Thoughs on my summer
There are the coasts. And there is the south. And there is Midwest. And then there is the west. People to the east and west think they know the meaning of distance. They drive four hours from Kansas City to St. Louis and they wipe their brown in exhaustion. They zip along from Minneapolis to Chicago or Indianapolis to Detroit in under a day and think this is a long time. It's not.
In 1956 the Government decided to unite the United States in a massive interstate freeway system. No more stop lights on poorly maintained state routes, they saw an America where it would be possible to drive from Seattle to Albany with out stopping once. And it has united us I suppose. But some areas are more united than others. One need only look at a map of the web of high speed highways along the east coast stretching into Ohio (4 individual highways), Minnesota(4) and Missouri(5) and compare it to the Dakotas that are much larger geographically yet each have only one freeway running through them and Nevada that has 80 but just a sliver of 15 running through its bottom tip to know that distance is interpreted a little differently. Even in the farm land of Wisconsin and Iowa you never go long with out seeing a house. Rest areas are about 30 miles apart. McDonalds even more dense. There is never any real fear of running out of gas unless you plan really really poorly.
There are parts of Montana along I90 when you can look down at your gas meter and see its still a third full and think, I'll fill up the next time I see a gas station, and end up white knuckling it through 150 miles of gas stationless, Rest Arealess, McDonaldless grass land. These stretches come upon you with out warning. Locals and truck drivers of course know to always fill up at ___. And some more observant drivers might take a clue from the bar or two calling themselves "last chance saloon." (There are probably at least thirty Last Chance saloons in Montana. Possibly more.) But the less experienced are distracted by the giant sky, the rolling hills, the curves or the rocky mountains rising up in the distance. The high plains are very different from the Midwest.
People new to Montana gape at the distance. People from Montana can not believe how close things are everywhere else in America. Europe too is packed together.
Canadians probably understand, though. And people in countries with out and interstate system, or an autobahn or reliable trains understand distance too. It may be only 150 Km from the tiny powerless, pluming less, hospitaless villages of the Inhabane province of Mozambique to the modern city of Maputo but a 9 to 15 hour bus ride divides them.
They know too what it feels like to feel cut off from the world.
In 1956 the Government decided to unite the United States in a massive interstate freeway system. No more stop lights on poorly maintained state routes, they saw an America where it would be possible to drive from Seattle to Albany with out stopping once. And it has united us I suppose. But some areas are more united than others. One need only look at a map of the web of high speed highways along the east coast stretching into Ohio (4 individual highways), Minnesota(4) and Missouri(5) and compare it to the Dakotas that are much larger geographically yet each have only one freeway running through them and Nevada that has 80 but just a sliver of 15 running through its bottom tip to know that distance is interpreted a little differently. Even in the farm land of Wisconsin and Iowa you never go long with out seeing a house. Rest areas are about 30 miles apart. McDonalds even more dense. There is never any real fear of running out of gas unless you plan really really poorly.
There are parts of Montana along I90 when you can look down at your gas meter and see its still a third full and think, I'll fill up the next time I see a gas station, and end up white knuckling it through 150 miles of gas stationless, Rest Arealess, McDonaldless grass land. These stretches come upon you with out warning. Locals and truck drivers of course know to always fill up at ___. And some more observant drivers might take a clue from the bar or two calling themselves "last chance saloon." (There are probably at least thirty Last Chance saloons in Montana. Possibly more.) But the less experienced are distracted by the giant sky, the rolling hills, the curves or the rocky mountains rising up in the distance. The high plains are very different from the Midwest.
People new to Montana gape at the distance. People from Montana can not believe how close things are everywhere else in America. Europe too is packed together.
Canadians probably understand, though. And people in countries with out and interstate system, or an autobahn or reliable trains understand distance too. It may be only 150 Km from the tiny powerless, pluming less, hospitaless villages of the Inhabane province of Mozambique to the modern city of Maputo but a 9 to 15 hour bus ride divides them.
They know too what it feels like to feel cut off from the world.
posted by Lark(e) at 10:13 PM
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