Where I Live

This is Sonoma Mountain. It is my backyard. It is fall on Sonoma Mountain. The sun is low in the sky during fall and the vineyards are lit from behind. This makes the leaves, which are now yellow, red and gold, glow as though lit from within.

Chipseal

This is chip seal. Several of my favorite local roads have been resurfaced with it. The County says it's cheaper than regular asphalt repaving.

Cheaper indeed? Cheaper for whom? Will I be expecting a tax rebate for the money the county saved by using the cheaper chip seal method? Bet not. All of us tax payers got charged full boat. We were charged for Premium and got Regular.

Chip seal is a method for resurfacing a road in which hot oil is spread on the road surface and then loose rock is spread on the oil. This is supposed to glue the rocks to the roadway making a like new road surface. Bull!

The oil flows onto the road surface and follows that surface. If there are holes the holes are transferred to the new road surface. There is no flattening of bumps and there are voids where the rock didn't stick.

But my number one favorite thing about chip seal, the rocks pinging off my painted fenders. Oh Yea!