By Ingrid Burrington
The Atlantic
“So what brings you to Atlanta?” the man at the Alamo rental-car desk asked my friend Sam. We responded perhaps more eagerly than necessary.
“You know those markings you’ll see on the sidewalk that tell you where a gas main is or the signs that tell people to call before they dig?” Sam began.
“We’re here for an event where the people who make those markings do that competitively, for money,” I added. “We’re here to watch.”
The clerk looked at us as though we’d just told him we were in town to check out some exceptionally slow-drying paint. He very cautiously encouraged us to have fun.
It’s a struggle to explain the 14th Annual International Utility Locate Rodeo to anyone outside of the utility-locator world. To begin with, most people don’t realize there is a utility-locator world—who utility locators are, what they do, and how they do it. They definitely don’t understand why it’s a skill to be celebrated, or why I, along with my friend and fellow infrastructure-enthusiast Sam Kronick, would spend a weekend watching that celebration.
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