Looking at that bleak photo taken from the car reminded me of something Robert M. Pirsig wrote. At one point on his travels he came to a place where it was clear that the land was plentiful and cheap because no one had bothered use it economically. Everything had just been thrown up in random places making it look cluttered.
Sounds like Ed was driving on I-95, which is one of the least scenic highways in America. If you had driven on the parallel 1-81, about 100 miles west, you would have seen 500 miles of uninterrupted farm land. When driving up and down the east coast, we avoid I-95 when ever possible.
Not just farm land, but the Piedmont and mountains which are beautiful in some parts of Appalachia.
I-95 is tolerable (IMO) north of Jacksonville (FL) and south of the DC metro area. Avoid it like the plague through the northeast corridor and in south Florida.
"Americans also drive very aggressively: everyone overtakes on the inside, and often fail to indicate, and it’s no surprise that the country’s road fatality rate is vastly higher than Europe’s."
You are so right. For many years, "Visualize Using Your Turn Signal" has been seen on bumper stickers. It's a response to "Visualize World Peace", which was probably somewhere on that car in Richmond. One might also see "Visualize Whirled Peas".
One reason for having stickers or magnets (easier to remove!) is so that you can find your car in a parking lot among all the other black Nissan Altimas or red Honda Civics.
Maybe this is partly related to the fact that the American driving tests amounts to navigating around a crop of cones that have been laid by a broadcast seeder?
Surely as a writer an investment in that 'Legends' t-shirt would pay for itself multiple times over by becoming the basis of an article about the reactions of people in different districts of London as you flaunt it around the metropolis?
Americans are right: people in Britain really are being punished for what they say - even being arrested. And if they say certain words while committing an actual crime, even a minor one, it means a draconian sentence. It began around 2000 and snowballed thereafter, with people in the vast public sector now being sacked for a slip of the tongue or even NOT saying the things their employer insists they say, like the phrase “people with a cervix” instead of women. And there is the obvious thing that celebrating diversity is compulsory in the workplace, with an hour or two off for everyone to rejoice in Hindu festivals, etc but if you suggest migration might be putting a strain on maternity services it’s straight to the principal’s office you go.
Someone on Twitter just pointed out that Americans spell cheque as 'check'. Obviously another disadvantage of driving is I can't make notes as I think of things (although I should get one of those speaking notes things)
I live in Lynchburg ,Va just 60 mi from Charlottsville. TJ (Thomas Jefferson ) is well known here and is still revered not only at UVA but especially in central Va-many UVA graduates.His summer home ,Poplar Forest, is just a few miles away. Glad you enjoyed your trip although you probably saw only 5% of continental US. I-95 is a highway to hell, avoid at all cost especially around cities.
Amused by your comment on not being allowed to park facing the opposite direction. On my first visit to Britain in the Sixties I was struck by this, and having just returned I can confirm that it's still a thing. It does seem like an odd practice, though, because when pulling out you have to avoid hitting vehicles coming head-on as well as the ones coming up from behind you.
Nice travelogue, and I'm a bit envious because now you've seen more of the South than I have. Looking forward to your next installment.
There's angle-in parking in Baltimore where you're required to back in, not pull in forwards. I think half the traffic control department is populated by people just in from a job at a HOA.
"America’s gun culture attracts a great deal of attention, but the car culture is even more alienating. That feels like the most negative thing about life here. Baltimore, for example, contains some incredibly beautiful housing, but its often on roads with six lanes and speeding cars. There’s no way you’d want to raise children like this, and this wasn’t unusual.
Many of the towns I passed through were totally car-dominated, the result of which is that they are quite desolate, and no one is walking around creating a sense of civic life. I don’t know how people can live like that. This is especially true in the South, and in Republican-run areas, while Democrat towns make more effort to create pedestrian zones; the only downside is that they are full of homeless people muttering to themselves, and the smell of weed, which also destroys civic life. Cars and crime are the twin enemies of urban civilisation."
My part of Ontario is by and large friendly to neither cars nor pedestrians. Most cities are built around the car but there isn't nearly enough highways to carry them all so they have a reputation as among the most congested in the world.
Here in the Tampa Bay area they've created a lot of new biking infrastructure and the downtown and uptown parts of St Pete have good street culture, especially since practically every bar and restaurant of any size has outdoor as well as indoor seating.
