Tag: #travel

  • Coronavirus and Changing America

    Funny what the different a day can make.

    Yesterday, all was pretty normal in the City.

    Today, there is a decided change. I can see it with the people on the street. There are more masks out, and though this was always a town where people went out of their way not to come in contact with others, today everyone is moving as if there is a bubble around them.

    Trump’s address on tv last night didn’t help anything. Shutting down Europe access while leaving the UK alone doesn’t really help anyone. The problem is that the virus is here, and we need to start dealing with that. Testing, and limiting groups does make sense, but right now, I only see state and local governments doing that. The Trump administration isn’t really leading.

    I do think the NBA also made the right call, and other leagues should consider doing the same thing. These are mass gatherings, and it’s not that everyone who goes to these events will get infected, it’s that enough might take it home to parents and grandparents, who are the truly vulnerable here.

    I would hope, and this is hope not a fact, that 30 days of this, of people laying low, will slow the spread of coronavirus down, so it can become manageable. The only way for that to happen is to allow testing and gathering data. Let the doctors and scientists do their job, and that will take time.

    For the rest of us, let’s have level heads, and pitch in together. Should we help small business and workers; yes. What if there was a 30-day “Bill Holiday,” where no bills, rents, or payments are mandatorily collected? Everyone gets a break. This wouldn’t be a government hand out, but would be the people of this nation choosing to do this on their own. I have seen it happen in small towns that are hit by natural disasters. Why not everywhere else?

  • Traveling Observations

    It took us seven days to drive from New York to California. We pretty much stayed on the interstates, except for a pace in Texas and Arizona. Most of the travel writing I have read has always attested to the glory of seeing America on the two-lane highways.

    I guess that could be true.

    I did spend a time in my early twenties travelling the back roads of East Texas, to visit friends at the small universities they were attending. I would call that quaint travelling, and small towns are nice, but some of them were happy to see you leave.

    Being on the big interstates of the country, you do get to see how these highways were cut into the land. In a few cases, mountains that were cut in two, and valleys that were filled in. It was like looking at the result that civil engineering can have on the land.

    The other observation that I made was the number of abandoned barns there are in the country. From western New Jersey to the Big Valley in California; there was always a rain and sun grayed wooden barn that wasn’t too far from the side of the highway that had its roof coming in, or barn doors off. I guess these barns were the last monument of the family farm, or that’s what I liked to tell myself.