Ross Douthat: What It Means To See America In Person

This will definitely be our next road trip.

I’m looking forward to visiting Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. I would also like to see all five National Parks in Utah. After the National Divorce, we’re taking most of the West with us in Real America.

New York Times:

“BIGFORK, Mont. — I’m writing these words early in a darkened motel room, 2,460 miles from home, eight hours east of Seattle and 45 minutes south of Glacier National Park. Around me five other people are still asleep: My wife and four children, crowded onto queen-size beds, an air mattress and a pack-and-play. These have been our conditions for the last 16 nights, which we have spent claiming an important American birthright: The westward migration via minivan, the great cross-country drive. …”

Check out Geography King for road trip advice.

Note: This is my current map. Create your own here.

32 Comments

      • Actually, S. Dakota. Yes, voluntarily. Why? Is there something I should know about S. Dakota besides the cold and openness?

        • Well, I think S Dakota is better than N.Dakota.
          Yes, it can get really cold with ferocious wind.
          S Dakota is a big state, will you be living out on the desolate prairie ?
          Being a West Coast kid, I could never acclimate to the sameness of the prairie.

          Surprising fact, S Dakota is among the poorest states in America, but often achieves the highest SAT ACT scores. Might have some relation to its WHITENESS.

          • I’ve been to North Dakota once before.

            There is still a lot of stuff there I would like to see like Theodore Roosevelt National Park

  1. I suggest taking the Amtrak train Empire Builder west to Seattle. When I took it in the 1990s I thought there would be a gradual shift between the Great Plains and the Rockies, like over a series of miles seeing foothills and such that had characteristics of both environments. Wrong. The transition is so dramatic, like a Roadrunner cartoon, that the front of the train is in steep rocky canyons while the back is still out on the flat grassy plains. I never would have believed it if I didn’t see it for myself.

  2. ” Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, Wyoming”

    Uh, go look at your nearest weed patch, it’ll have more eye appeal and variety.

    • I am a semi driver and have seen (nearly) every inch of this country. The only place I have not been is the upper peninsula of Michigan because there are no freight lanes through there.

      I am currently on i90. Spending the weekend driving from Seattle to Minneapolis.

      Right now it is beautiful in the summer, spent a few hours today doing insect photography which is my hobby. Lots of summer road trippers see these places in the height of summer glory and think about moving.

      However, most of the year, particularly in winter, these Northern states are ugly as sin and completely miserable.

      I live in Texas

      • BTW Hunter:

        I know you took your AZ-CA road-trip in June, but if you are going to the Northern states next year, it is best to wait until July or August. June can be a crappy, rainy, cold month in the North.

        Consider going to Vermont as well. Yes it is currently owned by shitlibs, but there are so many old barns and houses. Vermont seems almost untouched by time and is the landscape is window into the agrarian past before the tiny hats exoriced the the old WASP elite.

        • “Vermont seems almost untouched ”

          Plus it’s all WHITE, armed to the teeth and very safe.
          New England can be stunningly beautiful, rural serenity.
          If i had coin, I’d live in New England Spring to Autumn, leave just after Thanksgiving and return in Sping thaw.

          Vermonter, “we have 10 months of Winter and two months of bad sledding.”

    • The Nebraska Sandhills are an interesting visit and quite scenic. The river waters near Thedford are the clearest looking waters I’ve ever seen. South Dakota also has some Mountains and high pine country in it’s far west like Mount Rushmore. North Dakota is somewhat less impressive outside of the small area around Theodore Roosevelt National Park which is worth a stop. Northern Wyoming is quite scenic, but Southern Wyoming is nothing but rocks and sagebrush. I also thought Eastern Kansas on I-70 between Topeka and Salina is rather scenic for the region.

  3. Most of the land you wish to see next used to belong to Mexico. Yeah, even way up north Nebraska etc. That whole area is now over a third Mexican, and increasing daily. Most likely it will all go back to Mexico.

    Hopefully we can retake a few states in the Southland, and preserve a remnant. As for taking the great part of the land area in the empire, I don’t see it happening.

