just down the road

Ever land on the road? I guess in other countries they do. In emergencies too, of course. Or bush flying where the road serves as a runway. Where I am on Delmarva there's lots of private strips. To many of the farmers it's really no big deal. They just land in one of their fields. If you have a 180 Cessna, you can land anywhere. My airstrip was a big deal. I had to get permits and set-backs and culvert pipes and hearings and lots of things. But I'm not a real farmer. They call me a "hobby farmer", or a "gentleman farmer". A real farmer just lands his plane in his driveway. I grew up in the suburbs. You had driveways. You park on a driveway and you drive on a parkway. In the country, your driveway is like a road to your house. It's called a "lane". "Lloyd, why are you building an airstrip? Isn't your lane long enough for your plane?" One day I landed the Cher OH kee on this road near my house. It's a nice straight, paved, quiet road. I did it just for the hell of it. I used to instruct near Las Vegas about 35 years ago. We used to fly over to this nearby place called "Jean" for fun and with our students and to get gas and to eat. But the runway was closed. You just landed on the highway and parked at the Gas station. Back in '78 we used to park at the Marine Terminal at LaGuardia at this back lot. You would have to open a big gate and then taxi a DC-3 across a road. You had a traffic light too. And lots of cars. Back when I was in college my buddy Tyler was delivering an airplane to a shop and I rode along with him. When we got to this place near Trenton we landed and followed the directions. We found ourselves taxiing off the airport and down the road. Cars, stop signs, lights etc. We dropped off the plane and they had promised us a ride back home. They simply put us in one of their customers airplanes with a pilot as young as we were and we taxied back down the road and went home.