Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

“They not like us!” (that’s for sure!)

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Please don’t feed the bears.

He really is that stupid.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "Stories from the Road" / Tuesday Night Open Thread

Tuesday Night Open Thread

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Long, long day today. Got up at around 4:30, showered up, threw the lads in the back, and hit the road. Was trying to see how far I could make it and maybe wrap this trip up in two days, but was only able to make it to Weatherford, Oklahoma, which exists but for reasons I do not know why, and I am fucking exhausted. The boys are fine.

I’ll have more to say tomorrow but just wanted to check in before going to bed.

Reader Interactions

83Comments

  3. 3.

    Betty

    Hope your trip is safe and uneventful.

    I hope this isn’t a Nervous Nelly comment, but I saw an article in Fortune magazine that said a study has shown that intermittent fasting can be bad for your heart. It sounded like that’s what your new diet is so I just wanted to pass that along.

  4. 4.

    Old School

    It exists for a Kodak plant and the Stafford Air & Space Museum.

    Get a good night’s rest!

  7. 7.

    Anonymous At Work

    Safe travels.  Sadly, looks like you might end up just shy of Ohio or barely making Cincinnati.  So close.

  9. 9.

    frosty

    Google Maps sez Mesa AZ to WV is 2,000 miles. You wanted to do it in two days at 1,000 mi/day??? Even when I was in my 20s the best I ever did was about 700 miles. Take your time and care of yourself.

    These days, hauling a trailer, that would be a 7-day trip for us, at best. We’d probably throw in a zero-day or two on top of that.

  13. 13.

    satby

    @Betty: I read about that study (on STAT, maybe?) and the reviewer said it was poorly done, based on self reported answers on diet with no controls for other factors. Other studies have shown improved health. I wouldn’t be concerned unless further studies with more rigor bear it out.

  14. 14.

    Anne Laurie

    You’ll get there when you get there, Cole. Embrace the zen of getting old experienced!

    And I’m sure the boys are happier now that the world has stopped vibrating so much.

  18. 18.

    Steeplejack

    Google Maps says 13 hours, almost 900 miles. That’s some hard driving, Cole. Rest up and take it easy the rest of the way: 1,100 miles, 17 hours, divided by two. Happy trails.

  19. 19.

    Glidwrith

    @frosty: From San Diego to southern Oregon, we’ve driven the 850 miles in one day, but that was with two drivers and ten years ago.

  20. 20.

    Prescott Cactus

    John,

    I used to do a Chicago to Phoenix run twice / thrice a year. Elk City, which you just passed, was my half way point. In my younger days (30’s) I could make that easy. . . 13 hours with non NASCAR pit stops. You wouldn’t be going so far North, but West by Gawd is a ways away from the land of deep dish.

    Your milage may vary. . . literally

  21. 21.

    Prescott Cactus

    @SoupCatcher:

    Thomas Stafford, the namesake for the museum, passed away yesterday at the age of 93.

    I believe he just drove 2,000 miles in 2 days. . .

  22. 22.

    Jackie

    You sound like you had an adrenaline CRASH. Which with all the hectic-ness of getting chores caught up, packing and that last goodbye… totally expected. A solid night sleep and you’ll be good for tomorrow.

    Sleep well and safe travels tomorrow!

  24. 24.

    Ohio Mom

    @Steeplejack: That would land Cole in St. Louis tomorrow night. That sounds doable to me.

    I agree with everyone who says don’t push yourself Cole. The first day, yeah, you’re full of energy. Now you’ve spent it. Be careful out there.

  25. 25.

    Yutsano

    @Glidwrith: I once drove from Seattle to San Diego in a white van from the University of Washington* when I was in college. I was one of two of us who could drive the van** so we took shifts while the other tried to sleep. I know for a fact I couldn’t do this now.

    *The trip was for my fraternity and since only a few of us could go from Wazzu we decided to drive to Seattle and get a van from UW. It was quite the experience especially finding out that in 1998 there were no gas stations open at 2am in San Francisco. We finally found one so we could fill up and keep going.

