INTERSTATE INITIATIVE 2024
quotes from the article
"Prove me wrong, but the cost of keeping one soldier with all the attendant weapons, housing and logistical support, could provide ten jobs domestically. Take all those paper tigers at the Pentagon coasting to their 20-year retirement and put them to work pushing wheelbarrows. "
" There was a tunnel under the interstate for Beaver Brooks ebb and flow for the turtles, polliwogs, muskrats and other water loving creatures, but mostly Interstate 91 blocked migrations of rabbits foxes deer and all the rest of nature. During really cold winters it froze solid in the tunnel, and we were able to skate under the interstate to the other side. Kind of scary and not for the claustrophobic."
I was a notorious "staycationer" for thirty years in Florida, although my spirit belonged to the mountains.
I grew up a river rat in Wethersfield, Bloomfield and Enfield Connecticut in the Connecticut River Valley, and places such as Pennwood Park in Bloomfield was a remnant of the Appalachian Mountains.
The interstate highway system had seemed like a good idea. As an American who believes the Constitution is the law of the land, the interstate highway system fulfilled the constitutional protocol of providing for the common defense.
Emergency or military equipment could be moved to any part of the country without worrying about the height of bridges or washed-out muddy roads. This was back when the UNITED States led by example.
When I was seven, sitting in my sandbox, I could see Interstate 91 being built. A constant parade of loaders, graders, and dump trucks within view of the highway I was building in my big red sandbox.
A couple years later when I was ten, me and the boys took our bikes up on that interstate highway. It was like the Bonneville Salt flats. A huge expanse of flat road the likes of which we had never seen before, and we delighted in seeing who could make the fattest, longest or biggest skid. We'd practice wheelies without worrying about oncoming traffic. Junior hooligans making circle 8's till we were dizzy, and we played chicken, but we weren't stupid enough to wreck our bikes. We'uns dint need no theme parks back in the olde days.
The work was done on this part of I 91 and it was quite a few weeks before someone finally came along to tell us to skedaddle, "this isn't a playground."
Old Red sold his pasture land to a developer who built 7 ranch homes at a cost of less than $11,000 each. My mom before I came along and before the porch was built.
Now that the rich have saved trillions
of dollars in hidden off shore accounts for us, we can use this stolen labor
(profit) to create the Infrastructure Initiative of 2024. (II24) Envision something great for everyone to use in the next 50 years in an expanded and expansive safety net. Conceptualize a beautiful and enduring hardscape and millions of acres of preserved native habitat.
One way to start would be to sell half
of our military bases, the ones furthest away from American ports, keep it
closer to home, right? The Constitutional mandate is for “a common defence”,
not to be an international death star.
Prove me wrong, but the cost of keeping one soldier with all the attendant weapons, housing and logistical support could provide ten jobs domestically. Take all those paper tigers at the Pentagon coasting to their 20-year retirement, and put them to work pushing wheelbarrows.
I'd guess it was an early spring day when we went to play our first baseball game. We parked our bikes and walked over to the new fence, about 75 feet from the new interstate highway and 250 feet from our traditional home plate. They put up the fence during the off season and we were like, okay, a home run fence. It was pretty far away and there might be a handful of home runs every game. And we played all day. Other days we'd lift our bikes over the fence and go play on the as yet unopened highway.
Today I realize these fences not only kept wildlife from running across the highway but kept them from migrating as they had done for ten thousand years. All those fences were responsible for trillions of animal deaths as they were no longer able to follow their simple migrations.
There was a tunnel under the interstate for Beaver Brooks ebb and flow for the turtles, polliwogs, muskrats and other water loving creatures, but mostly Interstate 91 blocked migrations of rabbits foxes deer and all the rest of nature.12 years before I was in my sandbox playing with trucks, my mothers neighborhood was chaotically disrupted. Land had to be purchased for the interstate highway that was going to be built and eminent domain was used in Wethersfield.
River Road was no longer going to be a way to get to the river.
Only 5,000
of those miles were on the interstate. My GPS guide, Bubbles from Google, took me on back
roads everywhere. Particularly when I got off RT I 81 and asked for the scenic
route to Deposit New York where there was an alleged Motel 6.
