Random Thoughts on a Road Trip Across the United States of America

I have figured out what is keeping the American economy in gear, quite literally. While most consumers seem to be cutting corners and trimming luxuries, there is a category of Americans who seem to be spending in a profligate manner, and arguably, they are keeping the rest of us afloat by way of their largesse. I am talking about the Harley-Driving Old Men of America, hereafter known as the HDOMA. These grizzled, oft-bearded folk seem to fall into a common demographic: 50 to 70 years old, and maybe a bit out of shape but with enough stamina to pilot a (may I venture) flaccid, massive motorbike across thousands of miles of blacktop. They all seem to shop from the same catalog, the ever-popular Hells Angels Boutique (okay I made that up,) and all of them seem to aspire to win either the Bruce Springsteen look-alike contest or the ZZ Top impersonator award. Apparently a red bandana wrapped around the skull works just as well as a helmet.

Maid of the Mist, Niagra Falls, Sunset

The culmination of this pursuit of the open road and the pseudo-outlaw experience terminates yearly in Sturgis, South Dakota, just up the road from a couple of our stops (west of Rapid City, east of Spearfish.) These dudes (often accompanied by their dude-ettes) have dropped tens of thousands of dollars on their cycles, usually Harleys with the random elegant Honda thrown into the mix, and every night go outside with the rags generously provided by the motels to clean their steeds and bring them back to their state of high polish. This is so they won’t be embarrassed by congregating with their brethren, all of whom dress the same, are outlaws in their own minds, and adhere to the identical value system. It’s a new, grand brotherhood; let’s call it the Heck’s Angels, because it is outlaw in form only, lacking any real substance or threatening Wild Ones physical menace. Andrea overheard a group of them talking about their grandchildren and wildlife sightings; I picked up on investment ideas and real estate gambits (none of which I will be following) from another group. The men do most, but certainly not all, of the talking, and conversation often drifts off in the direction of machinery, at which time the women folk usually fall silent but do not opt out.

It sounds an awfully lot like the boring nerd living next door who is checking off the boxes on his bucket list, and driving a big fat Harley to the Sturgis Rally is the be-all event that brings it all into focus.

That being said, these are polite, considerate people who (taken as a whole) are self-deprecating and amusing, and we’re happy to be sharing our accommodations and breakfast spots with these Nuevo-American self-styled gypsies. And man, are they ever pumping bucks into the tourist industry. I think most of these roadside motels would be two-thirds empty without them.

South Dakota Sky. Storm a-comin'

Another random thought: signage. It was moderately hilarious to traverse South Dakota on the Interstate and be assaulted by innumerable billboards. Many of them were on the ever-so-slightly crude side, and their main selling tactic seemed to be based on endless repetition (as previously discussed in another posting.) I realized what was going on: South Dakota is still rooted in the 1950’s. At that time, a huge and glaring billboard served the function that is now filled by signs illuminated by thousands of watts of electricity. Wall Drugs, or an out-of-the-way gambling town like Deadwood, make up for the lack of wattage with enormous signs that employ every graphic technique possible to punch up the message. There’s something to be said for it. It’s ecologically positive. Yet it is hard to imagine Las Vegas having the same impact with a series of fake-3D, day-glo billboards in place of the Strip.

The American Diet as exemplified by the ‘Continental’ Breakfast. First of all, what continent does this breakfast come from exactly? Antarctica, perhaps? Actually, that’s an insult to penguins. If you have any question about why there is an obesity epidemic in our fair country, I invite you to spy on us as we visit the breakfast provided gratis by most motels along our byways. First, I defy you to find the item free of sugar. OK, maybe the white bread. Most likely, not. All the cereals have sugar added. The ‘yogurt’, using the term loosely, seems to lack the defining element, namely acidophilus, yet gobs of sugar have been added to make sure to overcome any bitterness just in case some beneficial bacteria make it into the final product. Something as simple as oatmeal, which really does not need much help to be nutritious and delicious, is enhanced with no end of flavorings and, you betcha, more sugar. There’s always the fresh waffles, upon which one can heap fake-o maple syrup plus new and improved butter-like substance replete with mono- and di-glycerides; if you are lucky they might provide doughnuts, cinnamon rolls, biscuits and fat glop (oops, I mean gravy,) things shaped like bagels in flavors I never thought possible, and muffins that are just a thin excuse for combining copious amounts of fat and sugar in ever more unique configurations. It is a miracle to find anything without dozens or hundreds of carb calories, and the protein sources, when available, are polluted with nitrates or (in the case of the peanut butter) those ubiquitous and ever-delicious mono- and di-glycerides. Yum Yum Yum. This is just breakfast. Now throw in the standard fast-food lunch and by the time you hit dinner you’ve consumed enough calories for three normal people. That is why we have triple-wide Americans; they eat for three.

