America is Great — Right Now: A Continued Journey to see Every Part of our Amazing Nation
With all the hubbub about the US election and Trump said this, Hillary said that, I hope there has not been too much overlooking the fact that we live in an unbelievable nation with great opportunity, rich history, and a ton of diversity. America is filled with so many different types of people and is gigantic. To compare it to something, if you lived in the Netherlands, we’d drive five hours and be outside of the country. If I were to drive five hours from New York City west, I would be somewhere in Pennsylvania — still very, very far from California and the opposite end of our country. Or I could drive five hours North and still be in the U.S., but somewhere entirely different, like Vermont.
For those of you that know me best, you know that just as much as I love sitting on my couch in Brooklyn, I have an insatiable hunger to go out and explore. I get bored very easily. I love to see new areas I have yet to see: in New York City, abroad, or finding places a little off the beaten path in our country. I am fascinated and simultaneously saddened with gentrification, of people moving to new places, and how communities can fortunately and unfortunately change.
Our nation is filled with rich, tough history, and there’s so much to learn. We all grew up in our little enclaves in America — for me, it was a predominately white, liberal, community in Westport, Connecticut, about an hour from New York City. But how about everyone else in America? I’m staying with a friend in Denver, CO, and his roommate was telling me about Iowa last night, where he’s from. Iowa! I had never met anyone from Iowa. Sometimes we get stuck in our small bubbles and we forget there are so many different types of people out there that we don’t know about — and they’re all American!
And while they may be American now, they were once, or there ancestors were once, immigrants. Our country is a nation of immigrants. We all came from somewhere, but no one is from America, originally, unless in some cases. I came from a Jewish-European community after my ancestors were persecuted out of Poland in the early 1900s.
And how about everyone else that’s now in America. How about Mormons in Utah? How about the people who lived on our land before they were pushed out by White Settlers — the Native Americans? (Talk about an early form of violent gentrification, a white settler shows up in a land where Native Americans have occupied for years and years and they say “yeah, we’ll take it from here”). And, of course, Black Americans, who still face extreme discrimination. And so many other others.
Coincidentally, my fascination into our nation has coincided with the unfortunate termination (again) from my most recent start-up tech job (more to come on that soon), but it’s given me an opportunity to explore the vastness of America. I understand I am extremely fortunate to have the ability to get laid off from my job and then decide to take a vacation (but then again, I am the one who has to find a new job, which sucks in and of itself). But I wholeheartedly believe that taking a little trip — about a week — is a totally okay thing to do before resuming my job search.
As mentioned, I am writing this from Denver, CO, where a friend of mine, Mike, and I will be traveling through the American West for six nights. No, not talking about California, although I also did take a great trip with two other friends — Chris and Noah — shortly before I was let go from my job, driving from Seattle to Los Angeles (I’ll post some photos from that trip below). Instead we’re traveling to those states where you might think — really? You’re going, there? Mike and I will road-trip from Denver into Moab, Utah, Salt Lake City, Boise, Idaho, Glacier National Park, Montana, Bozeman, Montana, and Rapid City, South Dakota.
The level of history of our country is amazing — and a lot of it is not from too long ago. Just this morning, I googled how Idaho became a state, and here are a few excerpts, starting from 1805 — only 200 years ago! think about how far we’ve come in 200 years, let alone still adding states to our nation — as told by History.com:
“Searching for a route over the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, Lewis and Clark traveled through Idaho with the aid of the Shoshone Indians and their horses.”
“As with many remote western states, large-scale settlement began only after gold was discovered. Thousands of miners rushed into Idaho when word of a major gold strike came in September 1860.”
“By 1880, Idaho boasted a population of 32,610 [due to the gold rush]. In the southern section of the territory, many settlers were Mormons who had been dispatched from Salt Lake City to found new colonies. Increasingly, Idaho territory became divided between a Mormon-dominated south and an anti-Mormon north.”
I sometimes think about how it might have to been to live during westward colonization in America, and to live during the Gold Rush. What if the President of the United States dispatched you to explore parts of the country never seen before — it was up to you to see what was out there. Or what if the thought of Gold and Manifest Destiny really resonated with you and you just decided to pick up and leave? I’m not Lewis and Clarke, but maybe Mike and I can be a more modernized version of them. Really, I just want to learn.
Below are some photos taken from a trip shortly before I lost my job, when Chris, Noah, and I drove from Seattle down the Pacific coast to Los Angeles. It was amazing.