From Old Forge Pennsylvania, where I slept on the side of the road, to Deposit New York was the most scenic 9 hour drive of the year. Six dead deer unfortunately, (how many were picked up fresh for the deer processing facilities?), but one interesting little town after another.
Route 11 then 220 then 17 to Deposit.
VERMONT
DEPOSIT NY
Here is what I wrote for my trip to Oregon in May 2021.
d)Johnny
Huckster sees America
(Ye
Olde Quest)
After 50 years of “nose to the grindstone”, I gave my nose a rest and had a grand adventure.
Certainly not the preppy Grand Tour, I wanted to see the United States without getting into covid clusters and waiting in line anywhere. I wanted to see America not talk to Americans. No offense, right?
I've paid my dues being a good listener to over-talkers and their lines of shit. I want to show a new way to vacation and/or live out of your car while proposing we build an infrastructure to last till 2080.
It was March 2021 when I got the idea to go to Oregon finally. My gypsy friend was going back to the PNW for good and needed a ride. She was done with Florida and I needed to get away myself and I wanted to check out an isolated warm zone in southwestern Oregon. USDA Zone 9 located from Port Orford down the coast to California. There hasn’t been a freeze in years and I think they can consider year-round crops. This was her destination and coincidentally the area I was always curious to visit.
Several configurations of the trip developed such as whether or not to go to Glacier National Park.
Suddenly it almost all came to a halt with a bad EKG on April 27th. “You’re not having chest pains?” my doctor seemed alarmed. He was ready to drive me to the hospital. This is shortly before I was to leave on my 7200 mile journey.
Weirdly, at the same time, I thought I had two skin tags but they turned out to be ticks. Getting older. it seemed skin tags and age spots began appearing more frequently so I didn't give it much notice. The skin tag on my arm began getting really irritated and I needed to find a way to get rid of it. Imagine my shock when I realized I could pull it off and though almost unrecognizable, it was a dead deflated tick.
The bite near my bicep still itches and is still red six months later.
So four days before we were to leave for the cross country trip, my friend seemed alarmed that I could have a heart attack at any time and we both became panicky and anxious about the trip we had been planning. I also confirmed my pre-diabetic blood work numbers. To me that meant I could pass out for no reason.
So suddenly I had a heart condition, my extremities were steadily getting numb from nerve damage and what if I had Lyme disease from the tick? i didn't even want to think about my sore back, and if it would hold up for that distance.
I had gotten a seven-week rental because my electronic nightmare of a van finally shit the bed, and I needed to keep working. I couldn't get a loan for another vehicle, so I took a chance with a rental, did my gardening work out of it too.
I drove 13,000 miles and saw 29 states in May and October of 2021, but I am most satisfied about was seeing my five children in 3 different states.
I just missed getting the rental for a trip to Tampa to my oldests’ house with his 4
children. Then the first
weekend with the rental, I spent it at my firstborns new condo, helping her on
the weekend of a 5K she had organized, and adding a couple plants to her garden.
The next
Thursday I picked up a rescue Pug named Jack in Vero Beach and brought him to
daughter #2 in Raleigh. Saw my grand dog Louie and son in law Mitauex. Bonz the
Cat does the best he can in a house filled rescues and fosters.
My youngest had left the nest last year and also moved to NC so I visited him and his internet girlfriend and they seemed to be doing nicely in Four Oaks. He was out in the country and it was gratifying to see him out in their in the boonies. I spent the remainder of this 6-day weekend exploring the foothills of the Appalachians. A scenic Route 50 in Georgia seemed just as beautiful as the Blue Ridge Parkway.
🚧
ROUTE 50 IN Georgia is lush in May
It
seemed that everyone was talking about a bucket list and so when I thought about
it, I figured I had 5 things left. 5 I wanted to get over to Austin and see Little M. 4 I had also wanted to see the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Blue Ridge Mountains for a long
time. I heard it was beautiful. I had no idea. #3 on the bucket list was to visit Amish country.
This trip to Oregon sounded like something I needed to do and I wanted to make it happen. It was fourth on the list. I’ve always had
the feeling that Oregon was where I needed to go and that would be #2 on a
bucket list and seeing the Redwoods was #1.
