The Long Drive

Dorothy goes through a TSA check before boarding the 7:37 tornado to Oz.

We made the Long Drive - 16 hours from Connecticut to Georgia.  Things One and Two were very well behaved/stunned into submission by videos and iPad games.

A few Friedmanesque notes on America from the drive.

I've gotten away from fast food   But we ate at a DQ and a Wendy's and it was just awful.  I remember eating fast food and thinking, "This is tasty, but unhealthy."  Now I had to choke it down in order to maintain enough sustenance for the drive.  Sadly, we were unable to time our drive in such a way to reach a Chic-Fil-A in time for a meal.

Traffic was unbelievably bad on I-81 through Virginia.  Part of it may be that all the snowbirds were headed south and - like us - avoiding I-95.  Coupled with that is the annoying habit of people to drive slowly in the left lane.  There should be some special form of shunning for the old codgers driving 60 in the fast lane of a 65 MPH zone.  Everyone knows that you get +10 MPH on the speed limit.  Maybe +5 in a 70 MPH zone.  High volumes of traffic need people to abide by basic roadway courtesy.

We left about two hours before the Most Spendiferous and Wonderful of Santa's Elves and My Wife's sister headed to JFK to fly to San Francisco.  We reached our destination at about the same time.

Obama and the other "socialists" get slagged for proposing high speed rail for the US.  But honestly, your options are either having a body cavity search, spend hours crammed into a plane on the runway before your cattle-like flight or spend far too long in your car.

Modern America was built in the late 19th century by trains.  They provided industrial demand for steel and knit the nation together.  We could use some more of that.

This might be my lamest post of the year...