You’ll get to visit a lot of interesting places, albeit briefly, and a basic room with all food included will cost less than if you ate three restaurant meals per day for the period covered (more like $1,500 per person for a room with a window). We can hang out at meals and talk about how to solve all of the world’s problems (like Davos, but with higher humidity). We’ll see the latest Panama Canal locks (read Path Between the Seas first!). Maybe in Colombia we’ll meet Hunter Biden. Like progressive Californians, we’ll demonstrate our commitment to bodily autonomy and human rights by boycotting Texas and visiting a country where abortion care for pregnant people is almost completely illegal.
(The rooms are usually shown with the two twin-ish beds pushed together to form a queen-ish-sized bed, but if you’re traveling with a friend and refusing to adhere to the 2SLGBTQQIA+ religion the cabin stewards will rearrange the room to separate the beds with a night table.)
Send me a private email if you’re interested in joining and we can coordinate!
Here are some photos from a recent trip to Las Vegas.
For maximum understatement, a chrome Ferrari…
We brought our masks and vaccine papers when visiting a friend on this street…
At Red Rock Canyon:
The “I Love Butts” car nearby:
And the souvenirs at Cottonwood Station, a great café on the way to Pahrump from Red Rock:
At the Mob Museum, we learned that the original plan for Las Vegas was that debauchery would be confined to 1/40th of the town:
Today, by contrast, gambling, alcohol, and marijuana are available seemingly everywhere. The museum reminds us that Nevada was once notable for its divorce industry. Note that this was prior to the no-fault (“unilateral”) divorce revolution. These were divorces in which the husband and wife (only two gender IDs back then!) had agreed to the procedure.
In adjacent panels, the curators remind us that precious Black Americans are more likely to be killed by police than expandable white Americans and that this disparity is due to bias (not, for example, that one racial group is more likely to be involved in activities that interest the police).
The museum reminds us that Walter White in Breaking Bad was a pioneer in protection against SARS-CoV-2. Here’s the public school teacher’s mask solution:
ARIA does some great things with 2000 lbs. of sugar:
Four of us went to (and loved) the latest Cirque du Soleil show: Mad Apple at New York New York.
The on-stage comedians were Harrison Greenbaum and Orny Adams. Greenbaum ridiculed the folks in the theater who had chosen to enter this crowded venue while wearing masks. “You think Covid is going to come in here, see that you’re masked, and go back to its home at Circus Circus?” He then pointed out that there were quite a few diseases worse than Covid that one might contract at Circus Circus. The audience members who were wearing with non-professionally fit masks of various types could be said to be Faucists. Instead of staying home, their Covid-avoidance strategy was to enter a crowded casino and then sit in a sold-out theater… while wearing a cloth mask. This is a principle of Faucism from spring 2020.
Over at the Bellagio, the conservatory features a “Bears on Coke” theme and the Faucism Believers had voluntarily entered the casino with masks that had 1/2-1″ air gaps visible at the sides and bottom, even when a beard was not worn.
Caesar’s Palace goes big on the poinsettias:
Venice is famous for masks.
The Wynn lobby has a beautiful garden:
Let’s not forget these heroes:
And, at the airport, a nation that dares is given an important rabbit safety reminder:
Also at the airport, kid art represented as a mosaic of smaller kid art (database by the kids; photomosaic by Rob Silvers):
Also at the airport, Cheetos and popcorn marketed as “fresh”:
Certainly there is no way that a virus that attacks the obese can touch us!
That’s the story from Vegas. Some creative decorations. Lots of folks who are trying to avoid COVID-19 by following Dr. Fauci’s advice (perfectly safe to leave the house so long as you’ve got your cloth or surgical mask).
This is a report of a minivan driver’s experience at the Ron Fellows Performance Driving School in Pahrump, Nevada. A friend and I took the two-day intro class for complete novices. The school operates a fleet of nearly 200 C8 Corvettes, a fleet of 670 hp Cadillac Blackwing sedans, and a fleet of open-cockpit Radical pure race cars. We were in the Corvette.
Everyone asks “Was it fun?” The answer is that it is like flight training. You’re learning a lot and it is interesting, but you’re always frustrated because you aren’t doing as well as you want to.
