Oh hello there, hilarious Hivers. Hivers? Hiveans? Hivegans? I hope we're all maintaining our individual homeostasis.
Homeostasis? Did somebody get this idiot a 'word of the day' calendar?
Nope, I just remember things, especially sciency things. Things like geography, demographics, logistic accessibility, population distribution...
But enough 3 syllable (wait, syl-lab... dammit. I'll try to make syllable the last 3 syllable word) words. Hmmm, now that I think about it, I normally use an abundance of three syllable words. I'll try to stay away from words with more than three syllables for the rest of this post.(.. but not perpetually!)
Enough frivolous wordwork...
In the quest for more rewards, I've decided that it's high time I wrote a travel post. I go places and remember stuff, surely I can write a travel post without becoming a... travel blog.
(I don't mean to convey too much disdain by putting 'travel blog' in italic subscript. My problems with travel blogs are mostly based in jealousy, and I realize that's a problem with me, not with travel blogs.)
So...
Today I'd like to share with you some of what I've learned on my travels around North and South America. Now, to avoid confusion later, I don't mean the continents of North and South America, I mean the North and South of the United States, as defined by which side of the Civil War a particular area chose (or chooses!) to be on.
If that sounds like a stupid, pointless travel guide... well that's why it's in Comedy Open Mic, not Pinmapple.
We'll start our journey in the beautiful land of my birth, New York. Now when you say "New York", most people think New York City, and that's understandable. Most of New York is not that. The area of New York that I come from is called the Southern Tier, which you've probably never heard of. It's home to Corning Inc., which maybe you have heard of. They make things like Pyrex, Gorilla Glass, and Revere glass cookware, and there's a good chance you've heard of one of one of those things. They also invented fiber optic cable, and you've definitely heard of that. Their global headquarters in the little city of Corning, NY is a lovely place to visit, though if you do come to visit, you'll learn some things about New York that you probably didn't know before.
One of the first things you'll learn is that a lot of people in rural New York think that they live somewhere in the South. Confederate flags are common, as are those fun-loving 'Don't Tread On Me' flags with the rattlesnake on it. That's not why they call it the Southern Tier, though. That particular moniker comes from being part of the Twin Tiers of NY and PA, but their naming scheme has some idiocy to it that you would think comes from illiteracy.
You see, the Twin Tiers are positioned one above the other, but the Southern Tier is the one on top, to the North, and the Northern Tier is on the Southern end of that arrangement. It's not completely illogical... the Southern Tier, although North of the Northern Tier, is on the Southern Border of NY, and vice versa for the Northern Tier. Understand? Don't worry, neither does anyone else.
New York City is so different from the Twin Tiers that it might as well be on another planet. I mean that literally. People on the street in the rural parts of New York look like a whole different species from people in the City. Driving West out of New York City is like leaving the Starship Enterprise to visit a farm planet.
If you want to see North and South America in one state, start in New York City, then drive Northwest.
On the other side of the country, California is a lot like New York, in almost every way. For starters, people who have never been there tend to think of them as just giant cities, and that is just laughably false. Like New York, if you drive through California, you'll see that it's actually mostly woods and agriculture. The biggest difference between them is that the people who inhabit the hills and farms of New York are white, and the people who inhabit the hills and farms of California are brown. It's probably just because California gets more sun.
Despite their geographical locations, both NY and CA would be considered Northern states in Civil War terms, even though California wasn't even a state during the Civil War. Not necessarily because they thought you shouldn't be able to own slaves, just because they believed that if you did, you should feel bad about it.
If you want a real taste of the North, both geographically and ideologically, then visit Chicago. Chicago is on a cold lake that forms part of the United States' Northern border with Canada. It's known as the Windy City, and that's a very accurate name. They could also have called it the Rainy City, or just the Cold City. There are colder cities than Chicago in the US, but nobody lives in them. All those other Northern 'cities' you hear about may be called cities, but they're so small that their population doubles every time there's a football game. Don't bother packing to visit Chicago. No matter what you pack, the weather will force you to buy new clothes. If it isn't oddly cold in the summer, or simply too cold to be outside in the winter, even if you have appropriate garments, the moment you wear them outside they'll get wet with rain, then the wind will rip your cheap tourist clothes right off your body, forcing you to head into a local shop to buy something made of inch thick wool.
Aside from the cold, Chicago is also a very Northern city ideologically. They really don't care what color, religion, or sexual orientation you are out there... if you can tolerate the environment, they're happy to have you. Chicago also has a way of giving everyone who lives there something in common... a hoarse voice. After a year in that city, even people with squeaky voices will sound like they've had a tracheotomy.
If you want to see what the North and South look like when mixed together, then you should visit Virginia. Their license plates should say The Government State. Most of the scary branches of the US Government operate out of Virginia, and if you drive around the state a while, it becomes pretty obvious that they don't want you there. Virginia has more razor wire fence than all the other states combined. It's a beautiful place to drive through, but if you get out of your car to take a stroll, don't be surprised if a couple fellas in fatigues show up with M16's and encourage you to 'move along.'
Virginia gets a pretty good mix of North and South weather, so if you like the idea of weather, but don't want to actually experience it, it's a great place. It's also been a government center for the Union, the Confederacy, and the Federal government, with locals supporting all three. If you want to see what the United States of America is all about, without seeing the harsh environments that made it that way, Virginia is the place to go.
As you move South, heat and humidity actually make time move a little slower, which is why so much of the South is stuck in 1885. People think that the South is full of white supremacist hillbillies, but it's actually full of black and Latino people. I'm not saying those hillbillies don't exist, just that they're minorities. They are at least orderly minorities... they sort their communities by race and income.
For white people visiting the South America for the first time, it's easy to feel like you've driven right out of the country. If you visit Miami, for example, it's important to stay sober enough to remember that you aren't in Cuba. Miami is full of Cubans, and it looks like the Cuba they show you in movies, only the cars are newer. If you're unlucky enough to wander into rural Florida, you may think you've wound up in actual South America. Gators, swamps, pythons, panthers... if you're not comfortable with being prey, don't leave the amusement parks.
Heading West out of Florida through the South is like visiting a war-torn Third World country. Just ruins of buildings, lost in a jungle. Here and there you may see a few people who appear to belong to some primitive tribe. There aren't a lot of signs, because the locals can't read anyway. The only buildings that look maintained are the churches, and even those don't always look structurally sound. I think churches in the North still send missionaries to some of those communities. If you want to see primitive humans up close, but can't get a passport, visit Mississippi.
Things start to get 'civilized' again as you approach Texas, which is sometimes called North Mexico. Most of Texas is hard to tell apart from regular Mexico, which actually makes sense, since it used to be Mexico. Texas wanted to be a Southern state ideologically, but every time some farmer bought a bunch of slave workers, a bunch of Mexicans would start working the farm next door for half the cost. Texas is a big state, like they say, but it all looks the same, so it's not really that much to brag about. It is believed that the people in Texas are more diverse than its landscape, but everything is covered in so much dust that this has yet to be confirmed.
This is more of a primer than a guide, really. We've only just scratched the surface of my travel experience, so I could probably be persuaded to expand on this travel guide, with the proper amount of votes and/or comments...
I just love traveling the dirt roads and small towns of the American countryside, meeting new people, saying things that offend them... I don't actually remember where I took this photo, but it was one of the few times I was ever in a place with no other vehicles, no power lines, and no signs of airplanes in the sky.