The Detours Are Open: Eight Gravel Roads Off Route 109

Route 109 got surveyed in full and the crew immediately started wandering. Eight detours are now open off the highway, each one a short gravel road that ends at a candle from the Pour Bar. The pavement is imagined. The tins are real, and reservations are free.

The logic goes like this: the highway is for scents that ride with you, one mile marker per freshie scent, all 109 of them. But the crew kept finding roads that were not miles. A lane behind the washeteria where somebody still trusts the weather. Stairs up the overlook they had been pretending not to skip. A spur that ends at a coffee pot with seniority, and a shaded quarter mile that ends at a punched-tin pie safe. Those roads turn off toward things that stay home, and staying home is what candles are for.

Every detour is a two minute walk: why the road turns off there, what the air does on the way in, and what waits at the end. The candle waits at the end. None of them are poured yet, and we would rather say that plainly than let the wax say it for us. Put your name on one and you pay nothing today and nothing until you say so.

Find the full list at the bottom of the Route 109 trailhead, or watch for the plank signs on the eight miles where the gravel starts.