The location is the nation’s most extensive race track, Spring Mountain Motor Resort and Country Club in Pahrump, Nevada, about one hour from Las Vegas. There are currently 360 members who bought in at prices ranging from $4,000 (originally) to $75,000 (today) and then pay $7,500 per year for the right to use the track for up to 16 days per month. The members will typically rent some garage space at the track or build a house somewhere on the 1,000 acres. Plans are in the works for a 7,000′ straight section of track on which a jet can be landed, which will be helpful because most of the members are coming from other parts of the U.S., e.g., Florida(!).
The structure of the school was to alternate between 30-60 minutes of classroom and 30 minutes in the car. The in-car session might be on the track, skidpad, dragstrip, or autocross course. Each day starts promptly at 8 am and concludes at 4 pm with a one-hour lunch break. We were exhausted at the end of each day from the mental and, to some extent, the physical effort. Here’s your fearful author in the morning intro (no helmet) and the afternoon track session (helmet):
The instructors, all of whom are former and/or current racers, are usually in front of you in their own car or somewhere on the sidelines. Either way, they’re communicating with you via CB radio that has been piped into the car’s AUX input.
Who takes this class? Primarily new owners of the C8 Corvette because Chevrolet pays for most of the class, resulting in a price of just over $1,000, which includes a night of lodging at the track. A Ferrari-owning friend was recently invited to a similar class in the Ferrari 296… for $18,000.
What did we learn that can be translated to street driving? First, that the C8 Corvette does not have a tendency to oversteer and, therefore, if you’re in a corner that feels too tight it never helps to add power. You’re always better off braking lightly, which will transfer weight onto the front wheels and help them steer. Also, with the stability control computers and anti-lock brakes, it is nearly always better to slow down with brakes before departing the paved surface. Accelerating transfers weight to the rear tires and makes the car understeer (move out toward the outside of the turn).
After spinning out on the skidpad a bunch of times, with the fancy computer systems disabled (press and hold the stability control switch for about 8 seconds), we learned about the magic of the Weather mode, in which the computer systems become hyper-vigilant. “It doesn’t limit the car as much as teen driver mode,” an instructor explained, “but it can be very useless even on dry pavement for novice drivers.” See the follow video starting at 5:00.
The class may not be for those who think that Twitter is now unsafe. During the explanation of the glow-in-the-dark emergency release lever inside the frunk, it was pointed out that “You can’t kidnap hookers anymore.” For everyone else, the instructors point out that this is the safest driving any of us will ever do. “There are no other cars nearby, no pedestrians, and no concrete walls near the road.” The realistic hazard is motion sickness, which snares several students in every class. Even a pilot with aerobatic experience in our class reported feeling “dizzy”. The school keeps a package of Dramamine up front. If you thought that you couldn’t make yourself sick when at the wheel of a car, you haven’t subjected yourself to constant 0.5-1g corners and speed changes.
The organization, pace, and instructor enthusiasm and skill was superior to the $50,000+ jet type rating classes offered at Flight Safety.
Speaking of aviation, you couldn’t spit in this class without hitting a fellow pilot. A handful of the attendees were airline pilots and one was an airline-track hours-building pilot. about half of the rest of the folks seemed to have at least a Private certificate and current airplane ownership was common. Here’s our merry and diverse band of brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters in Corvette appreciation:
Breakfast and lunch are included both days and there is a social evening after the first day. The clubhouse includes a Connelly pool table!
The night before class we dined at Symphony’s, a restaurant run by a local winery. They had a literal white privilege license:
If you want to meet up with Hunter Biden, note that Pahrump is the first county over from Las Vegas in which prostitution is legal. Sheri’s Ranch has its own restaurant and the $14 cheesesteak was excellent (plainly freshly grilled from sliced-up steak):
Does this mean Pahrump is not a family-friendly town? By no means, according to a bumper sticker parked in the local gourmet supermarket (Walmart) where we stopped for 70 cent/lb. bananas (I noted that these used to be 30 cents/lb. and an older lady mournfully agreed with me):
Speaking of family, quite a few students brought wives along and they seemed to have a good time in the lounge outside the classroom, in an observation tower 4 stories above the track, and at meals.
