Traveling

[Vrede too]

Maybe I was a little rough on Amanda herself, but I'll stand by my ridicule of a belief that "less damgummint and more freedom" can be consistent with anti-abortion and anti- gay weddings. I guess I just blamed the messenger.

ICYMI, just 2 miles from the Naples Airport destination:

At least 2 dead after small plane crashes onto Florida highway: Authorities
Five people were on board the jet, which crashed onto Interstate 75 near Naples.

[O Really]

I hadn't seen that. The airport there has a huge number of private jets in and out. Lots of money.

[O Really]

Take a tour of O Really and Lady O land.

https://easyreadernews.com/travel-san-d ... -over-for/

[Vrede too]

We took a car road trip up to Banff. There's a lot of nothing north of Coeur d'Alene on US 95/2. Northern Virginia battle flags were not unusual. Gas station/convenience stores are not very inviting. Probably most of the (fairly few) people along there are not domestic terrorists, but fershure some of them are....

Coeur d’Alene:

Utah coach says team was shaken after experiencing racial hate at hotel during NCAA Tournament

Utah coach Lynne Roberts said her team experienced a series of “racial hate crimes” after the arriving at its first NCAA Tournament hotel and was forced to change hotels during the event for safety concerns.

Roberts revealed what happened after Utah lost to Gonzaga in the second round of the NCAAs on Monday night. Roberts didn’t go into detail but said there were several incidents that happened last Thursday night after the team arrived in the area for the tournament and were disturbing to the traveling party to the point there were concerns about safety.

Utah was staying about 30 miles away in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and was relocated to a different hotel on Friday....

Utah, South Dakota State and UC Irvine were all staying at hotels in Idaho even with Gonzaga as the host school because of a lack of hotel space in the Spokane area. Several years ago, the city was announced as a host for the first and second rounds of the men’s NCAA Tournament and there was also a large regional youth volleyball tournament in the area during the weekend.

That left limited hotel space and Gonzaga received a waiver from the NCAA to allow teams to be housed in Coeur d’Alene.

“Racism is real and it happens, and it’s awful. So for our players, whether they are white, black, green, whatever, no one knew how to handle it and it was really upsetting,” Roberts said. “For our players and staff to not feel safe in an NCAA Tournament environment, it’s messed up.”

... Far-right extremists have made a presence in the region. In 2018, at least nine hate groups operated in the region of Spokane and northern Idaho, including Identity Evropa, Proud Boys, ACT for America and America’s Promise Ministries, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Dammit, I was fighting this in North Idaho 40 years ago

[Vrede too]

Take a tour of O Really and Lady O land.

https://easyreadernews.com/travel-san-d ... -over-for/

Maybe all old news to you:
9 short and sweet road trips from Vancouver that aren't just to Whistler

Just for fun:
12 Things You Shouldn’t Say to Canadians

Interesting, eh?

[O Really]

We've visited most of those places - and there are lots of others that could have reasonably made the list including taking the ferry across to Port Angeles to the Olympic peninsula. Maybe that was a little out of their travel time restriction, though.

The list of what not to say could be summed up as "don't believe all the stereotypes of other countries" but IMNVHO the worst is thinking Canada is just like going to another state and Canadians are the same as Americans. Sure, there are a lot of similarities and a good bit of cultural overlap, but Canada is definitely not the US. Which is among its most endearing features to Lady O and me. A lot of tourists think that just because it's next door that Canadian stores will take US dollars. And some do, particularly the touristy shops, but they don't make a proper exchange, just go with face value. So if the touron pays in US dollars, they're paying about 20% extra. A lot of Americans think it's strange that Canada use kilometres for distance and litres to fill the petrol tank, not ever realizing that they (the US) are the ones in the minority with the "unusual" measurement system.