Last week, I was frustrated by a stretch of road that was closed for repairs. The construction made my commute longer, but it was much needed and has resulted in a smoother drive. While it’s a change I appreciate, getting through the construction wasn’t a ton of fun.
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You Think Potholes Are Bad? Imagine Driving to Arizona Like This
We all complain about potholes, right? Every rough stretch can make our commutes feel unbearable. But sometimes, it’s helpful to put those annoyances in perspective.
Speaking of perspective, imagine this: you’re driving from Arizona to California. The road isn’t just rough—it’s made entirely of wooden planks. There’s no pavement, no guardrails, just boards laid across miles of shifting desert sand. It sounds wild, but it was real.
The Wooden Highway Across the Desert
At today’s highway speeds, this would never work. However, back in 1915, engineers built the Old Plank Road across the Algodones Dunes, a massive sand field near the Arizona-California border.
Incredibly, the wooden road stretched about 6.5 miles and connected Yuma to San Diego, California. Its bumpy passage was a critical trade and travel route. Instead of a normal road, crews laid two narrow wooden tracks—each about 25 inches wide—on top of the sand. The wooden path basically served as a guide for early cars attempting to cross terrain that would otherwise swallow them whole…