Aside from the regular street cars, the track is home to a Radical race car showroom and we also saw some fun ATVs:
Once you’re in Pahrump, Death Valley is only one more hour away. So it makes sense to combine the class with hiking in Death Valley (and/or family members can explore Death Valley National Park while a car nut is at the school).
A Los Angeles-to-Washington, D.C. helicopter trip started at PBI on a Sunday in November. Here are the Righteous preparing for a return flight to Boston after their optional vacation trip to South Florida.
When I arrived at LAX, I discovered that they’ve set up a Fall of Saigon-style area for everyone who wants to get out via taxi or Uber/Lyft. At 9:30 pm on a Sunday, the traffic was so heavy that it took my Uber about 25 minutes to go what Uber said would be a 5-minute 1-mile journey.
I was welcomed to the Redondo Beach Hotel in the distinct California style:
Even more upsetting, in a back corner of the hotel parking lot:
If you thought that people who were constantly surrounded by poisonous chemicals wouldn’t have time for coronapanic, you’d be mistaken. At the helicopter safety course, which includes an hour of simulated failures, each of which can easily turn into a real emergency:
The attendees, mostly beginner flight instructors, are typically men in their 20s and 30s (one pilot identifying as a “woman” was in our class of 30). Apparently they are at greater risk of being felled by COVID-19 (after failing to stand 6′ apart) than they are of being killed in a helicopter crash.
California taxpayers spent money on a Facebook ad encouraging me to get a COVID test:
At the Rite Aid, a reminder to keep injecting the 5-year-olds and also, some gluten-free rainbow wine.
They lock up stuff that wouldn’t be considered precious in most of the U.S.:
With no hurricanes, California’s beach towns have a lot more funky old stuff than do Florida beach towns, in which only the hardened and concrete survive:
Some more snapshots in our Redondo Beach neighborhood:
Conclusion: Los Angeles in the winter is awesome for people who don’t have to work (see Table 4 for how welfare spending power in CA compares to median-wage work). The mid-day weather is mild and sunny, which is of no value to those who are stuck in offices. It is dark and cold by the time the slaves are paroled from their plantations.
Let’s go to Reagan National Airport now. Here are some folks preparing for an optional vacation trip to Florida (PBI) over an extended Thanksgiving weekend. Counting airport transportation and TSA screening, it will take them half a day in crowded indoor public environments to get there. If they’d wanted to ensure a COVID-free experience, yet were unwilling to give up their vacation trip, they could have driven in one full day (14 hours door-to-door says The Google).
This is my favorite image. Eight people sitting in a row, all of them wearing various kinds of masks that have been proven ineffective against an aerosol virus.
Some apparently young/healthy people masked in the terminal:
A detail from the 8-in-a-row photo above:
Always a conundrum… our brothers, sisters, and binary-resisters who choose to wear masks, but refuse to shave their beards. COVID-19 is a deadly threat, but not so deadly that anyone should pick up the Razor of Righteousness. Walking onto the crammed-to-capacity Airbus A320:
I didn’t get a video, unfortunately, but the two guys at the breakfast table next to me (they seemed to be traveling together and only one was wearing a mask prior to food arrival) insisted that the waitress remove the offensive items that she had delivered to their table: “We don’t use straws.”
Related:
“You May Be Early, but You’re Not Wrong: A Covid Reading List” (Nov 15): “Over the last few months, there’s been an avalanche of studies telling us that Covid poses a major threat to our health, our lives, and our sanity. The biggest risk now comes in the weeks and months after we recover. … There’s no permanent immunity from this virus. Each time we catch it, this virus attacks our hearts and minds. It weakens us. It tries to kill us. It imprints on us, so a future variant has a better shot next time.” (About half of Americans think as this author does, yet they won’t stay home. They’re voluntarily in crowded airports, airliners, theme parks, resort hotels, etc. SARS-CoV-2 has not changed substantially. The vaccines have a mediocre and temporary effect. Why are those who supported lockdowns in 2020 behaving differently than they did in 2020?)
I am headed to Las Vegas today. Would anyone like to meet there or in Pahrump/Death Valley over the next 7 days? No plans currently other than meeting Hunter Biden at Sheri’s Ranch.