That said a British visitor in 20 or 30 years is less likely to find the widespread use of automatics so strange as has been the case for decades if the current tendency of new car sales is to be believed.
‘Everyone insists on paying, and I’m always conscious of playing up to the that well-known archetype, the impoverished British leech playing on American generosity, Peter Fallow in Bonfire of the Vanities being the most famous example.’
And perhaps Mr Salter in Scoop, and Keith Talent in Martin Amis’s London Fields?
I understand why most politically engaged British people, when they see the Buc-ee’s sign, zoom in on the manager who gets paid more than Starmer.
But what struck me was that the vast majority of staff are paid a lot less than me for a yookay call centre job. And also get a lot less paid leave.
I expect most of them are teenagers still living at home so that's fine, but some will be adults trying to support their families, and with things being a lot more expensive in America that must be tough. Probably why tipping culture is a perennially hot topic in the US in a way it never is over here.
I've been to Bucceees, probably the same one in South Carolina near Florence that Ed visited. A simple adverb describes my impression: "Too". How do people who are physically limited deal with it? I've been in smaller Walmarts (and the S. Carolina one is one of the smaller ones). For a service station with hot food I'll take WaWa or Sheetz any day.
"Afterwards I had a tour of the Virginia State Capitol, the first example of classical architecture in the new United States. Thomas Jefferson had been inspired, while ambassador to France, by the Maison Carrée of Nîmes; the Roman influence on America is a subject that fascinates me, and it’s obvious in Washington too, where I couldn’t help but feel like a Greek imperial subject visiting the Eternal City for the first time, and marvelling how many denarius the tavern-owners earn."
For the 250th next year, Trump is planning to built a great, big arch, which certainly goes with a Caesaristic vibe.
I remember visiting Washington DC (the only major US city I have visted apart from... Orlando) and the Roman echoes felt quite thunderous. Whilst European cities often have a classical element it is usually muted by baroque and Italianate ornamentation in the south and the widespread use of gothic in the north to the point where I can think of no large city centre in Europe as singularly neo-classical as central DC.
DC was founded at the exact time Neoclassisism was in vogue, and in the years since they've followed that theme, mostly, for public buildings there. A few monuments have gone off in other directions (e..g, the Vietnam War monument)
Probably Washington National Cathedral is the most prominent non-classical building? Although it is a little far from the centre as I remember. It seemed to me a faint Anglican/Episcopalian echo of the English roots of the United States as I remember.
I lived in Baltimore for almost four years (Bolton Hill, Ed's friend will know it), and of all the places I lived in the States, the city's mixture of history, industry, culture (great museums and symphony), and contrasts really left an impression on me.
There are parts of rural western Maryland which look like England until you see the farms and houses are hundreds of feet from the road and there are no hedges! Frederick is a town in Northern Maryland which resembles a collection of less grand Georgian squares in Bath or London.
The state's population has a large black minority (30% statewide), but this rises to 60% in Baltimore. I'd agree with Ed, in that the poorer parts of the city are intimidating in a way that Harlem is not, and the instances of whole blocks of derelict housing is horrifying, with the commensurate increase in crime: the broken windows theory has never been tested in Baltimore!
Maryland also contains the rich black suburbs of Prince George's County and Montgomery that feed into Washington DC (a 45 minute train ride, 55 by car). And there are universities and colleges coming out the wazoo, as well as excellent hospitals.
It is an interesting microcosm of the US - but a heavily liberal one at that. But conservatives (or at least this one) are tolerated, as they would another alien immigrant from another world.
Re the NYC subway - I visited with my daughter last week. Travelling up and down Manhattan (including to a Yankees game) and out to Queens and Brooklyn. Hong Kong it ain’t but we both agreed to feeling less tense than on the London tube these days.
What a great piece of writing!
Looking at that bleak photo taken from the car reminded me of something Robert M. Pirsig wrote. At one point on his travels he came to a place where it was clear that the land was plentiful and cheap because no one had bothered use it economically. Everything had just been thrown up in random places making it look cluttered.
Sounds like Ed was driving on I-95, which is one of the least scenic highways in America. If you had driven on the parallel 1-81, about 100 miles west, you would have seen 500 miles of uninterrupted farm land. When driving up and down the east coast, we avoid I-95 when ever possible.
