Just Like Nothing (else) on Earth: Hughesville Road

By Tim Jon

“What is it, exactly? … I mean, it must be something concrete – something to be weighed, measured, described, somehow quantified… or perhaps, qualified, to satisfy this nagging interest?” 

Well, I was going over this very question – this complicated, yet simple, inquiry as to just why in the heck I push myself out of doors – before sunup – to drive (sometimes for many, many miles into unknown territory) out to some – often ‘neglected’ – destination – just to gather basic impressions on the camera, and on the sensory and emotional well, buried somewhere in the heart and soul. 

You see the conundrum? How would you answer such an inquiry? 

Well, I had at least part of my answer before I got halfway to my chosen field of opportunity; I noted that distinct, pinkish glow in the east and the emerging silhouettes of trees and houses as I made my way south of Leesburg, and kept savoring the ground fog that appeared to sort of steam out of the wet soil along the way. 

Now, fog, trees and sky may not sound like earth-shattering  discoveries, but these three components – taken at just the right time of day – can always take me by surprise, as if I’m coming upon them for the first time – maybe even as if I’m the first human, the first organism to witness a spectacle laced with all this magic. (You know, it doesn’t always turn out that way: sometimes the dawn comes in all gray and not very stimulating – leaving the trees with a hum-drum lack of luster – and the mist I’m seeking stays wherever it was in the first place.) But, as often as not, I’m treated to a miraculous wake-up call of images and sensations as I approach a place like the scenes I encountered that morning on Route 725 – otherwise known as Hughesville Road. 

This narrow, very unimproved dirt corridor snakes through the midsection of Loudoun County – running east-west from Harmony Church Road to Telegraph Springs Road – and features some of my favorite landscape views in the locality. And, having been primed along the way for my little road trip through the heart of Loudoun, I overworked my digital camera and just about ran out of battery juice before I passed the halfway point of my day’s assigned route. 

No worries: a place as remote and unaltered as this dirt road has been – since my first drive here a quarter-century ago – always leaves me with memories – mostly natural features, but some man-made structures as well. 

There are those fields of indeterminate grains or grass or weeds, which were planted there for my pleasant sightseeing. There was that familiar, certainly historic, red barn at the crest of the hill, just past the well-remembered bottom-land where the deer grazed. And, of course, here was the unique, one-lane concrete bridge spanning the friendly little creek by the name of Crooked Run. Yes, these and many more wonderful memories of my fond sightseeing trips down Hughesville Road. 

“So, why don’t you tell ‘em about all the trouble you’ve had on that dusty little stretch?” 

Well, good point. You see, I’ve been delivering the US Mail along this road for, well – at the time of this writing – just over 13 years. In fact, I’ve carried routes for the Office in Leesburg as well as those covered by the Post Offices in Hamilton and Purcellville (both of which now work out of our building in the latter Town); I may be the only one ‘lucky’ enough to have covered the entire road in mail service. 

Lucky? It’s allowed me to survive multiple (seemingly unending) truck break-downs, ice storms, shin-deep snowfalls, turbulent lightning displays, torrential rainfalls, school buses, road graders, wild turkeys, deer, joggers, hikers, other delivery trucks, and riders on horseback. 

I’d have to say deep snow was the worst: that’s when all the hair on your body remains at standing attention as you negotiate your way down a pristine, snow-blanketed stretch of what you hope is the roadway underneath. And then, you’ve got to somehow guide that ornery critter of a vehicle close enough to the mailboxes to deliver the daily goods. Or, dismount and slog through 8 or 10 inches of snow at each stop. With no heat provided for your feet and legs (just an inadequate defrost system) your lower extremities freeze up in an awful hurry.

And, after you finish up on Hughesville, remember – you’ve still got Foundry, Sands and Cooksville Roads before you can relax enough to take a breath, and deliver down the main street in little, old Lincoln, Virginia. 

Yes, I truly love Hughesville Road in my spare time, in my own (well-maintained and well-paid-for) all-wheel-drive vehicle – on a Sunday morning, with no obligations beyond a memorable pleasure cruise, down a tree-lined, wildlife-inhabited, seemingly-deserted (at that time of the morning) path of adventure. 

And, I generally like it quite a bit when I’m working, too.