The couple next to me on this luxurious private United jet has voluntarily elected to come from San Antonio to Palm Beach for a destination wedding, changing planes in Houston. They have decided to expose themselves, in other words, to every respiratory virus that exists anywhere in half of the U.S. (other guests also traveled in). They’re protecting themselves from exposure on four crammed flights, three airports, one hotel, and multiple restaurants with comfortable non-professionally fit masks.
In observance of Veterans Day, let’s look at the territory that the Greatest Generation fought for in the 1940s…
In the old days there was a tradeoff between being an independent tourist and joining an organized tour. As an independent tourist perhaps you wouldn’t see as many things per day, but you could wander around a city and enter museums and other attractions as the whim struck you. Today, however, due to mass tourism combined with a touch of coronapanic, the headline tourist sites of Europe require booking advance reservations and organizing transportation to arrive on time for those reservations. In other words, the independent tourist now needs to do all of the stuff that a tour company ordinarily does. Three weeks in advance, for example, we tried booking a ride to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Everything was sold out (we eventually got onto a guided tour for 3X the price, but let’s not call it scalping!). The Louvre was sold out a week in advance. Some of this can be navigated around via memberships (Amis du Louvre) or a Paris Museum Pass. But I’m wondering if the best defense against mass tourism is to become a mass tourist (if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em). An organized tour of Paris could hit all of the major sites in a three days and the participants wouldn’t have to spend evenings pre-booking on the Web and then fretting about how to get from one reservation to another. If desired, spend a couple of extra days as independent tourists seeing the second- and third-tier sites.
Here’s our Eiffel Tower experience. Because we had to book it weeks in advance, it fell on the only rainy day of our trip:
I guess we shouldn’t complain about the lines. If not for the combat veterans of World War II and the desk veterans who kept them supplied, we might have needed to learn German to visit the Eiffel Tower.
Beloved European and stubbornly non-European readers: I arrive in London (staying near St. James Park underground and Westminster Abbey) on Tuesday, October 4 (Airbus A380 from MIA!). On October 8, it will be time to move to Paris via the tunnel train. I will be there in the 7th arrondissement through the morning of October 15. I would love to meet up! Please email me (philg@mit.edu) with a plan.
Thanks!
Readers: How is Europe so crowded with tourists? It is tough to get reservations for anything. The Chinese aren’t traveling, I don’t think, because they would have to spend two weeks in quarantine on returning. The Russians aren’t traveling. Who is filling up Europe’s hotels, restaurants, and museums/monuments in October 2022?
Here’s a photo from my most recent trip to Paris, in 2016:
On the way back from Oshkosh, I stopped (early August) at the idiot-proof Cedar Rapids, Iowa airport (KCID) and spent 20 minutes driving through beautiful rolling hills covered in corn to the Amana Colonies, home to German-Americans who lived communally here from 1856 through 1932. (If you feel lucky, there is a 2600′ “fair condition” grass runway in Amana, C11.) They purchased the world’s most productive agricultural land for $1.25 per acre.
At the museum, I learned that, although the members of the colony were immigrants to the U.S., they were quite selective about who could immigrate into the commune, which would then be responsible for housing, clothing, feeding, and caring for the immigrant. One reason that the museum provides for the break-up of the communal lifestyle is that “some pretended to be sick or refused to work because they knew they would still receive room and board, resulting in the society hiring more outside laborers.”
The communalists followed Christianity, attending 9 church services per week. Once Americans lose their faith in Jesus, what religion do they follow?
Families shared a house, as in Soviet Russia or present-day New York City. However, there was no kitchen in the house. Everyone ate together in a communal kitchen, which typically fed 30-40 people at each meal. They loved coffee (served to children as well) and horseradish:
Today:
For those who buy dollhouses at Amazon or Costco:
The success of the Amana Colonies was used as an argument by those who thought that a Communist form of government might work for the United States:
(Let me stress that the current American system, sometimes described by critics as “Communist” or “Socialist”, is the opposite of how things worked in the Amana Colonies and Soviet Russia. In Amana and Russia, every able-bodied adult was required to work.)
In church (9 times per week!), men and women were segregated into left and right sides of the room.