Not just farm land, but the Piedmont and mountains which are beautiful in some parts of Appalachia.
I-95 is tolerable (IMO) north of Jacksonville (FL) and south of the DC metro area. Avoid it like the plague through the northeast corridor and in south Florida.
It’s horrendous
"Americans also drive very aggressively: everyone overtakes on the inside, and often fail to indicate, and it’s no surprise that the country’s road fatality rate is vastly higher than Europe’s."
You are so right. For many years, "Visualize Using Your Turn Signal" has been seen on bumper stickers. It's a response to "Visualize World Peace", which was probably somewhere on that car in Richmond. One might also see "Visualize Whirled Peas".
One reason for having stickers or magnets (easier to remove!) is so that you can find your car in a parking lot among all the other black Nissan Altimas or red Honda Civics.
'All we are saying, Is give peas a chance'
Maybe this is partly related to the fact that the American driving tests amounts to navigating around a crop of cones that have been laid by a broadcast seeder?
It depends on the state.
It is legal to overtake on either side in the US.
Surely as a writer an investment in that 'Legends' t-shirt would pay for itself multiple times over by becoming the basis of an article about the reactions of people in different districts of London as you flaunt it around the metropolis?
You mention putting on half a stone but don’t mention any of the food. Gotta have a follow up post about the meals!
Americans are right: people in Britain really are being punished for what they say - even being arrested. And if they say certain words while committing an actual crime, even a minor one, it means a draconian sentence. It began around 2000 and snowballed thereafter, with people in the vast public sector now being sacked for a slip of the tongue or even NOT saying the things their employer insists they say, like the phrase “people with a cervix” instead of women. And there is the obvious thing that celebrating diversity is compulsory in the workplace, with an hour or two off for everyone to rejoice in Hindu festivals, etc but if you suggest migration might be putting a strain on maternity services it’s straight to the principal’s office you go.
Someone on Twitter just pointed out that Americans spell cheque as 'check'. Obviously another disadvantage of driving is I can't make notes as I think of things (although I should get one of those speaking notes things)
Right after I'd noted this in the comments!
I live in Lynchburg ,Va just 60 mi from Charlottsville. TJ (Thomas Jefferson ) is well known here and is still revered not only at UVA but especially in central Va-many UVA graduates.His summer home ,Poplar Forest, is just a few miles away. Glad you enjoyed your trip although you probably saw only 5% of continental US. I-95 is a highway to hell, avoid at all cost especially around cities.
Amused by your comment on not being allowed to park facing the opposite direction. On my first visit to Britain in the Sixties I was struck by this, and having just returned I can confirm that it's still a thing. It does seem like an odd practice, though, because when pulling out you have to avoid hitting vehicles coming head-on as well as the ones coming up from behind you.
Nice travelogue, and I'm a bit envious because now you've seen more of the South than I have. Looking forward to your next installment.
There's angle-in parking in Baltimore where you're required to back in, not pull in forwards. I think half the traffic control department is populated by people just in from a job at a HOA.
"America’s gun culture attracts a great deal of attention, but the car culture is even more alienating. That feels like the most negative thing about life here. Baltimore, for example, contains some incredibly beautiful housing, but its often on roads with six lanes and speeding cars. There’s no way you’d want to raise children like this, and this wasn’t unusual.
Many of the towns I passed through were totally car-dominated, the result of which is that they are quite desolate, and no one is walking around creating a sense of civic life. I don’t know how people can live like that. This is especially true in the South, and in Republican-run areas, while Democrat towns make more effort to create pedestrian zones; the only downside is that they are full of homeless people muttering to themselves, and the smell of weed, which also destroys civic life. Cars and crime are the twin enemies of urban civilisation."
My part of Ontario is by and large friendly to neither cars nor pedestrians. Most cities are built around the car but there isn't nearly enough highways to carry them all so they have a reputation as among the most congested in the world.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pFBQDIY3V74&pp=ygUTV29ybGQgYXRsYXMgaHd5IDQwMQ%3D%3D
Meanwhile, railways are not nearly extensive enough to use as an alternative.
Here in the Tampa Bay area they've created a lot of new biking infrastructure and the downtown and uptown parts of St Pete have good street culture, especially since practically every bar and restaurant of any size has outdoor as well as indoor seating.
