Relatively Trivial Travel Travails

[JW Insider]

I had occasion to drive from California to New York starting on Friday morning through Sunday afternoon.

It should have been a leisurely 3-or-4-day drive, but there were ominous storm warnings for Saturday and Sunday across much of the United States. So I ended up driving for 30-some hours straight from New Mexico to Long Island, New York, sleepily, but without sleep. Except for a few flurries and ice patches in Ohio and Pennsylvania (and temperatures around 16 degrees) we avoided the storm(s) almost completely. Although we did see 4 cars, a van, and 2 overturned 18-wheelers in the ditches on both sides of the highway. A large crane was pulling one of the semis out as we drove by. Two of the cars had evidently hit each other so that one was in the left ditch and one was in the right, directy across from each other. The roads didn't seem so bad, so I wondered if the root cause was driving without sleep to get ahead of the predicted storms. By now it was Sunday morning with sunlight so I pressed on anyway. 

My wife drives, but after back surgery and a replaced knee, sitting in the same position for too long is nearly impossible. So she didn't do any of the driving. It was still a good trip. We got to talk a lot. And we would play and sing to our favorite songs on Spotify. We also play a "license plate game" where we see who can first come up with the longest word based on license plate letters. (e.g., T V L - 5 9 8 could be TriViaL, TraVeL and TraVaiL, etc. But then my wife, who reads too much WebMD, will say ANTIRETROVIRALS, and "game over" until the next plate.

Speaking of license plates, just for fun when we are on a long trip we also track which states we have seen after predicting how many we might see. I figured we would see 40 of the 50 on such a long trip. Turned out we saw 45. We only missed Hawaii, Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota and West Virginia. But we saw 3 Native American plates in Oklahoma (Cherokee Nation, etc.) and several Canadian provinces and Mexican plates.

No important observations here, but starting in Arizona I saw 2 Tesla Cybertrucks, but no Teslas from Arizona through Missouri. This was strange to me because I see hundreds of Teslas in California and NY. Also, very oddly I saw absolutely NO red cars from Arizona until I reached Oklahoma, when we suddenly saw 20 or thirty. (Traffic was admittedly light on the entire trip. Signs popped up everywhere saying "Winter Travel Warning. DO NOT TRAVEL.)

As a family, we used to make this trip in a car from Missouri to California and back almost every year when I was young. One thing that was completely different is how so many of the towns that were once rural are now loaded with malls and hotels, some obviously failing after overbuilding for a past economic boom. Another change was the hundreds of miles of wind farms starting at the Texas border and running even well into Oklahoma. Literally thousands of windmills. I was a bit surprised, thinking that heavily Republican country would be ashamed to put up windmills in the midst of all those oil refineries. (In spite of obvious cost benefits and a supplement to Texas powergrid issues.) In New Mexico I saw a huge 150-foot long "horn" on an extra-long flat-bed semi and thought at first it was part of a sculpture or sign. It was a windmill blade. 

Another site that struck me oddly was the number of 100-foot-tall crosses. One of them had slightly shorter crosses on each side of the large one, representing the two thieves at Jesus' left and right side. I also saw US flags that must have been 50 feet by 100 feet. Many were at half-mast, and I didn't know if that was for Jimmy Carter, or they were just too heavy to crank all the way up the flagpole.

Anyway, we got home just fine to a small local snowstorm and freezing weather. It's nice to be in a warm house.

[The Librarian]

I love reading about your travels and the games 😉

I recently bought a new Tesla Model 3 and charging at home is a no-brainer.... I will admit though that when traveling through certain cities the superchargers can be too sparse and lacking some basic amenities for travelers. Sacramento seems to have a lack of them for some reason.

Everywhere else seems fine so far....

Road trips can be great ways to bond more as you are forced to sing and talk together rather than be on a screen. 😉 

[JW Insider]

23 minutes ago, The Librarian said:

I recently bought a new Tesla Model 3 and charging at home is a no-brainer....

My daughter bought the new Tesla, too. Several of the brothers in my mother's California congregation have Teslas. I have driven my daughter's once. It's strange to have buttons for things I expect to see on a lever. And the "iPad" screen is so big it makes me think of a drive-in theater. They also mostly charge it at home. They were fortunate to have a solar installation that pays for all their electricity. 

[TrueTomHarley]

51 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

But then my wife, who reads too much WebMD, will say ANTIRETROVIRALS, and "game over" until the next plate.

51 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Many were at half-mast

I wrote a satirical post once predicting that with so many calamities triggering half-mast flags, greedy big business would soon desist from manufacturing the top half., which would necessitate a new half-mass, which would trigger new business cost savings, which would continue until the flag touched the ground, triggering a national crisis.

