What are some of the additional things that happened to me this past year? It feels crazy to report that three times this past year I/we drove across the country. A solo trip in September, to give my car to our daughter and her wife. In November we took the camper van across and back to celebrate Thanksgiving with the gang. You would think the drive gets old after a couple of times; however, we try to make it more interesting by choosing a different route. We took part of the Lewis and Clark route in 2023; returning through Colorado, generally in the track of the Santa Fe trail. I started out using the same route in September of 2024 but I changed it up after Alamosa, Colorado and went direction Monument Valley, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and back into Nevada, before heading to Long Beach. November and December can be relatively chilly so we opted for a more southern route.
The November trip led us from home through North Carolina, to South Carolina to Georgia. Around Atlanta we figured we were south enough to head west through Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona to our final destination in Long Beach, California. We visited the same states on the way back, but took a different route that was more southern and stopped over in a few National Parks. So what were some of our observations from our travels?
While I still like the prairie states, especially the Tall Grass Prairie Natural Preserve area, Kansas still stinks (smelly feedlots). Enough so that it almost made vegetarians out of us. Now today my wife asked me what I thought of Denver airport. I told her it reminded me of Dodge City, but without the smell. Too many people stuck in a small space (like the cattle in feedlots), especially in the food court. On the other hand, I am still in love with the desert and the Grand Canyon area.
This love for the desert was strengthened during our return trip in November and December. On our way home we drove from Long Beach to Death Valley. From there it was on to Sedona, Arizona (heaven). After an overnight stop in far western New Mexico, we drove through Guadalupe Peak National Park to Van Horn, Texas. The next day we drove though the Davis Mountains and the McDonald Observatory to Big Bend National Park, three to three and a half days in the Chihuahuan Desert heaven.
Other observations include (and yes here I go again being political), that the Republican States in the south are the poorest of them all, in horrible shape, and just depressing. Visits to the First Baptist Church in Birmingham and Selma Alabama made us realize that in their eyes, black lives absolutely do not matter. We came away depressed after visiting both important landmarks of the Civil Rights era. The white dominated Tuscaloosa was in bit better shape. Central Louisiana and whatever we saw from the interstate of Mississippi were slightly better, but let’s not talk about the few parts of Jackson that we drove through.
Sugar Land, Austin and Fredericksburg Texas were a huge contrast with much of the rest of Texas that we saw. Places like Uvalde (the scene of the horrible school shooting) and anything between that town and Victoria appeared to be either big game ranches or dilapidated small town and villages. We got the impression that a lot of the inhabitants were Hispanic, which appear to be treated as second class citizens in Texas, much like the blacks in Mississippi and Alabama. I would not be surprised if Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina are similarily depressed, but we stayed mostly on major highways or the interstates since it rained incessantly during those days.
What else happened in our lives? I taught two 3-hour classes and we got a fence around our back yard. Other things include of course the election of the orange-colored white guy to the office of president. Remembering what we saw while driving through the south, the election of tRump and a Republican legislation does not bode well. Will the entire country be transformed into a perfect copy of Mississippi or Alabama? Only time will tell. But it seems that none of these morons understand that education is what makes this country great and cutting education, plus making fun of the educated elite is going to force this country back to the middle ages. Education and knowledge is what makes this country great. And let's not write about the economic safety nets they plan to demolish and all the other budget cuts they are threatening with.
I may write a bit more about our trips around this country in future posts, but I better stop for right now.
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| The "National Votings Right Museum" or what ot goes for in selma, Alabama. It appears to represent what this country is heading for. |
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| The bridge in Selma, Alabama |
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| At the steps of the first baptist church in Birmigham Alabama |
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| Guadalupe Peak National park ... the next pictures are from Big Bend NP. |
