We made it. Not without some damage to a vehicle and a strain to our sanity. In no particular order I learned a few things about this USA. South Dakota has hail storms. Like blizzards in Michigan in February only this was July. And it was a white out. Scared the tuna salad out of me. 55 mph in a damned heavy truck and no visibility seemed a sure accident. Nope. I was able to pull over long enough for the danger to pass and allow my heart to reach something below 200 bpm.
The normal tourist things were nice. Mt Rushmore was filled with statists. It was a nice day and the hike was good and the kids didn’t fight so all that’s a win. Yellowstone was also nice. Stinky and pretty and awesome.
South Dakota and Wyoming and Idaho and Oregon have much of the same dessert features and it was difficult to distinguish one state from another. As an eastern flatlander the landscape was out of Clint Eastwood westerns. I half expected to see Indians on horseback cresting a hill. Didn’t happen.
In two weeks we as libertarians seem to have found a rift. Jeff Deist makes a speech which Tom Woods had the kindness to play and I must say that it takes a commitment I lack to find in it the offense some demand is there. Maybe it was a slow news week. I didn’t hear nationalism or Nazi leanings. I heard a story about ancestors who have lived on and farmed the same land for lifetimes and died on that same land. I heard about generations giving blood, sweat, and tears for the land and the community. Maybe people who are more connected than I am with the larger leanings of our, what are we, a party, a group, an affiliation, can navigate through this. It seems to me a necessary growing pang long overdue.
I know that Glenn Beck isn’t much revered by many. The libertarians I know know well enough that a good idea is a good idea regardless the source. Glenn’s good idea is never stray from your principles. That is easy when no challenge exists. That is increasingly more difficult when a challenge exists. This rift seems our challenge, our test of principles. Again, most likely. No one who pays attention discounts that 15 seconds on MSM changes much. “What’s Allepo?” was the end. Send in the clowns for they be here already. Johnson may have had more to him but as the nation saw it, no, not really. I look forward to how we sail through this. I look forward to meeting my Gadsden flag neighbors and learning about my new home. And I look forward to lots of fruit pies.
Here are a few pictures from Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, and not Old Faithful and a panoramic from the hill behind my house.
