cross-country summary

9 days, 3662 miles travelled (on average 407 miles a day), 12 states visited.

cross-country: Oct. 9, 2004

Winnebucca, NV - Berkeley, CA
57912 - 58342

Get me out of Nevada! More and more rolling nothingness. Cross into California and the Sierras. Took a detour on 89 around Tahoe: a highlight of the trip. Hook up with 50 and wind around the lake and mountains. It's a delicate balance (literally) trying to enjoy the scenery and keep on the road. Finally descend into hills around Sacramento and finally into Berkeley. On crossing first bridge over San Pablo Bay can see the sun setting. Finally here!

cross-country: Oct. 8, 2004

Salt Lake City, UT - Winnebucca, NV
57523 - 57912

Spend morning at Temple Square and take in a tour. Interesting and a bit cheesy. Smart move by those Mormons to have young, friendly women give the tours. They put on a little sell at end and seem genuinely disappointed when I don't take the complementary Book of Mormon. Gotta love the people there; I left my window wide open with all my stuff on the front seat while off on the tour. All there when I return. West of the city on 80 passes the Salt Lake. Get me out of here! It's like driving on another, boring planet covered in salt (one imagines). Enter hills of Nevada. Oh look, casinos! Rolling nothingness broken up by small towns consisting of gas stations, hotels, restaurants, and casinos, the last three often in the same building. Certainly true of my eventual stop in Winnebucca.

cross-country: Oct. 7, 2004

Dillon, CO - Salt Lake City, UT
57124 - 57523

Hungover. Follow 70 out of mountains and eventually into Utah. Desolate. Hook up with 6 into Provo and Salt Lake City. Whole valley is sprawling metropolis.

cross-country: Oct. 6, 2004

Garden City, KA - Dillon, CO
56633 - 57124

Continued along 50W into Colorado. Stopped in Lamar (a.k.a. Auger North) which certainly reminds one of Malargue. Stopped off in La Junta for lunch at a local cafe. Nice little downtown. Caught sight of Rockies in Pueblo and connected with 25N to Colorado Springs and Denver. After Denver, on 80W started to climb into the mountains. Tiny towns in narrow mountain passes. Eventually rain turns to snow. Stop off in Dillon. Nice lake next to the hotel and nice pub as well. Stop in to watch the Sox win. Everyone Sox fans and friends, including bartender. Got really, really drunk.

cross-country: Oct. 5, 2004

Emporia, KA - Garden City, KA
56347 - 56633

Some beautiful, rolling countryside at the start. Beatiful sunny day, with Coltrane on the player. Things get progressively flatter and flatter. Some sightlines are just flat, harvested fields as far as the horizon with no trees. Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" on CD is a gem. Towards Dodge City there are more and more cattle ranches and feedlots. Dodge City was an ugly little town but had a very nice visitor center from where I was able to send some postcards. An old Italian couple was there (why?). I was able to pick them out by the way they were dressed, before they revealed that they were indeed from Italy to the women who gave them a pin to mark their home on a map. Drove onto Garden City. Watched the Sox win 7-3 in the hotel...

cross-country: Oct. 4, 2004

St. Louis, MO - Emporia, KA
55906 - 56347

Got going on Route 50. Slow going through some meandering country roads. Hooked up with 70 after Jefferson City. Impressive capitol building right in the Missouri River. 70W has got to be the ugliest stretch of highway: too many RV, porn, and fireworks signs. Stopped in Kansas City to visit the Jazz and Negro League museums, but unfortunately both closed on Mondays. Went to lunch at a barbecue place and then Joe was off to the airport. Followed 50/35 to Emporia, KA and my destination: a strange strip mall complex on a hill in the middle of nowhere. Weird, like some sort of ancient Celtic hill fort...

cross-country: Oct. 3, 2004

Dayton, OH - St. Louis, MO
55518 - 55906

Ohio-Indiana-Illinois-Missouri
More and more corn. Terrain getting flatter. Visited ancient Indian city in Collinsville, MO. At its height circa 1000 A.D. Also visited "world's largest bottle of catsup." More precisely, it's the world's largest water tower shaped like and painted as a catsup bottle. Passed through St. Louis right by the arch (which one can see from the top of the ancient pyramid). Ready for Route 50 tomorrow morning...

cross-country: Oct. 2, 2004

Tonawanda, NY - Dayton, OH
55066 - 55518

Niagara Falls was impressive. The NY side is a nice state park. The Canadian side: casinos. The falls weren't as high as I thought they would be, but you can get quite close to the water. Back on the road we cut through PA to Cleveland and took in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A nice building but with a confusing layout. The "Hall" was a multimedia exhibit that we didn't enter because there was a long wait. Drove onto Ohio to Dayton. Holiday Inn, karoake bar, weirdos.

cross-country: Oct. 1, 2004

Hinsdale, MA - Tonawanda, NY
54698 - 55066

After picking up Joe in Pittsfield we took the oft-travelled Route 20 to Albany. A detour in Loudonville took us to the famous (too a few) Denny's on Wolf Rd. After soaking up the nostalgia there and a quick stop at Colonie Center, we were off on Route 90 to Buffalo. Boring. When we got closer to Buffalo we decided to check out Niagara Falls the next day. We found a motel in Tonawanda and ate at a Roadhouse restaurant. Classy. Peanut shells on the floor.

Danelaw

Via Wikipedia I learn the following fun facts about Danish law:

According to section 140 of the Criminal Code any person, who, in public, ridicules or insults the dogmas of worship of any lawfully existing religious community in Denmark shall be liable to imprisonment for any term not exceeding four months or, in mitigating circumstances, to a fine. Section 266b of the Criminal Code criminalizes the dissemination of statements or other information by which a group of people are threatened, insulted or degraded on account of e.g. their religion.

In his decision the Regional Public Prosecutor states that the term ”other information” in section 266b includes cartoons, just as cartoons must be considered covered bysection 140 considering that the object of the criminalisation is the insult and not the form, which the insult takes.

In his decision the Regional Public Prosecutor also states, that when assessing what constitutes a offence under section 140 and section 266b the right to freedom of speech must be taken into consideration and that the right to freedom of speech must be exercised with the necessary respect for other human rights, including the right to protection against discrimination, insult and degradation.

Free speech is something I'm sure most everyone supports in principle, but in practice things can get complicated, as sections 140 and 266b of Danish law illustrate. Section 266b would seem to protect people from ad hominem attacks based on, for instance, their religion. This seems reasonable so far. However, I couldn't disagree more strongly with section 140. It's one thing to attack a group of people based on their religious beliefs (e.g. "All Christians are infidels and we should kill them") but it's quite another to attack an idea or dogma (e.g. "The Christian religion is a fraud"). As far as I'm concerned, these are fair game. If the ideas or dogma of your religion can't stand up to a little insulting, then perhaps you should look into another one.

Also troubling is this idea of a "lawfully" existing religious community. Who or what determines this status for each religion? Number of practicioners? Time since foundation? Quality of dogma?

I don't find it especially comforting that in prosecution of these laws the right to freedom of speech is "taken into consideration" and that this right must be exercised "with the necessary respect for other human rights, including the right to protection against discrimination, insult and degradation." This sounds like pretty shoddy and half-assed protection of the freedom of speech. The "right" to not suffer insults doesn't strike me as being a very fundamental one, and certainly should never trump the right to free speech.

Anyway, thankfully it was found that the famous cartoons which precipitated the whole foofaraw don't violate either section of the law.