People are traveling again now that COVID has gone on the decline. That is, thanks to 40% of the U.S. population who are vaccinated. I’m not sure how long COVID will stay lower in numbers due to the Delta variant and people being resistant to getting the vaccine. But such is life. And death.
Regardless, U.S. citizens are hitting the highways and the skies, getting out and unleashed. Although, some of them seem to have lost all sense of decency when it comes to flying in an airplane. Every week, a flight is delayed due to some idiot refusing to wear a mask or insisting on punching a flight attendant. People can be such dullards.
But putting all of that aside, perhaps some of us have decided to do some traveling of our own. I thought it might be a good idea if we reviewed the attractive highlights in some of the 50 states to help in selecting your travel destination.
I’ve mentioned this before, but tomato juice is the official drink in Ohio. If that’s not your cup of tea, you can certainly head to Alabama. It is the only state whose official drink is an alcoholic beverage. That would be “Conecuh Ridge Alabama Fine Whiskey,” originally distilled by legendary moonshiner Clyde May. Roll Tide. Bottoms Up.
Perhaps drinking isn’t your thing, and some people have even called you a “square” because of this. Here is the state for you. Sort of. Colorado. Congress intended the state to be a perfect rectangle. But to error is human. The surveyors there wandered a bit off course. There is a tiny kink in the western border, which disqualified it from rectangle purity.
Maybe you don’t dig either of those things. But dig this. In Florida, the remains of an 8,000-year-old human civilization were found buried in a peat bog. And. The bodies they found were so well preserved that human brain tissue was still in a woman’s skull. DNA and all. They aren’t naming the location of the bog, so exploration will also have to be your forte.
Okay. These things are slightly boring. Let’s say you’d rather have a ball. Then head to Alexandria, Iowa, and you will find the world’s largest painted ball. It is actually a 4,000-pound baseball with a 14-foot circumference. A guy named Michael Carmichael began the project more than 50 years ago after dropping a ball in paint. They say he now adds another coat or two every year. Now I am not sure if it is an actual baseball that has grown by painting. Or if it was constructed otherwise. Either way, it is bound to be a hit.
Also, for the sports-minded, it could be that you like to ride your bike. What better place than Kansas? This has proven to be the state that is, quite literally, flatter than a pancake. A group of those nifty scientists, in their white lab coats, tested the flatness of the state against the topography of a pancake. Here is what they found. On a zero- to-one scale of perfect flatness, Kansas was flatter. But I should mention that Kansas isn’t the flattest U.S. state. Florida is flatter.
Perhaps it is water you wish for. Minnesota is known as the Land of 10,000 Lakes. But who is counting? Technically it has more than 11,000. But they never claimed to have the “most” lakes. You see, its neighbor Wisconsin has over 15,000. And, get this. Alaska has more than 3 million lakes. You’ll need your canoe.
Finally, you want to stretch those wings for a little freedom? Perhaps, then New Hampshire is for you. This state’s license plates—bearing the slogan “Live Free or Die”—are made by prison inmates.
And there you have it.
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“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”
― Lao Tzu
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“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
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“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Fly. Drive. Go. Where?
