11/8/21

It’s crazy to think that it’s already been nearly a week since my tour of the northeastern part of the United States. Everything in color on the map above to the east of Iowa and Missouri was new territory for me, and the trip itself was an excellent experience! It will go down as one of my top three trips in life, right up there with my time exploring the Canadian Rockies and my time in Italy.

Now that I’ve had some time to digest the experience, I thought I would provide some commentary on the random things that I noticed during my travels, good, bad, and ugly (these are not listed in any order of importance), as well as some idea on what I am currently doing in life and where I am going next:

* I’ve never planned a big trip in the fall before (usually a tough thing to do when you’re teaching or lecturing), and when I was planning this trip I was kind of worried how it would work out given that weather this time of year is less predictable than in the summer. Now having gone on the trip, I will say that weather can make-or-break a fall trip. There were definitely some stormy days on this trip (as I would imagine there would be on any fall-time trip), but the payoff is that when the weather does cooperate, you end up with some of the best weather and scenery of the entire year. You also rarely face crowds because you are traveling at a time that is not peak travel season. In other words, if you can make it happen, (in America at least) fall is probably the best time to travel.

* To make the best of a fall-time trip, I would do what I did: (a) watch forecasts and try your best to time your travel to occur between storm systems; (b) if you get trapped in a storm, still do your best to see the sights, or switch gears and be a foodie for the day; (c) give yourself a bit of wiggle room in your schedule (i.e. build into your itinerary an extra few days to accommodate for weather issues); and (d) make your trip a road trip! I cannot emphasize the last point enough. This trip would have been miserable if I was stuck with airport itineraries and limited mobility. It was having the ability to get into my own car and having that freedom to just drive anywhere that made this trip great.

* Covid is still a thing, but it isn’t a deal breaker on travel like it once was. As long as you have a mask (and ideally are vaccinated), you should be pretty much free to go about anywhere. In fact, most places at this point are not requiring masks or vaccination to get around; we are largely down to recommendations rather than mandates. However, Covid is still impacting the labor force and many restaurants in the Eastern United States in particular are now closed on Mondays and Tuesdays due to having a lack of help. Just be aware of the fact and be smart in your travels!

* Traveling east in this country, one of the huge differences that I noticed from the west was the sheer number of different accents. During my time in the Western and even Midwestern United States, everyone pretty much has always sounded about the same to me. Maybe you’ll get some slight accent here-or-there, but it is usually due to that person being from somewhere else (e.g. they had recently moved to California from some part of the country that has an accent, or they were first or second-generation from some other country, etc.). It wasn’t like two people were going to sound entirely different because one person was from San Francisco and the other was from Seattle. But that is definitely not the case as you go east. I always had some inkling of the different accents out east, but had no idea just how regional and noticeable those accents were. From Michigan across to New York, New Hampshire down to West Virginia, everyone sounded different. Sometimes the differences could be noticed from as near as one town to the next. It was kind of neat and interesting, never something that made me think “gosh, this could get annoying.” But it also makes you self-aware, because as you notice everyone else speaking a certain way you also start to hear for the first time exactly how you sound. And yes, now being able to recognize it better, I definitely have an accent (as does everyone out west). It is some hodgepodge of all of the accents I encountered back east, from the upscale New York suburb accents to the hillbilly twang in Appalachia. I guess that makes sense with 100’s of years’ worth of people moving west from the east and seeing their families and communities blend together. I just never really thought about it or recognized it before.

* Another big difference when traveling east is the highway/interstate system. It is so complicated compared to the west (thank God Siri was giving directions during the trip), you are almost always surrounded by some level of traffic, speed limits tend to be a lot lower than back west, and there are tolls being levied almost everywhere. Ohio, New York, and New Jersey were probably the worst. Some spots in New Hampshire and New York were levying tolls every 5-10 miles (luckily New Hampshire’s tolls were only 75 cents each, so it didn’t break the bank). I am still waiting to figure out the final damage, but I will not be surprised if I end up paying somewhere between $50-$100 in tolls alone on this trip, mostly from New York and New Jersey. It definitely gave me a new understanding and appreciation for what Jack Kerouac was trying to convey in his novel On the Road. In it, he describes his initial push out west, and the way he describes it he makes it sound like he’s not really experiencing freedom or enjoying his time until he reaches Omaha and pushes out to Western Nebraska. Now I see why. From Omaha west, the American highway/interstate system offers nothing but unbridled freedom. The travel is faster, the vistas broader, and even to this day you can travel long expanses of road without encountering another soul. It is a freedom I now better appreciate after traveling east.

* When I originally set out on this trip, I was hoping to just travel and see some sites while deciding whether I was interested in moving to Sunapee, New Hampshire or along the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky. Those places both ended up being great (which really doesn’t help narrow my list of potential places to move…), but to my surprise during my travels I stumbled on several other places that I now want to explore further for a potential move. These places include Marquette, Michigan; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and Charleston, West Virginia. I would even add Upstate New York to the list, but I’m afraid that the politics there are a little too similar to those in California where I left. I am trying to get away from the California political landscape, not dive right back into it.

* While on the topic of politics, it was so refreshing to see States that are politically balanced! It is making me realize just how scarred I was from California politics. I have no problem living in a swing state, or even a slightly blue state, but I have no interest living in a State ever again where the Democratic Party has obtained a stranglehold on the process and there is little-to-no hope in seeing a swing the other way. Nor do I want to live in a State that fails to appreciate the importance of local control, especially for rural areas.

* I also couldn’t help but smile at all of the American flags and Let’s Go Brandon signs that I saw throughout the American countryside from coast-to-coast. It made me so happy and reminded me of the people and my home back in Red Bluff. I also miss Red Bluff and the people there…you are all the best!

* As for Omaha (where I’m currently located), I have a new appreciation for it too and now see it as a jewel amongst Midwest cities. So much of the Midwest looks the same whether you’re in Iowa or Indiana, Wisconsin or Missouri, but Omaha just has a slightly different feel to it and I can’t really explain why. Maybe it’s because it really is on the edge of the Midwest – a few further hours west and you’re pushing towards Denver or Cheyenne or Rapid City. Or maybe it’s just because Omaha was where I was born and where my family is located. Omaha remains on my list of places for a potential move, and I actually currently have two job opportunities here (one at a law firm and one at a wealth management firm). But I don’t know…I still would like to take some time to spend the holidays with my family and further explore the country before diving right back into the career lifestyle.

* One big issue that I had during this road trip, one that I don’t recall feeling before while traveling, was the feeling of loneliness. I really do not have any connections to the Northeast, and spent so much of my trip wandering trails and towns alone, wishing that there was someone there with me to experience all of these amazing places. Honestly my brief time with Dr. Frantz in Pennsylvania and at my aunt and uncle’s house in Kentucky were probably some of the best moments of my trip, just because the trip during those times became a social one with people who seemed to care about me. I am definitely a very different person than I was in my 20s, back when I had no problem going on backpacking trips alone in the Canadian or Colorado Rockies for weeks at a time. Then, I only craved to be away from people. But now, spending time with people I care about is all I seem to want to do. Which is why my next trip is going to be so exciting (assuming that I don’t get tied up with a job here in Omaha). Looking at that map above, I see a lot of states in the South that still need exploration, and unlike the North, I know so, so many friends, family members, even families of former-students who have moved to the South! So, my next trip, which I’m hoping will take place in January or February, will be a trip to the South. It will hopefully be a trip filled with friends and family from Tennessee to Florida, Texas to South Carolina. This should be fun!

More details to follow.

Cheers,

Rob