American road trip observations

So, I just finished a cross-country road trip in the US of A. Not in the east-west direction, but rather north to south, right about through the middle.

I was doing this sort of thing a lot.

This kind of trip gives a slightly different view because among other things you experience a rather large change in temperature. A few things I noticed;

1) The place is goddamn huge, whichever way you slice it. Up in Wisconsin in late June, the blossoms are just now coming out on the tomatoes, and it's down around 55 Fahrenheit at night. 1,300 miles south, in Texas, it's 96 and the corn has already been harvested.

2) Much of Wisconsin (America's Dairy State) really does look like a dairy farm. It's really pretty in summer, though I wouldn't care for it when it's 20 below in January.

They're nice people up there, sort of a Northern European, do-gooder socialism sensibility, but everything is clean and tidy, and they're very civil.

3) Chicago, along the way, is one hell of a city, with sights and scenes all it's own, but I didn't feel like tackling the experience, since I didn't have the (several days) time it would take to take it in. It looks like this at the speed I blazed through town:

4) Despite other complaints about "America's crumbling infrastructure" the highway system is fantastic! Great roads all the way, except for a noticeable degradation in quality in Arkansas.

5) Fuel prices have had little effect, but there IS a small drop in road miles traveled nationwide, maybe 4-5%, which means we had GREAT light traffic on the fantastic roads.

6) There really are joints in Arkansas so backwoodsy you can imagine the characters in Deliverance. Sitting on the stoop, chawing tobaccy.

Now, I'm sitting along El Camino Real, near where Ponce de Leon first encroached on the French claims to New Spain, Mexico, or Tejas, whichever they called it at the time. Whereas in those times this location was used to convince the Indians that the Spanish were not worth knowing, .... at the moment 3 lesbians are discussing their home-building project at a table next to a church group, across from a college student playing guitar while I use the wireless internet to write this.