 

54 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

It's nice to be in a warm house.

Ain’t it, though?

36 minutes ago, The Librarian said:

Road trips can be great ways to bond more as you are forced to sing and talk together rather than be on a screen

They are.

[Melinda Mills]

When I was a teenager, I used to add and subtract using the licence plate numbers while walking to school. I believe it gave me some aptitude for remembering numbers and some ability in Mathematics. Up to yesterday a sister told me my memory is really sharp for my age.  Nice to know you got home safe! Librarian made a good point about bonding while confined to the car, and not being able to escape to the screen.

[JW Insider]

On 1/7/2025 at 11:30 AM, Melinda Mills said:

Up to yesterday a sister told me my memory is really sharp for my age.

Same here. Oh wait . . . it was a brother . . . . . . and, come to think of it, it was 20 years ago . . . or maybe 25.

[Thinking]

On 1/8/2025 at 1:31 AM, JW Insider said:

I had occasion to drive from California to New York starting on Friday morning through Sunday afternoon.

It should have been a leisurely 3-or-4-day drive, but there were ominous storm warnings for Saturday and Sunday across much of the United States. So I ended up driving for 30-some hours straight from New Mexico to Long Island, New York, sleepily, but without sleep. Except for a few flurries and ice patches in Ohio and Pennsylvania (and temperatures around 16 degrees) we avoided the storm(s) almost completely. Although we did see 4 cars, a van, and 2 overturned 18-wheelers in the ditches on both sides of the highway. A large crane was pulling one of the semis out as we drove by. Two of the cars had evidently hit each other so that one was in the left ditch and one was in the right, directy across from each other. The roads didn't seem so bad, so I wondered if the root cause was driving without sleep to get ahead of the predicted storms. By now it was Sunday morning with sunlight so I pressed on anyway. 

My wife drives, but after back surgery and a replaced knee, sitting in the same position for too long is nearly impossible. So she didn't do any of the driving. It was still a good trip. We got to talk a lot. And we would play and sing to our favorite songs on Spotify. We also play a "license plate game" where we see who can first come up with the longest word based on license plate letters. (e.g., T V L - 5 9 8 could be TriViaL, TraVeL and TraVaiL, etc. But then my wife, who reads too much WebMD, will say ANTIRETROVIRALS, and "game over" until the next plate.

Speaking of license plates, just for fun when we are on a long trip we also track which states we have seen after predicting how many we might see. I figured we would see 40 of the 50 on such a long trip. Turned out we saw 45. We only missed Hawaii, Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota and West Virginia. But we saw 3 Native American plates in Oklahoma (Cherokee Nation, etc.) and several Canadian provinces and Mexican plates.

No important observations here, but starting in Arizona I saw 2 Tesla Cybertrucks, but no Teslas from Arizona through Missouri. This was strange to me because I see hundreds of Teslas in California and NY. Also, very oddly I saw absolutely NO red cars from Arizona until I reached Oklahoma, when we suddenly saw 20 or thirty. (Traffic was admittedly light on the entire trip. Signs popped up everywhere saying "Winter Travel Warning. DO NOT TRAVEL.)

As a family, we used to make this trip in a car from Missouri to California and back almost every year when I was young. One thing that was completely different is how so many of the towns that were once rural are now loaded with malls and hotels, some obviously failing after overbuilding for a past economic boom. Another change was the hundreds of miles of wind farms starting at the Texas border and running even well into Oklahoma. Literally thousands of windmills. I was a bit surprised, thinking that heavily Republican country would be ashamed to put up windmills in the midst of all those oil refineries. (In spite of obvious cost benefits and a supplement to Texas powergrid issues.) In New Mexico I saw a huge 150-foot long "horn" on an extra-long flat-bed semi and thought at first it was part of a sculpture or sign. It was a windmill blade. 

Another site that struck me oddly was the number of 100-foot-tall crosses. One of them had slightly shorter crosses on each side of the large one, representing the two thieves at Jesus' left and right side. I also saw US flags that must have been 50 feet by 100 feet. Many were at half-mast, and I didn't know if that was for Jimmy Carter, or they were just too heavy to crank all the way up the flagpole.

Anyway, we got home just fine to a small local snowstorm and freezing weather. It's nice to be in a warm house.

Well that was a nice travel around the states for me…those giant flags are amazing…..I think it’s about the same amount of time to cross Australia..a big trip for sure.

[TrueTomHarley]

11 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Same here. Oh wait . . . it was a brother . . . . . . and, come to think of it, it was 20 years ago . . . or maybe 25.

Or was it a dream?