    • Mexico never had people in the Southwest. At the time of Mexican independence there were at best a couple thousand Mexicans in all of Texas. Same goes for Alta California. It’s an implanted memory. Look at population statistics. White people built up the Southwest, and Spanish names remained as part of Spains legacy.

      • Re Ross Noble: thanks for writing that, you beat me to it. They can’t reconquer lands they never conquered in the first place. It was we Americans who conquered the western US lands, not the paltry, tiny attempts of New Spain and Mexico. Read Dana’s Two Years before the Mast to see how utterly unpopulated by Mexicans the American West was right before the Mexican War. It boggles the mind, but Dana writes that there was only one person living in the entire LA region in the 1820s–a representative of a New England hide merchant who was there just to serve American trading ship crews. No Indians, no Mexicans.

      • Not to mention that most of the “Mexican Lands” were owned by a few families via land grants from the Spanish crown. I.e. one family could ‘own’ half of California. Peonage (aka serfdom) was still a thing until America took over those lands and abolished it. The Indians pretty much held sway over all those lands even though it said Mexican territory on maps. Somebody once mentioned that the only reason Mexicans were interested in these territories now is because Whites built them up.if it were still raw wilderness they wouldn’t touch it.

    • The Mexican government had to invite Gringos and Germans (direct from Germany) to populate even parts of modern-day northern Mexico, as well as Texas, for the simple reason that they couldn’t muster the forces to keep the warlike Indians of these regions under control. Aztlan is no more Mexican territory (for the time being at least) than the moon is US territory.

  4. Viewed from above, Maryland is certainly an ugly little state. It looks like bits of land that Pennsylvania didn’t want.
    One day, I’ll visit from Australia, but only want to see the South, Midwest and southwest.
    I have no idea why most Americans would want Hawaii. Just an island of Asians enjoying the American system. I’d say fuck em!

  5. The only thing worth visiting in any country is the countryside now, as the shitties all looks the same, have the same chain stores and they are also no longer majority the natives you want to see.

    I’m sure the upper classes have started to notice the relative paradises the ruralites live in compared to the shitty they live in, and that only became clearer during Corona.

    This will change the western countryside, but it remains to be determined if this will be good for white people or not. Last time it happened we got the Romantic period, and then cities regained their popularity for a lot of good reasons, reasons that are no longer there. The countryside have internet and public sanitation, and with the possibility of working from home, a couple can move there if only one get a job.

    • ” upper classes have started to notice the relative paradises the ruralites”
      Long ago, many have their country farm/retreats when SHTF.

      Many are leaving cities, as POC are targeting the rich for robberies and home invasions. The urban snobs have sneering contempt for rural folks, but they flee to the sticks for safety.

      • The Southern Oregon coast is spectacular, but only do it at the height of Summer, otherwise forget it. Still, not as nice as Californian’ s Coast.

  6. People who complain about educated white ‘libtards’ ought to include civnat MAGAtards too — the MAGAtard website Citizen Free Press boosted the following story using the text ‘the progressive tears are flowing’:

    Brooke Jenkins Begins Firing Chesa Boudin Hires, Announces New All-Female Senior Management

    Chesa Boudin was ousted in a recall last month — the female mayor of SF finally appointed his replacement: a black woman who intends to install an ‘all-female senior management’ — civnat MAGAtard faggots see this as good news.

  7. Covering Montana and Idaho is on my “To Do” list. I’ve returned to the California coast repeatedly since 2015, as I couldn’t get enough of the Pacific Coast Highway (Highway 1) drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco. My favorite scenery on Earth is the roughly 95 mile drive from San Simeon to Carmel & Monterey called “The Scenic Crawl.” It goes through Big Sur, and its a combination of mountains on one side and ocean on the other side.

    I’ve visited the other hot spots in California: Yosemite, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Lake Tahoe, and all three major urban areas – LA, San Fran, San Diego – but without fail, the Pacific Coast Highway takes the cake. Every town along the way has something to offer, whether its Santa Barbara, San Simeon, San Luis Opispo, Carmel and Monterey, Santa Cruz, and Half Moon Bay.