Sure I’d like to see
Solutre, France and the Niobrara River in Nebraska (the least populated part of
the continental US) and visit Hudson Bay from the St James Road, but I would be
pretty satisfied to finish these five items.
Glacier National Park sounds like, potentially, the most interesting national park to visit, and it would be nice to see Katahdin in Maine but....... Glacier opened its Sun Road into the park a week after I had gotten back from going to Oregon in May. Snow plows were busy trying to clear the roads right till the beginning of June
Here are some pictures from Colorado in May. There is also a Route 50 that is extremely scenic in Colorado.
The Blue Ridge Mountains was the first off my bucket list. In October 2018 I planned out a vacation to Connecticut, to Amish country and the Blue ridge Mountains, but Hurricane Florence had just tore through North Carolina and closed many parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway for a week, but luckily it had just opened back up when I got there. Interstate 95 was washed out in South Carolina and I went on all small country roads to get to the mountains.
Hurricane
Florence pretty much followed my proposed vacation drive through the mountains a week before I was to go but the damage wasn't as bad as I imagined.
I went to spot #77 in Section C at the Doughton Campground near Sparta North Carolina and I had the place to myself for six days. Strong fairy spirits up there on the knob.
So, the Amish visit and exploring the Appalachians knocked a couple
things off the bucket list.
2021 comes along and here’s this chance to go to that isolated area in Oregon and see the Redwoods. The pandemic was winding down but we weren’t in the clear yet. Commitments, logistics and complications changed the plan 10 times over the next two months. How did I possibly think my back would hold up driving 7200 miles after just driving 1800 miles for the Pug rescue and the mountain sight seeing in North Carolina? Luckily, I didn’t overthink this one or how crazy the whole notion was.
It seemed a bit of money was on its way, though not yet a sure thing, but that vacation out west to Oregon was finally within reach. No point in going to any Covid clusters and the only two places I went in was the gift shop at Monarch Pass and the gift shop at Crater Lake.
I saw lots of America and very few Americans, except at
rest rooms and it was good to see people were all masking up as I was, but I was also yet to be vaccinated.
Everyone in the world was supposed to get the shots and I couldn't help being suspicious, so I waited as did my client. I did finally get vaccinated in August as it seemed way too many people were dying from it.
Not being vaccinated turned out to be a good thing because our hosts in Oregon were anti-vax preppers who would not have welcomed vaccinated people with their shedding proteins into their house!
Gas was easily $600 for the trip.
Motels $500 more. Food $300 easily. No income from work for three weeks. For sure, there were at least 25 rest stops I slept at. But I also had three residences
to stay at and that worked out great and it turned out that I actually did more socializing
than I am used to with those seven days in normal housing.
Most excellent hosts in
all three cases and in three different groups of people. Slept good and had fun
with my people and the one thing this disparate group had in common was something new called, “Freecycle.” Freecycle: Front Door
Disconcertedly, it took
22 hours to get out of Florida. A strong storm had passed over us and our trip
to Oregon almost ended before it got
started. I left the impression I was heading for “the mountains”, implying the
Appalachians, knowing I was setting out to see the Rockies for the first time
in 37 years. Less than a handful of trusted people knew my plans.
Too many buttinskis out there intent on telling me how to enjoy my
first long distance ride in a long time. I don’t need the endless advice or the
Tour books or go see so and so. This was totally spontaneous and worked out perfectly with temperatures between 45 and 75 which is my comfort zone.
Driving back east I got caught in three traffic jams in California. Arizona was peaceful seeing the low desert plants of the Southwest again. I’d
never done much more than drive through Colorado three times in my youth, but
this time I saw some deep Colorado.
Rugged Route 50 in Colorado was dangerous with its descents but there was breathtaking non-stop scenery. By planning a Mid-May ride, there were snow covered mountains the entire way. Afterwards I read Rt 50 is called the “loneliest road in Colorado.” My passenger/friend/client and I hardly talked as we watched the scenery unfold for hundreds of miles into Utah Nevada and Oregon. A fully immersible experience.
I remembered the ride
through Nevada and Utah seemed a bit boring a long time ago when I was young,
but now I know so much more about rocks and tectonics and shit, it became
absolutely fascinating. I don't need a near death experience to appreciate life. I love most of every day.
