Exploring our country the Driveaway way.

I am endeavoring to be a better blogger. I am working on my writing skills by trying to make these entries more understandable to an outsider. Heck, I know what I mean. Don't you?

I'm beginning to figure out why family get a glazed look in their eyes when we talk about what we do. Our family, like everyone else, spends most of their time in one city area and they don't venture far away from their homes. They often think about places they would like to visit, someday. When we are asked about the different states and what we see they have no frame of reference in their own lives to relate to what we tell them.

As an example. Police encounters. Everyone has had at least one in their life.

The police officers in the western states (Colorado and California are the worst) are intense and don't really want to be bothered. They don't want to talk to you at all. When they do their demeanor is gruff and one hand is on their gun at all times. You get the "Cop Stare" and "Cop Voice" from the officers in the west. We were in need of directions in Colorado one time and flagged down a police officer. He rolled his window down about one inch, sized us up with the cop look, and in a really unfriendly manner said "What Do You Want?" The whole time he was inside his vehicle behind the window his right hand was on his gun. We had an address and a GPS, our problem was the GPS could not locate the address. Asking the police officer for directions we got a hard stare from him and a helpful response "Ain't you got a map?" Yes, we have a map and a GPS but still are unable to find the place. This officer made us put our Bill of Lading up against the glass facing him so he could see what we wanted. His final response before driving off from his fair town was "Don't know, can't help you."

In other encounters with police officers in the west we have been met with the same cop stare and cop voice when we have been beside the road waiting for repair service. "What are you doing here?" I have been so tempted to say "We have fallen in love with this section of highway and just had to stop and sing Kumbaya". I have been too chicken to say it because I might be hauled away for disrespecting an officer.

A flat tire on a big truck or a car should be enough information for anyone to see we are in need of help. Evidently not to the police in the west. Who knows, we may be planning on robbing a bank in their town and are spending the time scoping out the best bank to do it.

The police in Texas and Oklahoma are helpful, but still have some of the cop stare and cop voice. They temper it a bit and use their investigative skills first before they begin asking questions, like "What are you doing here?". Some will give us the phone number of a road service source they know, and one even called road service for us. Texas and Oklahoma officers have given us information to get going in the correct direction when we have been lost or are searching for a particular address. They have their hands close to their guns, not on them.

The police officers in the southern states; Louisianna, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida are kind of a mix between the western police and Texas police. They have a gruff manner, the cop stare and voice, their hands are close to but not on their guns, and they take quite a while before they will give you an answer. They are helpful, even to the extent of calling for road service for us when even our dispatch didn't have any idea what to do for us. Directions are given in a slow and concise manner, maybe so we don't come find the officer again to tell it to us once more.

The police officers I am most amazed by are the ones from the eastern states like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Maryland. These are the police officers I would think would be really dicey to talk to. Cause fear and dread with every breath they take. Surprisingly, they are watchful around them but they have an open demeanor. They converse with us while they get information from us. What have we tried, whom have we contacted, is anyone coming out. When it has been directions we've needed they will look at a map with us and tell us the best way to get there.

One time, feeling a little fool hardy, I did ask a police officer in Arkansas if anyone had asked him what the "Blue Light Special" for the day was (the reason for the question is their emergency lights are rotating blue beacons). He did not find it funny.

Okay, enough with the police.

The country side along our travels is quite awesome. From the eastern side of the United States top to bottom the landscape is full of trees, rivers, and high rolling hills with grass everywhere. The town areas are heavily populated. It is not unusual to see a block of houses attached to each other. The facade color and doors are the only things that would let you know each is a different house. One block of these "Row Houses" as they are called will be multi colored from white, brick red, dark green, blue, and a pastel yellow or blue. Kind of like the whole building was painted by a group and only told where not to paint. Some row houses have only one chain link fence lining out that particular properties boundries while the remaining four have no fence.

