Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire trip through the midwest and observations

lets see who I can offend:
went back last week from phoenix to detroit to pick up a restored 1953 M38A1 military jeep, and carried it via trailer back to phoenix, four thousand miles in four days.
Went I40 back to oklahoma city then 44 north and east through missouri, indiana, illinois, ohio to michigan. Rain and winds for one thousand miles.
The panhandle of texas:
Give it back to the commanches. Wind blowing like a son of a gun, colder than a well diggers butt, miles and miles of no grass. Oklahoma city, I probably will get citations in the mail for those stupid toll roads. I have never seen a toll road before, what are you supposed to do, drop money into a machine every few miles. Tulsa was pretty going through it, super huge crosses, I understand a couple of things now, why oral roberts was there, the term "okie" among them. Missouri was a pretty pretty state along the road there, lots of dead deer, say we counted ten of them along the road way. Having just gotten back from a deer hunting trip where it is hard to find deer in northern arizona, it stood out. So did a sign that said something like, " deer season, don't veer, didn't understand that, but do now.
Illinois was wierd, good roads, but how to lock up the armament in the car to avoid politizi from carting us off to jail. Indiana again was a beautiful state, nice people, lousy roads, I think every section of the interstate had miles and miles of concrete barriers. Lots of signs, hit a worker years in jail and a big fine. Northern ohio around toledo it really began to change. Crossing the river into michigan on my right was this huge "Toleo Islamic regional conference center." Lit up at night, just struck me odd in the heartland. A guy i was going to stay with wanted to take me to a Country Kitchen where they served Lebonanese food. Declined, I own pet goats and i didn't want to see them on the menu.
Detroit is to be seen to be believed, a area in its death throws. Passed a tripple stack hi rise public housing set of buildings the Surpremes grew up in, windows broken out and abandoned. The destruction was all over the place.
We stayed in Grosse Pointe which at one time was where the auto executives lived in a better time. On Jefferson Ave, the main drag, we stopped at a British Petroleum/Subway store, the guy we had met said "gotta go, not here to get gas." My son in law had went into the subway and the guy making the sandwiches was behind about two inches of bulletproof glass due to the repetitive holdups. Liberal politics at work.
If one wants to argue the effects of liberalism, visit
detroit, and realize this at one time was our industrial center. All gone and dieing. Phoenix is pretty much multiracial, all kinds of people live here and it doesn't stand out. In Detroit, I was glared at, didn't realize at first why, but then it dawned on me I was white. On the way back had another experience, stopped about midnight coming off the freeway at a 7/11 off the main drag in albuquerque. The building didn't have an entry, you told the guy behind bulletproof glass what you wanted, and after paying, the coffee was handed out through a turnstyle. Amerika in the 21century. There were at least five patrol cars in the five blocks we passed. New Mexico is What politically?
Lots of pretty country, and pretty clear why people are moving out of those areas, the politics don't work. All I could think of was the community organizer wanting that for the rest of the country.
In richmond, Indiana found out brown county was about half an hour to the south. My family settled there in the 1850's before later moving to kansas, then to arizona. I was thinking of what it took to do that by wagon. Tougher people than what we often have today, and are what made this country.
As apposed to the entitlement group we seem to have today.
By the way, the M38Ai korean war vintage jeep has 33000 original miles on it and it sort of is coming home being rescued. It was decommissioned at the tule army depot in ogden utah, went to Ct., then to michigan, and now back again out west.
The jeep must have known it was coming home. I have a M1D sniper Garand built at toule arsonel, and a m1Carbine with elmer Keith's stamp done at toule arsonel, I think they are going to be part of a package.

sounds about spot on
At least from the interstate veiwpoint.

Someday I'll get to Phoenix
My BIL is bugging us to retire there with him...

I lived in Missouri and killed one deer with a rifle and two with my truck, you learn to drive with your steering wheel in it's full upward position and slumped down in the seat a bit so the 200 lb carcass coming through the windshield doesn't take you out as it removes your back window,tool box, and tail gate.

