Leetonia Road Conditions

Here is what the roads look like today. They are combination, mud, snow,ice, and slush one vehicle wide. You must stay in middle sides are extremely soft and will pull you into ditch. We drove in and out today and would be in trouble if we met another vehicle. Four-wheel drive ONLY preferably with chains. Use extreme caution. Snowmobiles are not recommended at least 50% of road is mud. Snow covered 4-6" in shaded areas of road mostly North sides of the mountain. Mountain Girl Road Rating: Adventurous ONLY!

Leetonia Meltdown by Paula Martin

Its all melting now....

I am home just in time for the March meltdown. This is the month I dislike the most up here. During the winter things are tough, but with snow and cold get across the mountain requires either a chained up vehicle or a snowmobile. March presents a new problem. Roads which are half-snow and half-mud.

Snowmobiles do not like the mud and cars and trucks do not like the hard pack snow melting into a kind of snow quick sand. This is the month we start to see people in the ditches surprised by the depth and severity of our unplowed roads. Plowed roads give the illusion on 50 degree days all is well in the woods. It seduces people back on one lane death traps with little space for error and few places to change your mind and go back. Even worse is the fact the first few miles often seems fine..then you are sucked into a slush pile and pulled into the ditch or worse over the mountain.

Most of the time people clean the ditches with their vehicles. We see hundred of yards of trenching, swearing and "I didn't know there was still snow back here". Well you know now if you read this blog. Driving before April 1st requires calling someone who lives back here or taking the risk that your car will be a ditch trencher.

The dogs are happy to sit on the porch in the sun..the younger one likes to play war with anything he can tear loose, bark, cardboard, or tarps. Our front yard looks like a war zone of imaginary enemies he has destroyed. As the grass appears so do his trophies. I need to train him how to rake it all up.

We have definitely made a turn towards Spring. The birds are loudly announcing their presence and the deer have been yarding up. Seems like the woods starts to wake up in March.

Leetonia to LA

Los Angelos, California (view from my brothers house)


It is a long way from Leetonia, Pennsylvania to Los Angelos, California in more than miles. I left a balmy 15 degrees to come to a very dry 80 degrees. I drove out of the quiet, snow-covered woods to the loud, people covered hills of LA.

Here people think nothing of driving down to get an ice cream, having a spa treatment or going to see the latest movie. They are in a hurry here to get into the fray of traffic, yell, and honk at each other and look at the oplulant lifestyle of the rich and famous. In Leetonia, the winter cuts us off from any traffic other than snowmobliers. It is the kind of quiet you can hear a snowflake hit the ground in. Sitting here in my brother's house I hear, planes, blowers, dogs, and a constant hum of background noise. He thinks it is very quiet here and perhaps by LA standards it is.

I am finding it more difficult to concentrate in all the noise and feel my usual sense of connection to earth and animals. I am happy for this experience because it is exposing me to what many people on this earth go through daily. The pressure to look, act, and feel a certain way a way that is foreign to me as foreign as being in another land.

We have done some Hollywood things and I got a verbal tour from Stacy's dad who has lived here his entire life. His blood flows with the pavement, glass, stucco, and high buildings that forms his environment. He is a city animal as are many of those I pass by with the glaze of glass, shiny rings and cars forming their adaptations to this big city life.

Many are very happy with their LA home and would certainly die from withdrawl if forced to live in Leetonia. But I see a few whose soul's starve for that of which they know not. That somewhere else to be connected to. They live in LA but their home has yet to be found.

There is much to be said for what money can buy. Yet those with all the money and fancy friends you could ever want...take enough medication to kill an elephant and complain of what they DO NOT HAVE! What is it about the human that never seems to be happy with their existance? People making millions worry if their checking account falls below $100,000. Those who have $20 in their pockets, laugh and frolic through the streets. Our car was ceremonously blessed by such an individual as he skipped out into the crosswalk and let a small piece of napkin float down in front of the grill of our vehicle. He brought a smile to my face and many others. Now you might say that people laughed at him and how sad. But I think he laughs with the world and is blessed in the moment blessing others along his path.

We live in a great world of possiblity and traveling outside of your environment definately expands the minds possiblities. Sometimes it isn't comfortable to be in a new environment, especially for a Mountain Girl put in a manicure place and put in a big chair for a pedicure. I protested the thought of the whole thing feeling the limits of my comfort being pushed. I have to admit my feet never felt cleaner..But I did draw the line at nail polish. You might be able to take the girl off the mountain...but you ain't getting finger nail polish on her.

Well I am heading home tonight on the Red-eye, then a four-hour car drive, and 30 minute snowmoble ride to my home in the woods. I long to feel the embrace of the forest again.

Paula Windeagle Martin