My first trip to New York was an eye opener. My only idea of New York was New York City. I figured everything would be crammed full of houses, streets, and cars everywhere. Outside the city and in the rural areas there is open farm land and forests that go on forever. It is really spectacular to see in fall with the leaves changing color.

The further west we travel there are still trees everywhere and a lot of waterways, rivers and streams. The landscape still holds a lot of rural farmlands but the grasses and trees remain green even in fall and winter. The leaves turn colors in fall, as they do back east, while the grasses become a mottled light green tending toward brown.

Western Oklahoma and Kansas the landscape changes dramatically. The trees are less abundant and tend to be prevalent only next to a water source and the grasses in the pastures or prairie are less lush. Going further west in Oklahoma the landscape changes more. From green to brown. The landscape is open and almost barren. Entering into Texas there are virtually no trees and miles and miles of open grasslands. Southern Texas, south of Dallas and spreading from the eastern to the western borders, there is a lot of cactus and mesquite. Grassland is seen less and less.

Western Texas, all of New Mexico and Arizona, and the southern half of California is just plain dirt with spots of cactus, scrub brush, mesquite, and Joshua trees. The land is open, far and wide with magnifienct rock outcroppings that tell a tale of having been under rushing waters long ago.

The northern states from the western edge of Wisconsin to Michigan are lush green with trees and fields. The Dakotas are the delineating mark up north. The trees give way to vast grasslands the further west one travels toward Montana and Idaho where it is a mix of trees and scrub.

Oregon was like a foreign place to me. The northern part of Oregon is choked with trees everywhere. Then traveling south through forests and farmlands in Oregon heading toward Idaho we crested a hill and it was just like everything died at the bottom of the hill. Dirt, cactus, scrub trees. Vast miles and miles of nothing.

Washington State is crowded with trees. They get a lot of precipitation during the year in rain and snow. The oddest to see was moss grows all the way around the tree trunks. The addage that moss only grows on the north side would not fit this place.

Our country is something to behold when you get past your town and venture off onto the highways. There is so much to see out there just in the landscapes. I never tire of what I see as I travel our country. Only in America is there a yearly 128 mile Garage Sale held from southern Kentucky down to northern Georgia. If you would be interested in antiques there are places all over this great land of ours that have bits and bobs for sale. Pieces of history propped in dingy windows and out on the sidewalks. Georgia is abundant with antique shops that range from downtown fashionable to lonely falling down buildings off the highway.

Food is another thing that is different. There is not one single recipe of Chicken Fried Steak, a staple for most truck drivers, that is the same anywhere. Some places have a premade thing while others hand bread and fry the piece of meat like home made. And barbeque, you could start a fist fight just by mentioning some place else had better barbeque than another. Especially in the southern states that swear their barbeque is the best in the whole world.

The towns and cities closest to oceans have the freshest fish and seafoods. The New England Clam Chowder in the northern states looses something in the translation when you travel further west to California, Oregon, and Washington.

Pennsylvania sells "Scrapple" for breakfast. When I once asked what it was I was pointedly asked by our server "You ain't from here are you?" When I responded with what she already knew to be true, "No" she leaned back and looked down at me and said "You won't like it. Pig parts, just pig parts." With that she left. Some diners nearby heard the whole conversation and told me that scrapple was the left over pieces of pork that is not used for anything else mashed and compacted together then sliced thinly and fried. I assumed our server knew what she was talking about and I skipped on ordering it.

For just one family vacation, head to a different part of the United States than you are from. Go out and explore. See the beauty we have, meet the people this land holds, eat something you've never tried before, maybe not scrapple, take a taste of something familiar to you cooked in a different region.

Most every state has Six Flags. Every state also has some spectacular hiking and biking places. Take a tour of the United States and learn something or see something different. Walk a battlefield, watch the barges move cargo on the rivers, go see the Salt Flats in western Utah and eastern Nevada.

Take the time, you will be glad you did.