I'm a Travelin' Man

Everybody sing!

"I’ve made a lot of stops
From here to Detroit...."

Okay, so I won’t give up my day job.

I was on vacation for two weeks, which is why I didn’t post here for so long. Unfortunately, I have no excuse for not updating last week, other than downright laziness.

I accompanied my parents to Dayton, OH to visit a family friend, to the Detroit, MI area to attend a cousin’s wedding, and to the Chicago, IL area to visit other relatives and friends. Then, immediately upon my return, a friend from Tucson, AZ came to visit me for the Labor Day weekend. I was so relaxed that I didn’t mind returning to work.

We drove, rather than flying, which gave us more flexibility for arrival and departure times -- not to mention it was a lot cheaper. Speaking of which, I observed something very interesting during our journey through the country. There was a 60 cent gap in gasoline prices. From Albuquerque (which is cheaper than Las Cruces) through Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana to Ohio, the price per gallon of regular unleaded steadily dropped 40 cents. It went up a little in Michigan and was highest (20 cents more per gallon than Las Cruces) in Chicagoland.

Since returning home, gas is now 21 cents per gallon cheaper in Las Cruces than it was upon my departure three weeks ago. I have heard tell that politicians intend to drop gas prices another 70 or so cents per gallon within the next two months (conveniently in time for the national election). What I want to know is, if our elected representatives plead innocent of involvement when people squawk about rising prices, how can they promise to lower them?

Another thing I observed on the trip was rain: lots of it. When I left Las Cruces, we had already experienced over a month of higher than normal rainfall. The morning we left Albuquerque, it rained. The next morning, after staying overnight in Edmond, OK, it rained. Weather was fine for the overnight stops in Effingham, IL and Dayton, but it rained our second day in Detroit (just in time for the wedding). The next day, it absolutely teemed with rain from Detroit to Chicago, and there was road construction most of the way, and the road was filled with drivers, and I haven’t been that close to white-knuckling the steering wheel since I learned to drive. For the two days in Chicago, it rained. Fortunately, the drive back to Albuquerque was sunny and not too warm. Unfortunately, then it rained in Las Cruces for another week after I returned. I am so spoiled to live in a state where we normally don’t see that much precipitation -- in a year, let alone two months. I could not bear to live in Seattle, WA.

The third striking observation was that Missouri seems to have more relaxed smoking laws than New Mexico or other states. Both the truck stop on the way out and the restaurant on the way back (two different towns) had designated smoking areas. Las Cruces, Albuquerque, and many other towns, I’m sure, prohibit smoking entirely within restaurants. My father smokes, so I do not object to allowing smokers to mingle with non-smokers, but it is amazing how accustomed I am to not having the choice of, "Smoking or non?" when entering a restaurant.