Maybe the midwest can implement some kind of catch and release system with deer, relocate them to northern AZ.

Mike

You are the first person to claim IL has good roads...


Travis

I might add the jeep has a camp Perry parking sticker on it. That is gonna stay.
I am not sure that the problems up there in the midwest are correctible.
We crossed the cayugi or something like that river, and my son in law was describing how a number of years ago it had caught fire.
When we stopped in richmond the first day out of detroit, that is richmond, indiana, we ate dinner at a cracker barrel, and it was a relief to see the happy, smiling people. Much different than a little to the north.
I was told, don't know how true it is, that the detroit area is comprised of blacks, muslims, and hispanics, and they don't like each other much.

I was sitting in the baseball stadium in Cleveland watching the Indians with "the Hawk" as a small child when the Cuyahoga was on fire, we had to drive around several detours to get home to Strongsville. I've read it has been cleaned up and you can eat fish out of it now. Not then, probably '67 or '68 as I was in kindergarden at the time.

Well, visit first - several times and at different times of the year..

I've been there a few times to visit friends - only way I'll go again would be in February/March.. Even then, an 'inverted atmosphere' layer (or some such thing) made breathing difficult at times and made the eyes water.. I was told it's a rather common occurance..

Guess I'm lucky to be in a part of the country where the air's pretty darn good - well, except for the lovely, drifting aroma of liquid manure when applied to fields from the various dairy farms.. EWWW..

Someone sent me an email a while back, showing pictures of Hiroshima and Detroit in both 1945 and 2011. The obvious trend was not favorable to the US. Not suggesting Detroit should be nuked for its own good, but the thought crossed my mind.

Detroit has a fair mix of all races, and there are tensions. The city government has proved its ineptitude time and again, but this current administration is looking at consolidating the people in certain areas so they can afford to provide emergency services. They have then considered razing the resultant empty buildings. Best thing that could happen to the city. Oddly enough, the movie industry has found Detroit useful, I know in at least one movie, it doubled as Sarajevo during the civil war. Easy to do in that pit. I find time and again that folks judge all of Michigan by Detroit, Flint and the southern cities. It's not an accurate assessment. There is a tremendous amount of farmland in the south, and some outright wilderness in the north. It's a great state for recreation, just a tough one to find a job in. I have high hopes since we got a republican govt' that has balanced the budget and is actively courting manufacturing and other industries. I hope they are successful, but it's a tough state to get industry into due to high labor costs. The expectations of the union labor may be the thing keeping industry from coming here.

Pretty incredulous to judge the entire Midwest by Detroit and the Cuyahoga River. Pretty stupid too.

Especially coming from PHX where you can cut the air with your knife and use it to butter bread.

And how many governors have been jailed in AZ

Agreed
I remember the Cuyahoga burning,
But it cleaned up quickly
Now, one can canoe it's entire length and eat fish from all parts. Even from the Flats of Cleveland.

I've seen Detroit in both times as well.
I pray that some day it will be back to the industrial city it once was.

I'd expect a super-educated omniscient, unfazed by and inured to the plurality of sillybobbles, to know the distinction between incredulous and incredible.

Ken, you are such a wonderful puppy dog...

Not sure where that idea comes from. I breathe the air here all year long and don't see an issue with it. And everyone knows we eat tortillas here and not bread.

Tied with LA for second worst air in the US.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/...69011&title=2_PhoenixMesaGlendale_AZ
You really are that dense?

Glad you by passed Iowa even though I wonder what you would have noticed.


ddj

I prefer to walk outside rather than consult the Huffington Post for my scientific information.

Next trip, use I-80 as your main route, but take the time to jog off it and take some alternate roads. You might find some good things.

And I know plenty of folks out here from MI. They don't seem to be in a hurry to go back, and I don't recall them choking when I talked to tem.

Try this one or any of a dozen others.
http://www.citymayors.com/environment/polluted_uscities.html

I've been in PHX a good bit. Nothing like coming in for a landing through the yellow clouds.

Only an idiot would think PHX has decent air quality.