Anyways, here I am with
my client (friend actually, but hereafter known as the client as I was creating
the prototype for my “driver for hire” side hustle.)
I have been telling people the last five years that the economy is going to reassemble itself and opportunity will abound and everybody in every field needs to be playing some heads-up ball and my plan is to create a new kind of business. With gardening for nature leading the way.
The world of 2030 will be
different than what we can imagine today. America needs to shed its white collar parasitical economy and learn to work again. Everyone needs to have skin the game, except fo the totally lame and/or the blind.
We needed networks to connect and now we have this in many ways in our modern computer era. Easy to connect with fellow quilters or amateur astronomers and those creating Pollinator friendly yards. We are much better able to participate with our civic group. (or with the latest groups being created, such as ‘freecycle’).
It's all happening so fast, and I don't know how I would deal with it if I was younger. I'm out to create something brand new in 2024 despite this late stage of life. MY final act.
Malls are ghost towns and food trucks are in demand. There's an economic inversion occuring. People kind of realizing an AI bot would be a far cheaper CEO of these big companies.
People need to add a balance to the overwhelming influence of governments AND corporations AND religions. I really believe the American people are going to see themselves through all this. We can go back in the past to bring back the good ideas we abandoned. One would be to make large rural hubs and large rest areas as a partial return of the commons that were stolen from us.
We can make the connections that will create the networks of the future. We can create our own economy as if the old one doesn’t matter is where my focus will be. The old one best being described as crony capitalism and I'm promoting Market Socialism as a world economic system.
Driving Interstate 10
west, we were six hours out of Boynton Beach. A windstorm and
downpour had just finished. The road was misted and it was difficult to see
even twenty-five feet. Traffic was down to 45 MPH.
A TREE appeared out of the mist across at least two lanes of traffic and we
hit it direct ...dead on. Like, I don’t even tell people cause I’m not a drama
queen like that. It nearly broke through the windshield in three places and I
shit you not we could have been impaled by a huge branch. If I skidded and swerved and went into it sideways that would have been it. Deader than that bug on the windshield.
It hadn’t fallen off a
truck and it was a large thirty foot tree stripped of its branches. A dead tree that was picked up by tornadic winds. A Pine Tree
you see, we found needles over the top of the engine when we looked and it did impale the radiator area and the engine area was filled with pine needles. We managed to drag the damaged beast to the rest area a mile ahead and there were Pine needles the entire way. There was a wicked wind just before we got there.
We hit it straight on and
the windshield nearly exploded with glass (see picture above) and theoretically we could have been
impaled had the branches been pointing towards us. A branch had found its way
into the engine area nearly popping a radiator hose and leaving behind many
pine needles.
So 7 hours into the trip we drove into the rest area with our battered steed and got 6 hours of sleep. Enough of that day.
When I saw a dead pine tree walking in the woods, one day recently, I noted its ghostly white color and it looked exactly like the tree we hit.
There must have been a tornado. Pine needles covered the slow lane and shoulder for the mile leading up to the rest area as I said. The road was thick with needles. The next day when we left there were many trees that were in the road but were cut.
We called the police and Budget rental Car very early in the morning and to make a long story short, we had the originally rented Rav 4 replaced with a Jeep Compass by eleven.
So from 1 o’clock the previous afternoon when we drove a car to
Boynton Beach to drop it off, till we then finally reached the Alabama border,
we were finally, 22 hours later, leaving Florida for day 2. So we nearly got
impaled by a 30 foot tree that was laying across Interstate 10, but we ended up
getting a nice vehicle upgrade, and were finally on our way to Oregon. RAV 4 got good mileage but the Red Jeep Compass was cool as shit.
That afternoon we drove through some scenic state roads in Alabama (231?) and stopped at a quaint farm stand/eatery for the big meal of the day. There were chickens loose in the store and everything. We had a fabulous healthy late lunch there and drove on.
Night fell and I white knuckled it through Memphis
and drove through Arkansas in the dark. Slow down Memphis
the
sign pleaded as motorcyclists and cars passed us going 100 mph. I seemed to be
having some trouble with city based, busy highways and traffic seemed too
intense.
