturally took a few pictures.

This is State Road 9, called Orange Street as it passes through Albion. Being an INDOT project, the official detour is over state and US highways, making it dozens of miles out of the way. This is why I predict lots of lost/idiot drivers on Albion streets over the next couple of months. It should be pointed out that lost drivers are not always idiots and vice versa, although plenty of intelligent people have been known to get behind the wheel and do stupid things.

They're grinding down the entire road, taking it right down to the bricks that were once the surface and, from what I've heard, removing the bricks. I have a brick from when they removed them from the Noble County Courthouse square several years ago--they're heavy and well made, as you might imagine.

Of course, I could just show you the bricks.

There are warning signs in the next friggin' state alerting drivers that the roads will be closed, but some moron will still drive around everything and try to go through. To make matters worse, we had high winds today that blew over some of the barricades--although this one's still effective in blocking people from coming out of the alley.

As I was walking past it a dust devil rose up from the gravel parking lot and hit me so hard, I thought I saw Munchkins for a second. I had to spit out some dirt and irrigate my eyes, but otherwise no harm done.

This is the first of what appears to be a three part job--and one part of that runs in front of my house. Since they've closed the road entirely, my question is: How do we get to and from home? Specifically Emily, who has to either drive or camp out at the state park for the rest of spring; as seen by the pictures, I can walk (or stay home on the laptop). The driveway I share with a neighbor is a vacated alley, and there's no back entrance. It's the street, or do some Top Gear type four-wheeling down the hill into another neighbor's yard.