Today was a long ride in the car--it rained at windshield-wiper-on-high rate and the Ohio Department of Transportation justified its existence by making sure that they placed plenty of orange things in the road. All that, and our choice of roads (we try to avoid the interstate) meant that we traveled at about 45MPH for much of the day.
That is OK. Some might call that a slow pace but I prefer calling it a contemplative pace. It allowed us a pretty good peak at NE Ohio and it was interesting and informative. First off, red state or not, not all of Ohio is doing well. Our route took us through countless small towns with Main Streets that were often filled with for rent signs or just empty buildings. Even some of the really cute towns that showed civic pride and lots of work showed some serious wear around the edges.
But then we also drove though suburbs with multi-million dollar homes and past marinas filled with boats that were decidedly not filled with 14 foot Lunds with Johnson 25 horse engines. Certainly there will always be those contrasts but some of these were pretty jarring.
If I could be a prognosticator of big broad things, I might say that it feels like rural America is in real trouble. We have been aghast at the gas prices. We have regularly seen prices in the $4.70's for unleaded. That hurts when you are on a 2,000 mile+ road trip. But our angst at rapidly rising gas prices pales compared to what farmers are facing. At a Pilot truck stop, the credit price was $7.09. In February, the price was $3.89 a gallon. I am just not sure how, if you are a farmer, you can successfully budget for a price change like this, especially at harvest time. Add to this you would need to figure out where exactly you can sell your crops if you can get them off the field. Ahh, tarrifs...
This just sets the stage for future challenges. Much of the fertilizer that provides the foundation of an ag economy comes through the Strait of Hormuz or is made from natural gas. You don't need to read many issues of the New York Times or the Economist to understand why farmers are boosting the sales of anti-acids. And to understand the fragile nature of the rural economy. So when we were driving through all those fields of corn and beans, we had had lots of conversations about just how do farmers manage all of this.
But since we were driving at a contemplative pace, we were contemplative as we drove through the rain. All this made us wonder about just what the way forward for this segment of America is or will be. Certainly we reached no conclusions other than there are very dark clouds on the horizon.
After all that, we landed in Erie, PA. Hotel rooms were a bit scarce because people were staying here so they could go to the Buffalo Bills game tomorrow. It was a bit tense as we had to manage my birthday dinner. The first hotel had an Arby's nearby but we aimed a bit higher than that. The hotel we found was right next to a country western bar and grill. We were prepared for the menu, the dance floor and even the Saturday night karaoke but we simply were floored by coming into a bar and restaurant that allowed smoking! Seriously, it was smokier than Irish pubs of the 1980s. We skipped that and had a great dinner at the Taste of Asia, a smoke-free dinner, I might add.
Tomorrow is Niagara Falls and environs. It should/will be fun.
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