Travels with Tackawanna 6: Kitakata

Today's plan was to travel the entirety of Fukushima Prefecture Route 383. (Map) This route is located in Kitakata, a town north of Aizuwakamatsu. In order to get there, I had to follow National Route 121 all the way up to the turn onto the road, which is partially shared with Fukushima Prefecture Route 335, and then wind my way through some back neighborhoods until I hit that glorious mountain road. According to dashcams from years before, a certain section of the road was blocked off to passenger cars. However, I figured that this year, things would be different, and I would be able to pass through and travel the whole length of the road without issue.

According to both Google and Apple Maps, Route 121 splits into two pieces once you get north of the Ban-etsu Expressway. The eastern portion is the traditional route, which has all of the businesses and stoplights splattered on it. The western portion, however, is an expressway known as the Aizujukankitadoro (会津縦貫北道路) that took over 20 years to plan and build, and whose portion connecting Aizuwakamatsu and Kitakata just opened last year. It was a good 10 or so minutes on that road. I managed to get Tackwanna up to 60 MPH (pretty fast for the roads around here), and with the top down on a moderately warm summer day, I was living life to the fullest. This is what you buy a convertible for. I had good cruising music on, and there was little traffic. The only caveat, however, was that it was a single-lane expressway. There were two lanes at one point, but only for about half an hour, and still single file. Still, I'm glad that I was able to travel it. It saved quite a bit of time on my travels up there.

After originally missing the turn onto Route 383, I managed to get onto the right road and work my way around the rows of rice paddies to get to the objective road. I put the car into third gear and made my way up the mountains. The sightseeing areas were vacant, and there were very few people around. I pressed on.

The road started getting narrower. I entered a hamlet area, which contained a few houses, one of which was vacant and dilapidated. In Japan, as the birthrate shrinks and people move to Tokyo, the countryside ends up getting less populated and greyer at the same time. People die, and their kids, if they have any, don't want to move into the house. But paying taxes on vacant land is more expensive than paying for taxes on land with a structure on it. So the house sits, and falls apart. I pressed on.

A man parked in the middle of the road moved his station wagon out of the way for me. The road started getting rougher. At this point, it seemed like the town no longer wanted to take care of the road, because few people lived in this portion of the town, so some patches of the road were slathered with gravel. I pressed on.

I entered another hamlet, this time with more dilapidated houses. I don't think that there was a single person under 60 living in this part of town. At this point, the road decided to stop being paved, and turned into a single-lane dirt road. No gravel, and grass growing in between the tire tracks. I pressed on.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day, who also owns a Miata. He suggested that I lower the suspension on my car. I can say now for certain that if I had actually attempted that road with a lower suspension, I would still be up there right now. It was very bumpy. A sign on a tree said to watch out for bears. I pressed on.

Finally, the road had had enough. I reached an area with a waterfall, and it was there on the other side of the concrete overpass that it decided to put up the signs. I had hit a dead end. I couldn't press on anymore, and there was no cellphone service in the mountain, so I had to turn around. But first...

Thwarted by a piece of string and some wooden signs.

I headed back down the road. As I entered the second hamlet again, I noticed an older woman who was not there before working along the side of the road by her house. I could tell even from a distance that it took at least five seconds for her to process exactly what was going on. Wait 'til the girls hear about this, she probably thought to herself. A foreigner, driving a convertible, going up and down that dead end dirt road right next to our house. What are the chances?

[muffled enka playing in the distance]

When I got to a safe place to stop with cell service, I checked my maps to make sure that I was taking the correct route. As it turned out, I wasn't. This was the actual route that I had taken. With a readjusted plan, I just needed to retrace my steps and turn onto the right road. Only when I went to turn onto that new road, I saw construction signs at the front, one of which basically stating that the road was not a thruway and that sections of it were closed off to the public due to construction. So much for that plan.

I went back to Apple Maps and kept looking. Fukushima Prefecture Route 459, a main road, had enough twists and terms to be an acceptible alternative. So I planned a new route and set off. As it had turned out, Route 459 didn't appear to have those characteristics, especially towards the start of it, where the road width and quality felt like that of the roads that I had just previously travelled. Over time, though, the roads started getting better in terms of quality.

Kitakata was a pretty chill place. As it turns out, if I had stayed behind on Route 335, I would've had some sick roads to travel. Oh well. Another time, perhaps. But I took the Jukan on the way back, and this time, I caught it on video. Another good cruise to end the day.

So, that's it for the weekend. Back to the grind.

-wp