The colonization of America. There are two companies that have taken the bull by the horns and have built out their infrastructure to reach deeply into the heart of nearly every city that merits a dot on the map of the United States. We all know about WalMart; the bigger surprise is to find a Walgreen’s right in the center of most towns that have a crossroads that appears on your regional map. Competitors like Target, CVS, Rite-Aid, Sears, Big K-Mart and others are centuries behind.

The Phone Network. 3G is a resource that is very unevenly distributed. Maybe they focus their energies on the place where the most users are; maybe it is a random pattern determined by how easily they can put up new cell phone towers. Most of Wyoming, one of the most sparsely populated places in the nation, has decent-to-great 3G service on the ATT network. Much of rural Arkansas and Tennessee, with far more constituents, has zero to meager coverage. Go figure. Maybe them southern folk don’t use their iPhone anywhere near enough. They should teach this in schools. Or at home, where much of the learnin’ takes place now, for better or more likely for worse.

Buffalo Bill Cody. Actually William Cody, but you know how the media is. You think of him perhaps as a Wild West showman, which he was, but his influence was far greater. We drove next to the Shoshone River on the way from Cody to Yellowstone. This powerful, surging stream ran smack into the Buffalo Bill Dam. Turns out that Bill Cody owned boodles of land in the area, including that which eventually made up the reservoir behind the dam. When it was completed in 1910 it was the tallest in the world at 325 feet. In recent times they’ve added another 25 feet to it; even if it no longer breaks any records, the surging river turns into an immense lake that provides beverages and irrigation to a vast area. Buffalo Bill was a promoter and developer, and Wyoming owes much of its current viability to him.

The Mississippi in Wisconsin

Rivers are the defining element of the West, and perhaps of the entire United States. Even though we now have interstate highways and heavy-duty railroad systems to shoulder the burden of transport and distribution, the original network of commerce ran along the rivers, and it has shaped both the development of cities and the trajectories of the many routes interconnecting our myriad metropoli. Most of the two-lanes closely trace the path of a river. Travel from Missoula to Lewiston, Idaho along the Clearwater River, and watch it grow from a glorified creek to a broad, vast flow that disgorges from the heart of the mountains. We traced the footsteps of Lewis and Clark for much of our return to the West, except since we were in a car we left no footprints. They travelled from river to river, and got real lucky with the Clearwater. Turns out it runs more or less unobstructed to the Snake, and then further, without much drama, into the Columbia, which led them to their ultimate goal of reaching the Pacific. Jetskis, with their shallow draft, would have worked great for them; too bad we have a time displacement of over 100 years before their deployment. Where would they refuel?

It irks me mightily that a state like Wyoming, with about 12 people living in it, is given equal representation in the United States Senate as, say, California, with about 12,000 billion people in it. What’s up with that? I say, move to Wyoming, where your vote counts about the same as 10,000 folks in California or New York! Except you’ll have to eat elk burgers every night for the rest of your life. Alternated with bison burger. And steak.

(the following was written before the drive home:)

OK, folks. That about wraps it up. I am sure that since we still have a mere 800 or so miles to cover in the next two days I will find another topic or two to pontificate about. Or perhaps I will be so consumed by the mere task of driving that I will be driven into mute silence (aren’t they the same thing?) Either way, it has been a gas to be blogging, and I take it that we’ve provided at least a modicum of entertainment, spiked with the occasional insight, along the way. If that is not so, please conceal the truth from me, because my fragile ego may not be ready for the shock. At least until I’ve been back in Portland for a week. After which - - we head out on the road for California! Go figure. Some people never learn.