Friday.
We set out from South Florida this morning. A fine place if it weren't in imminent danger of being forever lost from the hurricanes and rising sea levels which are being created right now, in the present, by global warming - a reality which Bush still rejects. Isn't there a Nero analogy in there somewhere?
Friday evening. We are in Tallahassee. The biggest dump of a medium-sized city I have ever seen outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Hideous modern office buildings, without any design distinction, built by the state of Florida mar the downtown. One of these is a high-rise which is part of the Capitol itself. These buildings appear to be a poor imitation of the disastrous New York state office complex in Albany. The nearby black neighborhood has been mostly destroyed in the name of urban renewal. But it is not completely gone - just enough of it so that it cannot function as a neighborhood any longer. The downtown, despite being the seat of the state government, is bereft of hotels and restaurants. One is forced out to the Interstate and to the long highway strip between downtown and the Interstate for those choices.
Foraging for food on this trip has convinced me that being out among the Americans is a scary thing. I fear we have become a crude, ignorant, peasant population. Mass culture has turned society on its head as, for perhaps the first time in human history, the lowest common denominator, the most crass and most base, are the ruling societal and cultural values. And the average weight = 400 lbs. There are these new things called buffet restaurants, which are essentially huge feeding troughs surrounded by porcine beings in clothes made in China and purchased from Wal-Mart. Avoid buffet-style restaurants along the highways.
Saturday.
So here we are back on Interstate 10 - The National Good Ol' Boy Highway. Drivers are ever more reckless, dangerous, and hostile. The breakdown in civility is evident on the road.
We are tempted today to dip down to New Orleans to see what the criminal neglect of our government wrought on a great city and to so many poor, black people, but our schedule doesn't permit it.
After a long, hard day of driving, as part of my tour of America's dumpiest, saddest towns, we make it to Alexandria, Louisiana. Would someone please explain to me what sort of graft and corruption got an Interstate highway built which only goes between Lafayette and Shreveport? They are hardly two metropolises which generate a lot of intercity traffic. Such unneeded Interstate highways are, however, always a joy to drive on because of the light traffic.
Alexandria is between the two terminuses of Interstate 49 and a good place to stop for the night it would seem, except that exiting the Interstate ejects one into a bewildering world of big, divided streets with the usual hideous strip retail development. We are fooled by the official highway department signage which indicate a Hampton Inn and other lodgings off the exit, but after driving for about five miles and never seeing any more signs directing us to these lodgings, we give up. Alas, we can't get back on the Interstate at the same point at which we exited - for no good reason. After half an hour of wandering aimlessly, we get back on the Interstate, take the next exit and find one of those chain hotel franchise locations with accommodations that lead you to believe that sleeping on the floor might be cleaner than on the bed.
The evening's Interstate highway buffet restaurant choice is heavily patronized by locals rather than the road weary. I can't help but wonder what would happen if a couple of gay guys held hands like the young straight couple across the room. It isn't a pretty thought.
The hotel's included breakfast the next morning is disgusting. We could do better at a 7-11.
Despite our disappointments with Tallahassee and Alexandria, it has been so refreshing to be back in the South the past two and a half days where people love Jesus, fear God, vote for Bush, hate homosexuals, and aren't afraid to look like Hell. Wish I had lots of things to ship on a regular basis so I could patronize Covenant Trucking Lines, which has a picture of the Bible on the side of every truck and on the back the inscription, "it's a child, not a choice."
The South has come a long way from the "Impeach Earl Warren" billboards and the "Martin Luther Coon" billboards (with Dr. King's picture).
Instead, there are billboards every mile stating the "scientific" basis for the assertion that life begins at conception. Even better, there are those buffet restaurants.
Clearly, I am in a sarcastic mood today.
We'll make it to Big D today. And they say that big hair is out. What a pity.
Sunday
Sunday is a pretty good day to finish driving through Louisiana. Most folks are in church and off the roads. Today's buffet choice is "The Iron Skillet." The serving plates are little skillets (so clever!), but they are made of cast aluminum, not iron. I feel cheated. There is a separate truck drivers' seating section. There is only one green vegetable on the buffet table and it is cooked to the consistency of pudding.
We finally say goodbye to the South proper, and hello to Texas (Texans considering Texas to be unique - neither part of the South nor the West). So here we are in Big D, Capital of Bush Country, the United States of Jesus.
We are staying in the coolest place, the Belmont Hotel. It is a motor court and hotel, on the old highway to Fort Worth, built in 1946, which has been redone in high "Dwell Magazine" style. We have three outdoor spaces, one of which has a hot tub and enameled steel Russel Wright folding chairs which would have been roughly contemporary with the original construction. There are spectacular views of downtown Dallas in all of its high-rise-buildings-hokily-outlined-in-lights-glory.
At last, now in the big city, no more billboards every mile stating the "scientific" basis for the assertion that life begins at conception. No more buffet restaurants.
I feel the National Chill acutely here. In Dallas, I am told, that in many workplaces, to speak ill of Our Glorious Leader, The Perfect Embodiment Of God On Earth, is to risk termination of employment. The locals are salivating at the likelihood of SMU getting the W Temple and Pyramid. That supreme threat to the viability of every marriage between a man and a woman - the gay marriage - was beaten back by a state constitutional amendment which was overwhelmingly supported here. The governor signed the bill at a church in this area. Huge freeway mega-churches are more common than McDonald's and Burger King. Inside, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, drink the pro-Bush, anti-gay Kool-Aid.
When will people wake up, rub the Brangelina out of their eyes, and see what is really going on; what this evil cabal in Washington has wrought in America and the world? (And how these policies are actually against their own self-interest -- something even a selfish, entitled American might understand?)
Not until the toadying Fourth Estate brings them the truth, along with the images, will they feel the shame which will thaw their cold, jingoistic, materialistic, celebrity-obsessed hearts.
Meanwhile, Dallasites can entertain themselves with shopping. Dallas has the greatest number of shopping centers per capita in the nation.
Another road trip draws to a close. The State of the Road is troubling this year. Perhaps November will bring repairs.