That said a British visitor in 20 or 30 years is less likely to find the widespread use of automatics so strange as has been the case for decades if the current tendency of new car sales is to be believed.
‘Everyone insists on paying, and I’m always conscious of playing up to the that well-known archetype, the impoverished British leech playing on American generosity, Peter Fallow in Bonfire of the Vanities being the most famous example.’
And perhaps Mr Salter in Scoop, and Keith Talent in Martin Amis’s London Fields?
I understand why most politically engaged British people, when they see the Buc-ee’s sign, zoom in on the manager who gets paid more than Starmer.
But what struck me was that the vast majority of staff are paid a lot less than me for a yookay call centre job. And also get a lot less paid leave.
I expect most of them are teenagers still living at home so that's fine, but some will be adults trying to support their families, and with things being a lot more expensive in America that must be tough. Probably why tipping culture is a perennially hot topic in the US in a way it never is over here.
I've been to Bucceees, probably the same one in South Carolina near Florence that Ed visited. A simple adverb describes my impression: "Too". How do people who are physically limited deal with it? I've been in smaller Walmarts (and the S. Carolina one is one of the smaller ones). For a service station with hot food I'll take WaWa or Sheetz any day.
"Afterwards I had a tour of the Virginia State Capitol, the first example of classical architecture in the new United States. Thomas Jefferson had been inspired, while ambassador to France, by the Maison Carrée of Nîmes; the Roman influence on America is a subject that fascinates me, and it’s obvious in Washington too, where I couldn’t help but feel like a Greek imperial subject visiting the Eternal City for the first time, and marvelling how many denarius the tavern-owners earn."
For the 250th next year, Trump is planning to built a great, big arch, which certainly goes with a Caesaristic vibe.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy7e8lv176go.amp
I remember visiting Washington DC (the only major US city I have visted apart from... Orlando) and the Roman echoes felt quite thunderous. Whilst European cities often have a classical element it is usually muted by baroque and Italianate ornamentation in the south and the widespread use of gothic in the north to the point where I can think of no large city centre in Europe as singularly neo-classical as central DC.
DC was founded at the exact time Neoclassisism was in vogue, and in the years since they've followed that theme, mostly, for public buildings there. A few monuments have gone off in other directions (e..g, the Vietnam War monument)
Probably Washington National Cathedral is the most prominent non-classical building? Although it is a little far from the centre as I remember. It seemed to me a faint Anglican/Episcopalian echo of the English roots of the United States as I remember.
Maybe. But it's also well off the Mall and up Embassy Row.
The original Smithsonian building is Neogothic, but it's a loner on the Mall.
I lived in Baltimore for almost four years (Bolton Hill, Ed's friend will know it), and of all the places I lived in the States, the city's mixture of history, industry, culture (great museums and symphony), and contrasts really left an impression on me.
There are parts of rural western Maryland which look like England until you see the farms and houses are hundreds of feet from the road and there are no hedges! Frederick is a town in Northern Maryland which resembles a collection of less grand Georgian squares in Bath or London.
The state's population has a large black minority (30% statewide), but this rises to 60% in Baltimore. I'd agree with Ed, in that the poorer parts of the city are intimidating in a way that Harlem is not, and the instances of whole blocks of derelict housing is horrifying, with the commensurate increase in crime: the broken windows theory has never been tested in Baltimore!
Maryland also contains the rich black suburbs of Prince George's County and Montgomery that feed into Washington DC (a 45 minute train ride, 55 by car). And there are universities and colleges coming out the wazoo, as well as excellent hospitals.
It is an interesting microcosm of the US - but a heavily liberal one at that. But conservatives (or at least this one) are tolerated, as they would another alien immigrant from another world.
Very good to know what you are up to Ed!
Re the NYC subway - I visited with my daughter last week. Travelling up and down Manhattan (including to a Yankees game) and out to Queens and Brooklyn. Hong Kong it ain’t but we both agreed to feeling less tense than on the London tube these days.
That's the American 'visted with' or the British? i.e. Your daughter lives in New York or you were both travelling together?
We flew over from London, together.
I haven’t been back since February 2020, going back for new years this year (to San Francisco gulp!). So looking forward to going back.