    My trips through California gave me the exact same attitude as Hunter: We’re not giving up this land to the shitlibs. We’ll invade it and take it back later, if necessary. On a related note, I visited Sedona, Arizona in February 2021, and yeah, its gorgeous, but the place was crawling with shitlib roaches. They all need to go back to New York. We can evict them from the pretty places the same way the Sons of Jacob evicted insubordinate people from their homes.

    I wonder what goes through shitlibs minds when they visit a place like Sedona or Big Sur and they say to themselves, “you know, this place would be really enriched if we had more black and brown tourists here.” They should be thanking Madison Grant for making land conservation a thing. White Liberals are unworthy of the beautiful places they visit.

      • “plague is flooding into Idaho and Montana now”

        Yep, they’ve ruined our nice towns with their crackpot social theories, now they are flooding into ‘redneck’ areas.

        Just watch, they will bring their entrained scab labor ( Latinos ) with them, who will displace the poorer WHITES.

  8. I have no idea how Douthat earns a living; what of any value he produces.

    I’m looking forward to visiting Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. I would also like to see all five National Parks in Utah.

    I’ve driven thru parts of NE — never been to ND — the SW part of SD is nice; that’s where Badlands National Park and Mt Rushmore are — southern WY is high plateau-ish and prairie-like, but scenic in its rugged beauty; of the 50 states WY has the lowest population and lowest density — Montana is beautiful and lives up to its nickname the Big Sky state; you feel this especially under a blue sky with big, fluffy white clouds drifting overhead — I would even go so far as to call it unique and majestic — I have a nice memory of this standing atop Last Stand Hill in Custer Battlefield National Monument.

    I was in Livingston MT on 11 Sep 2001 (Margot Kidder lived and died there) — it’s a small town just across the northern border of WY, less than an hour from the north gate of Yellowstone, my destination that day — I woke up early in my hotel and turned on the TV — the news reported a fire in the WTC, and showed a brief video clip: part of the facade was blackened, with thick smoke pouring out — I thought to myself: that looks like a serious fire — last thing I heard was a reported rumor a small plane had struck the building — at that point I started packing up and went to shower — when I came out they were reporting the 2nd tower had been hit by a plane (!) — I said to myself: that can’t be an accident.

    But I had to go: I still intended to spend the day seeing Yellowstone highlights — listening to the radio a bit, I heard blips about the 9/11 terror attacks — late in the evening, exiting via the west gate there was a traffic jam — I finally got up there and saw rangers stopping all cars to record license plates — I asked why: they said due to the terror attacks — that made no sense to me, and little about America has made sense since.

    I drove thru southern Idaho toward Boise, slept at a truck/rest stop, and continued the next day — southern Idaho is also prairie-like, but less scenic than WY (I also prefer eastern OR to southern ID) — I would try to see northern ID (panhandle), and perhaps skip the rest.

    UT is a must of course, but I’ve only spent time in the SLC airport so far.

  9. “– but without fail, the Pacific Coast Highway takes the cake.”

    Always has, It’s spetacular.

    As one woman said, “once you’ve lived in California, you’ll never be happy anywhere else”.

    A gorgeous state, given away to ruin.

    • Beautiful places attract wealthy shitlib assholes who buy up everything and price out the natives. It is happening now in the South in Appalachia and the Gulf Coast. The same plague is flooding into Idaho and Montana now

      • “wealthy shitlib assholes who buy up everything and price out the natives”

        ALWAYS ! It happens globally. People in the Channel Islands of Britain are priced off their own islands. Happens in Costa Rica and Panama, everywhere.

        Additionally, they bring in scab labor, I.e. Mexicans, for cheap services, lawn care, maids, maintenance etc. Those then displace the poor working class. East LA is filled with Mexicans , who displaced WHITES from their homes , who work in Beverly Hills, Beverly Glenn, all the wealthy areas.

        Most of The mega-wealthy are scab employers, bring in all Mexican construction crews.

  10. “places attract wealthy shitlib assholes ”

    Malibu and Aspen, where billionaires crowd out millionaires.

  11. A friend of mine just got back from a trip to Montana/Wyoming. He saw a total of two black guys the whole trip. They were having a violent fight outside of a gas station.

Comments are closed.