We parked in what turned
out to be a motel parking lot and then an empty lot nearby but got gently
thrown out. We finally slept for three or four hours at Walmart. Daytime came
and we spent much of that day driving through Nebraska.
The Cherokee had two bodacious gas
stations. Large clean areas with lots of choices for travelers and the highways
appeared to be freshly paved. The GPS Guide, Bubbles, seemed to be keeping us
off the interstates and on much more scenic state roads. I learned later that too many roads out west are oriented for mid-westerners going to California and not the south to the
Northwest.
There was a Route 412 in Oklahoma that
traversed that really thin part (handle) of Oklahoma that I found interesting.
I had really begun to notice that people living in these areas had really
trashy yards. Now this coming from a guy who had a yard full of stuff once upon
a time. My hillbilly yard filled with things “I might need someday.”
It was puzzling to see 10 or 12 cars but
then I saw yards with 50 or 100 cars. 55 gallon barrels. Rusting leaking? Tractor
attachments, PVC stacks, etc.’
But you know, it seemed that in all these
“hick” towns the American people had gone back to work. Businesses had trucks
that were busy being used and metal building doors were open. I had yet to see
a shuttered-up business.
So I was racking up some miles driving
with no aches or pains yet. We finally arrived in Pueblo Colorado at 6:00 and
checked into a motel. Seedy thought my client but I could care less. I slept in
a sleeping bag on top of the bedding and used my own pillow. It was there I got into the habit of leaving things behind. I left
my blue ice in the freezer and so became more dependent on ice though I did get
a block of ice, one time, that lasted over two days. Deep thin coolers work out
best.
In Pueblo that night we bought legal
and had a smoking room so, voila. First time I could administer my medicine in
a hotel room without Ozium and incense.
Then we got on Route 50 in Colorado and it was
non-stop, breathtaking scenery from there out. The Jeep Compass was climbing
and climbing getting half the gas mileage it should. The gas pedal was hardly
responding and I figured we had gotten pretty high. The altitude I mean. Then
we got to Monarch Pass which sits on the Continental Divide at 11,312 feet.
The mountain forced me to breathe deeply and it felt good though I could tell it would take some getting used to. Then down we went and eventually I would tire of the 7% inclines and giant tractor trailers passing me out in the passing lanes, but at first it was exciting and dangerous. I read later that Route 50 is called “the loneliest road in Colorado”
The goal was to reach Telluride for a
second motel rest on this six-day trip. At 7950 feet, my breathing was labored
here also, but deep breathing that Clean Colorado air also seemed to do a lot
of good.
The client went to a hot spring up the
road and I took a nap in the Jeep. The next stop was Crater Lake. Following
that was the rugged scenery of Colorado and at night we drove through Utah and then
Nevada’s stark beauty became apparent as dawn approached.
Truthfully, by the time we got to the
Oregon border, we had had about enough sagebrush country. Took the Oregon
Redwood trail and saw and touched my first Redwoods. So, there I was with an
empty bucket list and a motel within view of the Pacific Ocean.
The next day we got to our destination in Port Orford, Oregon and I was finally going to experience this anomalous warm area that was in southwest Oregon. At the motel near the beach I noticed the largest Geranium I remember seeing in my entire life. I lived in Tucson for six years and people had their Geraniums for three years and they weren’t half this size.
I would later come to learn that the Port Orford area rarely freezes and rarely gets too hot. It seems I had found a place that doesn’t freeze and doesn’t burn,, and I have to consider a move to this area.
I think it would be fun to escape
there to trim buds for a month or two during the outdoor harvest in August and
September when Florida is at its hottest. It seems almost too cool. Every time
I check the Port Orford ten day forecast, the average high and low seemed to be
65 and 52 and it was pretty cool the three days we were there.
The folks in Oregon were busy with their garden but took us to a very
nice path near the Pacific Ocean.
Crested Jay, shedding proteins, and wonderful home schooled children.
Redwood
puppies the bark with soft bark. My client stayed and I started my return journey.
When I left the trailer park in Oregon, I should have turned right
to get back to 101. I drove down an increasingly narrow road for 19 miles. I
knew that because I came upon a sign finally, when the road forked and both ways became
dirt roads.
