Jeff Stahler for June 06, 2023

Go around!

well, they are called “flyover states” for a reason…

Dusty nation?

I used to live in a very nice place: Good geography, decent weather, great forests, several ceteras. But it was a little too conservative for me to be completely comfortable there. Then I moved to a university town to get a retread degree or at least job. Not so fine w.r.t. geography, weather, forests, etc, but socially a lot more comfortable. When I left, I rented my 40 acres to a friend. Couple of years ago, the friend died by driving off the road. I had to go back to deal with all kinds of unfinished business. There were TRUMP signs on every other property. There were a myriad big-wheel pickups sporting the Stars and Bars, many with automatic rifles in the rifle racks. And the conversation at the checkout line in the grocery was… scary crazy. As was the call-in part of the radio spectrum. Wow!

Makes me very sad. And I won’t be going back. Just thinking about going back makes me sick to my stomach. Let someone else clean up the mess.

Depends how much cheaper and is there gun death insurance

There are places I am leery of going to (or through), especially with my New York license plate. Makes me feel especially bad for progressive folks who live and struggle for justice there. Theirs is a difficult life.

Leave the vehicle neutral: no bumperstickers. You should be okay.

Paul Theroux wrote in Dark Star that Arica was full of great people and terrible governments.

It reminds me of 1970 when I drove from New York to Georgia. I stopped for gas in one small southern town. They pumped my gas (back then you did not do it yourself) and I made use of the facilities.

I got outside and looked at a structure, the likes of which I had never seen outside of a Little Abner cartoon. It was an outhouse, and it was boarded up and the sign on it said, “Colored.”

In 1971, my wife and I crossed the North Carolina border and were greeted by a big billboard. “Welcome to North Carolina – Join the United Klans – Stop Integration and Communism.”

Similar signs also greeted people to Harnett County in North Carolina. The signs have been replaced by Trump signs. Harnett County went 70-30 for Trump in 2020.

The stereotype of the pot-bellied, sun-glassed, smokey-the-bear-hat-wearing sheriff is not without it basis in fact.

With the NAACP warnings on travel to Florida this cartoon is prescient indeed! Unless you are a straight, white, professing Christian, travel through Kansas’ Oklahoma, Utah, etc. becomes a potential danger.

the comments on this one make a sorry read. the anger and depression take the joy out of the day.

Love challenges, born with hermaphroditic condition, we are driving from East Tennessee to Spokane Washington, but we are driving a rental car.

Sadly this will be a common consideration soon, if not already. And, travel insurance will vary depending on your route.

Montana was once very progressive, pro union , environmentally protective and truly was the Last Best Place. Then along comes The American Redoubt Movement and Montana is today a haven for Klan and neo-Nazi types with a supermajority Freedom Cockus (see what I did there?) legislature and a corporate tech Governor who was aching to be a celebrity Governor by banning Tik-Tok , abortion , drag shows and trans rights. He got it done even though his out son talked to him personally about some of those issues. The infestation started in Hayden Lake Idaho and the Aryan Nations compound . It has spread like mold into every corner of my dear departed Montana.

Foreign governments have issued travel warnings about their citizens visiting the U.S. I wonder if it’s for all of the nation, mostly big cities, or red states?

Are we still even allowed to???

All depends on which red states. Especially if your home state legalized marijuana and the red states you are going thru didn’t

Well, thank goodness Florida isn’t on the way to anywhere else. After all, it’s just not safe to travel to Florida unless you are a cis-gendered heterosexual. And if you use those terms you still better flee the state anyway!

We have always made sure to have enough fuel to travel across Alberta nonstop.

I just drove through some red states a trip. They actually don’t look much different from blue states as you drive through. Saw Trump signs and pride flags in both. Though I admit to some trepidation when I stopped for gas and another customer had a MAGA hat on.

Montana is a red state. You might not want to drive through Louisiana and Alabama.

From us in Alabama, we have one rule to all (especially those from New York): Come on down, get a job, marry our women folks, buy a house, enjoy our weather (purty much everyday is Summer, except Christmas Day) but the main rule, DON’T TELL US HOW YOU DID IT IN NEW YORK!

Montana is a red state

Leaving on a jet plane

…only if I don’t have to drink the water!

I left Kali on a 7,000 mile trip through the South a decade ago, we went to the “longest yard sale” Gasden Al. to Frankfurt Ky. We went up Hwy127 400 miles and met the nicest welcoming people along the way, they would invite you to sit and chat, a thing we don’t do much in Kali. They were as interested in my life in Kali as much as I was in their home in Pall Mall, they wondered how many movie stars I’ve met or my surfing as much as I asked about growing tobacco & HS football. My California plates drew a crowd at the diner but in a fun way, I missed my Mexican food but learned to love real biscuits & gravy and BBQ in Memphis. We drove home straight through the heartland and enjoyed all the waves from Farmers along the backroads, as soon as we got to Denver it all changed back to normal being flipped off in traffic. The South is different to be sure, but they seem to get along better than we do in Kali. Love to go back after we lance the Brandon boil and put America back together again.