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In to the Tar Road Land

Published May 26, 2019

I, Bernie Harberts, did not use generative AI to write or illustrate this article. Spell check and grammar check, yes. AI, no.

The road to Hell may be paved with good intentions but the road to Trenton, Missouri is paved with tar. Black, sticky, melt-in-the-noon-day black stuff that sticks to the bottom of the mules’ hoof boots and pulls up like creosote taffy.

The Roads We’re On

The mules and I stick to the back roads. I try to stick to gravel roads as much as possible. Here in northern Missouri, these are the roads that cut obediently across the land. These aren’t the winding country roads of a John Denver song. The ones you could sing to as you drive your convertible Chevy past the oak tree, down through the holler, up around the root cellar and over the hill to grand ma’s house.

No, these gravel roads are straight because the land is flat because the prairie was initially divided in to one-mile squares called “sections”. The roads just follow these squares. Viewed from above, they form a grid.

So gravel roads are the first choice. Which brings us to the tar roads.

Enter the Tar Roads

Walking the gravel roads with my mules, I often stop to visit with folks. I ask them for water. I ask them if I can spend the night behind their grain bins with my mules. I ask for directions.

When asking for directions from a farmer, the conversation often goes like this:

-Me: “How do I get to La Plata?”
-Farmer: “Well, you follow this gravel road, the 200 East Road, to the 50 North Road. Take the 50 North Road until you get to the tar road. Then take the tar road to La Plata.”

Tar road?

That’s a new one for me.

Back in western North Carolina, where my wife Julia and I live, the country roads are cement. A mix of cement and aggregate, they’re hard and gray and connect one town to the next. We just call them paved roads.

Out here, for reasons unknown to me, the country roads have a much higher tar content. It looks like, to pave a road out here, a heavy layer of tar is applied to the road surface. Then a layer of gravel is sprinkled on top. If and when the road needs repair, the highway department just pours on a dirty big tarry patch and calls it good enough.

For some reason, I find this incredibly exotic. Making the transition from eastern cement roads to mid-western tar roads makes me feel like I’m getting a long way from home.

Then again maybe it’s just fumes. On hot days, these tar roads start melting. The mules, when they walk up them, leave their hoof prints in the melted bitumen. It’s like they’re walking through cold molasses. The tar sticks to their feet and they make sucking sounds as the tar clings to their boots.

More adventures by horse and mule: Travel by Horse and Mule.

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