I got a clue when I saw grass growing in the road. You can tell
there had been some landslides looking down at the cliffside and up at the
higher elevations, everything was sliding down. The river below and cracks in
the road where there were visible rockslides appeared. The road kept getting
thinner and thinner and I didn’t see any other vehicles and I got to wondering
why. Nothing seemed familiar. It didn't occur to me to turn around probably because of the thin road and the cliffs.
A rule of driving is not to get lost on a lonely dirt road and when I came to a fork in the road and both choices were dirt roads, I stopped to reassess what was going on. I turned the Jeep around and saw the sign. 19 miles to Rt 101. The other way. I was nearly in Humboldt County in California.
Well, I was two days behind schedule and decided I was just going to drive right through California and get past Kingman Arizona by the next sunrise 20 hours away. Sometimes I had to settle into long hours of driving.
I had slept in the car
for two nights and was feeling good. I had about five layers of different
materials such as yoga mats and sleeping bags and an outdoor lounge chair
cushion laid across the back.
Arizona and New Mexico, though boarded up, were much more starkly beautiful than I remember. The entirety of New Mexico seemed to be in dire economic ruin unfortunately. In the previous 15 states it appeared to be that America was back to work. Not in New Mexico though I didn’t see Albuquerque or Santa Fe or Taos.
After the visit to Shiprock I got on 481 South and figured I could sleep at the
first rest area I come across when I got on Interstate 40 east. So, I get on the
interstate and thirty miles go by and I am thoroughly tired and I really need
to stop. I drove quickly to get through California, but I drove 14 hours which
started with me almost getting lost in Humboldt County California.
Sixty miles go by and I’m like “what in the hell!” There always
seemed to be a rest area just in time but not this time. Here comes the fatigue
driving. I count backwards from 100 to 1 and then start again with 99 to one
then 98 to one backwards. Out loud to keep as many facilities working as
possible. There are other tricks to keep the mind alert but I’d driven 20 of
the last 30 hours and seriously needed a break.
There was an exit with lots of trucks but nowhere for cars to park.
Then I did a big circle for about 8 miles following an apparently drunk GPS
lady and there was nothing anywhere that was safe from thieves and highwaymen.
Finally, I saw an area that was 200 by 150 feet with several trucks were
parked. I nearly got hit by a tractor trailer while I was going left and lunged toward
that wide open space while the truck was signaling to go on the 40 East
entrance ramp. We crisscrossed each other by like, inches, and I saw the corner
of the truck a few feet from the windshield. I never want to be that tired
while I was driving again. A regrettable risk but a good lesson.
I slept 5 hours there and took off raggedy without coffee. Happy to be alive.
I must have spent ten hours driving in Texas before I got to Little
M’s house. So much ugliness coming out of Texas it seems but they definitely won
the wildflower award. Vast areas of flowers and diversity spread throughout.
The hill country was impressively scenic and I thanked my luck with all these
fabulous roads I drove on. The, NW to SE routes, ignored by the interstates.
I was tired, having driven 35 of the last 55 hours so I was thankful
to be able to stay in Austin for 2 and a half days to rest. M and her beau listen to the most interesting
mix of music. New stuff to entertain my ears.
I was mirthful to discover that Austin has so many wildflowers and
a Central Park of its own and a world famous natural spring. We walked to the largest bat roosting area in an
American city and I didn’t hear them though my companions did.
Trying to capture the parts of America you don't see on TV. New roads new lands new people.
Infrastructure is about making very long entrance and exit ramps. It's too much like a car race trying to get in the right lane at 70 MPH.
Rt 50 out of Colorado then which one in Nevada after Telluride?
GPS guide down two questionable dirt roads but they worked.
Enough 7% inclines for a while.
Signs said “women only”. Why a rural hub system would have three types of restrooms men women everyone which would be there for any overflow. Make these rest areas much bigger and save a large chunk of the local ecosystems.
RV parks and
yards with many cars and debris and what looks like a mess as observed from the
highway.
Trucks that are
running, are busy, though. America is back to work.
no kill shelters is also infrastructure. wildlife rehabilitation centers also. For every tank and infantry, "protecting our country", you could have ten people working at rehab centers here in the good 'ol USA.
road rage in New Britsky
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