    ** If there were no drivers over 25 then the insurance would be prohibitively expensive. Fortunately two of us were over that age.

  29. 29.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    Go east on yourself! Better to get there late in one piece than not get there at all. Take your time. The cats will survive.

  31. 31.

    Anoniminous

    General Warning

    ChatGPT is being used to generate bullshit  “science” papers. Skepticism is good just in the general run of things but now, unless you are well versed in the field or know the authors, any paper should be deemed bullshit until proven otherwise.

  32. 32.

    Kelly

    @Glidwrith: My record run was from the Cascade foothills east of Salem, OR to Eagle Rock in LA in a single day.  About 17 hours door to door. A mariachi station got me thru a weak moment at about 14 hours in. The friends I was visiting didn’t think I’d make it in one day. Their child sitter wasn’t expecting me and wasn’t going to let me in. Fortunately the kids recognized me. I didn’t have a good reason to push hard. Comfy car and just felt good moving. I was 48 years old.

  34. 34.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Anoniminous:

    Yes, I’m noticing this in other areas.  These generative AI will quickly do bad work with minimal effort.  So, who would want that?  Scammers.  Generative AI is a gold mine for people who want to, say, release dozens of short unreadable garbage books on Amazon over and over and over to manipulate the advertising algorithms.

  35. 35.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @piratedan:

    There is a powerful ‘come home’ effect once the winner has been determined.  That Trump isn’t pulling the kind of numbers Biden is… yeah, that’s bad for the GOP.  If 10% of Republican voters are telling the truth they would rather vote for Biden, that’s a blowout.

  36. 36.

    piratedan

    @Frankensteinbeck: true, I find it much more likely that those votes may not go to Biden (say maybe 2-3%?) but actually those voters just stay home.  If those voters stay home, then there are significant opportunities to break gerrymanders and flip house, senate and state legend seats in a wave.

  38. 38.

    brendancalling

    Drive safely and fair winds, buddy. If you wind up traveling through Nashville, I have good suggestions for ya.

  44. 44.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    My wife and I did a 4,400 mile round trip over five days back in the late 80’s. Nonstop down, one day at location and nonstop back, 39 hours one way and 41 hours the other. Memorable but grueling trip.

    To be young and dumb once again. Safe travels, John & the gang…

  45. 45.

    Anoniminous

    @Frankensteinbeck: ​
     
    Another bit of datum to adding weight to my thinking we’re looking at a Blue Wave this November. Roughly speaking they’ll need two new votes for every GOP vote switching to Democrats. They’ll need one to recover to even and another one to put in the plus column.

  47. 47.

    CaseyL

    Weatherford OK exists for the purpose of providing a rest stop for someone trying to drive across the entire country in two days.

    I cannot even imagine driving that long.  My butt starts to hurt after four hours.  Plus there’s highway hypnosis.  You must be a Man of Steel (or your butt is, anyway.)

    Sleep well.  Come home safe.

    (I’ve been on road trips where the drive time was 24 hours, but we had multiple drivers. And I wasn’t one of them.)

    From highways to skyways, I just saw this and wanted to share:  Via the Good Charles Johnson (of LittleGreenFootballs) here is EpicSpaceman, who has made a video modeling a black hole, and showing how the one at the center of our Milky Way devoured something like 4 million stars.

    It’s gorgeous – and somewhat terrifying, because I don’t know what makes a black hole stop devouring everything it can wrap its gravitational field around.  The one at the center of our galaxy may well eat its way through the whole thing, including our solar system.  Granted, that will take millions of years; but still…

  48. 48.

    Jager

    September of 1969, I finished my McNamara Scholarship in SE Asian Studies. My Chevy Dealer Dad sold me a 69 Z28 Camaro, 4-wheel disc brakes, and stripe delete. I picked it up at a dealer in San Francisco, stayed overnight with my Grandfather’s brother in Piedmont, and left just before 4 in the morning 15 hours later I was drinking a beer with the medic from my platoon. I got the Camaro’s oil changed at a Chevy store in the morning and drove from Durango to Detroit Lakes, MN. Total trip 2300 miles, 35 hours on the road, mostly 2 lane asphalt roads, Averaged around 65 mph, late at night 1 banged the 100mph mark from time to time. I was 23, driving with the windows down and the radio on 11…driving a hell of a car, listening to Creedence, the Byrds, Dylan, and the Stones. Oh, I spent a couple of hours in Denver with an old HS girlfriend who was going to DU.

  55. 55.

    Hoppie

    Made it from Lexington KY to San Diego (do I need to say CA?) in two days back in 1990 (spent the night in Abilene).  Saved our butts monetarily.  A day later, the water pump blew out on Pacific Highway.  I think Coyote loves me.

  56. 56.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @BigJimSlade:

    Don’t see why not. Take 40 all the way to Memphis, as Mott the Hoople put it.

    I will be doing the LA to CLE trip sometime this summer, dates to be determined by my siblings summer plans.

    When I moved to LA in 1999, I took a little over two weeks. Made many stops. Vowed to do it again, but never did. So it’s like a retirement bucket list sort of thing.

  57. 57.

    piratedan

    still think its kind of quintessentially American, the great national road trip.  Tunes, Tires and tacos…. In the old days it used to be the radio, then cassettes and then CD’s, now its playlists on your phone or Satellite Radio.  If you’re making time, the Interstates still rule, but its not to say that the scenic route still doesn’t have its charms depending on the the urgency of the trip.  There’s still the fun of filling the snack bag of all of the evil road trip food from peppered jerky to caramel creams.

  59. 59.

    West of the Rockies

    Any west coasters still up?

    OT… I’ve noticed I’ve lost a lot of interest in televised sports as I’ve aged.  Time was I could tell you the starting nine for the Angels/Dodgers, the 12 man roster of the Lakers, etc.  I was passionate about the Lakers going back to Wilt and Jerry.

    Now, if the Lakers don’t even make the playoffs, meh.

    Anyone experience this?

    I’m not like this about actually exercising, or film, music, cooking…

    Sound at all familiar to anyone?

  60. 60.

    Hoppie

    @Melancholy Jaques: No No No No.  Take 10 to Las Cruces to Amarillo via Canyon to OK City to Springfield on 44 then US 60 via Sikeston to the bridges, local roads to Paducah, the Western KY Parkway to 65 to 71 to Cleveland.

    Vastly faster than the interstates. and many fewer trucks.

    I have driven Lexington-California about 50 times.

  64. 64.

    BeautifulPlumage

    This thread is reminding me of the time in my twenties when I came home from my graveyard shift, drove the BF to SeaTac airport in his Fiero, then headed south to meet him in San Fran 12 hours later. He couldn’t understand why I wasn’t rarin’ to go for a night out. Anyway, fun drive, fun mini visit to SF, and he drove us back to Seattle.

  65. 65.

    Jay

    @West of the Rockies:

    Canucks. When I was a kid in the Maritimes, it wasn’t the Leaf’s, or the Canadians for me, it was the Canucks.

    Then, when we had moved to Vancouver, they had the Cup run.

    They had so many injuries, they pulled guys up from the minors, and still made it to the Game.

    Yeah, they lost.

    That wasn’t “the thing”.

    They sold off all the minors for pennies on the dollar, that the rest of the NHL went on to build teams around.

    Stopped watching hockey.

  66. 66.

    MomSense

    @West of the Rockies:

    Right there with you.  I never played sports but I did enjoy watching and listening on the radio.  When I was in college I went to sooo many baseball games at Fenway and loved it so much.

  68. 68.

    frosty

    @piratedan: ​ Yep. We’ve done three coast-to-coast National Park trips since I retired in 2020. I have the itinerary and reservations set up for the next one this summer. Canadian Rockies, Oregon, and Washington. Pulling a trailer isn’t exactly like blasting down the highway in my Triumph TR-3 in the 70s … but I don’t have to make as many stops to buy parts!

  70. 70.

    Cathie from Canada

    Yeah, I’m now remembering how we used to drive from Saskatoon to Vancouver in 2 days — about 1,500 Km, mostly single-lane highways, on the Yellowhead to Edmonton and through the Rockies. Quick pit stops for gas, a thermos of coffee in the car, burgers for lunch, no supper till we got to the motel.

    We knew that if we could get to Jasper or past it on the first night, then we were in good shape to get to Vancouver by the second night, even in spite of the old Number One highway through the Hell’s Gate.  Now much of the route is double-laned, and the Coquihalla cuts several hours off the Kamloops-Hope section. 

    Driving through the mountains was particularly challenging because of the number of trucks and semis also on the road. I remember one Sunday night we drove from Vancouver to Banff and as we were coming toward Banff about 10 pm we met at least 50 semis coming the other way — they had all left Calgary after supper and they were pounding through the mountains all night so they could reach the Coast by morning.

    No way we could do that kind of driving now!

  71. 71.

    lowtechcyclist

    By the time I make Oklahoma
    She’ll be sleepin’
    She’ll turn softly
    And call my name out low

    I’ll add my voice to the “don’t push it” contingent. It’s a long drive. Arrive alive.

  72. 72.

    Jay

    @Cathie from Canada:

    I still, in the summer, and sometimes in the winter, do “the run”.

    Up at 12pm, hit the road, on the lake or river at dawn, fish till dusk, drive home, back in bed by 2 am.

    3 am if I need to take a nap.

  73. 73.

    lowtechcyclist

    @West of the Rockies: ​
     

    OT… I’ve noticed I’ve lost a lot of interest in televised sports as I’ve aged. Time was I could tell you the starting nine for the Angels/Dodgers, the 12 man roster of the Lakers, etc. I was passionate about the Lakers going back to Wilt and Jerry.

    Now, if the Lakers don’t even make the playoffs, meh.

    Anyone experience this?

    Yeppers.

    The big thing for me was dropping my dead-trees newspaper subscription when we adopted the kiddo 15 years ago. Being a new parent to a year and a half old child, I didn’t have that extra time to read the paper that I used to have. Hell, I practically dropped off the Internet for six months or more.

    The newspaper was a big part of my following sportsball. The sports section was right there inside the rest of the paper, and I used to have time to read the whole thing, or as close to it as I wanted. Getting news online was different – I wasn’t always getting it straight from newspapers anyway, so I had to make a special effort to read up on the sports teams. And even after I had more time for it, I found myself doing that less and less, until they dropped off my mental map altogether. I have no idea how the Nats did last year.

  74. 74.

    opiejeanne

    @Yutsano: Why the heck were you in SF? I-5 doesn’t go there, and there are quite a few  gas stations open at that hour along the 5.

  76. 76.

    lowtechcyclist

    At least Cole’s just one time zone from home, assuming OK does DST.

    I remember a time when Kansas didn’t, but that was back in the 1960s.

  78. 78.

    Geminid

    @piratedan: Could be some Gallego voters among that ~20% for Haley; Indies and disaffected Republicans.

    Are you seeing much activity by the Gallego campaign where you live?

  79. 79.

    Geminid

    @Princess: I think that generally, people who come out for primaries come out for general elections. So yeah, this does not bode well for Kooky Kari.

  81. 81.

    Eyeroller

    @CaseyL: Dead thread but…outside of a certain boundary, a black hole has no more gravitational attraction than any object of its mass.  Something has to happen for matter to get close enough for the relativistic effects to become significant.

    The idea that a black hole is some kind of cosmic vacuum cleaner is probably the biggest popular misconception about them.

  82. 82.

    Paul in KY

    @frosty: I once made it from Lexington, KY to Homestead FL in 16 hours. Not eating, pissing in bottles, speeding like a maniac. The whole deal. 2,000 miles in 2 days is very, very hard to do.

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