Equal in death, members of the Amana Colony are buried with same-size headstones in chronological order. There are no family plots nor any sculpture.
Don’t miss the Barn Museum in South Amana, in which Henry L. Moore’s replicas of rural American are displayed. See if you can spot Elizabeth Warren’s hometown…
I’m not sure that the proprietor, the craftsman’s son, will be voting for Elizabeth Warren:
Where to eat? There are three restaurants in town and you have your choice of German, German, and German.
Where to stay? An old mill has been turned into a boutique hotel:
The Amana Radarange, the first home-use microwave oven, may not be your preferred souvenir. But you can buy blankets and beautiful furniture. Here’s the pavement-melting SUV that a wag at Hertz decided to drop at the FBO for me after I reserved a “car”:
Ready for departure at KCID:
As noted in The flying-to-Oshkosh part of flying to Oshkosh, the fuel/breakfast stop on the way to Chattanooga was KMWA in Illinois, which features an on-field recreational marijuana store, open every day that the public schools in Chicago were closed.
If you’re looking for something to do southwest of Oshkosh… Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin (KPDC). This is a quick crew car ride away from Effigy Mounds National Monument, a collection of massive earthen sculptures made by Elizabeth Warren’s ancestors during Joe Biden’s youth. Read up on the approaches and departure procedures due to the challenging terrain surrounding the airport. Terrain? On the Wisconsin/Iowa border? This is the Driftless Area that was not scraped flat by the most recent glaciers. Note that the airport is at 660′ above sea level and towers near the airport are on ground that is as high as 1150′ above sea level (1449-299).
Here’s an explanation for the evolution of these sculptures in the Effigy Mounds visitor’s center:
You’re on the banks of the Mississippi River when at the visitor’s center and must ascend 350′ to the top of the bluffs before reaching the mounds.
Consider packing some bug spray because this is the not the artificially-bug-free paradise that Florida somehow manages to achieve for most natural areas. The mounds themselves are tough to photograph, but if you love history you’ll enjoy them. The views over the river:
Once you’re down from the walk, you can celebrate all things 2SLGBTQQIA+ and BLM in Marquette, Iowa:
Back on the Wisconsin side, you can enjoy some food from Pete’s, started in 1909. Two choices: with onions; without onions.
The flight out is beautiful, but note the bluffs rising steeply from the river banks.
I met some city-dwellers who have vacation cabins in this area so there is apparently a fair amount of exploring that could be done with an overnight stay.
Norwegians follow the American news at a high level. When I was there, for example, several mentioned the current administration’s raid of the former President’s home and asked me what I thought of the current U.S. leader seeking to imprison the former U.S. leader. They also had heard about the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which a Mississippi law limiting on-demand abortion care to 15 weeks was found not to be in conflict with any Federal law or the U.S. Constitution.
What was interesting is how they perceived the ruling. All of the Norwegians who asked about this topic were under the impression that the Supreme Court had outlawed abortion care throughout the United States. I explained that the the law in Democrat-ruled states provided on-demand abortion at 24 weeks or beyond (e.g., Colorado).”You mean that there is all of this fuss when someone can just drive or fly to another state?” they asked, incredulously.
From reading CNN and other American media, they were under the impression that abortion care in the U.S. was less available than in Norway when, in fact, there are far more reproductive health care options for pregnant people in the U.S. than in Norway. Wikipedia:
Current Norwegian legislation and public health policy provides for abortion on request in the first 12 weeks of gestation, by application up to the 18th week, and thereafter only under special circumstances until the fetus is viable, which is usually presumed at 21 weeks and 6 days.
Abortions after the end of the 12th week up to 18 weeks of pregnancy may be granted, by application, under special circumstances, such as the mother’s health or her social situation; if the fetus is in great danger of severe medical complications; or if the woman has become pregnant while under-age, or after sexual abuse. After the 18th week, the reasons for terminating a pregnancy must be extremely weighty. An abortion will not be granted after viability. Minor girls under 16 years of age need parental consent, although in some circumstances, this may be overridden.
In other words, the Mississippi law (15 weeks) that was recently considered by the Supreme Court was actually less restrictive than Norwegian law (12 weeks), but those who had learned about the events from the media were under the impression that abortion care had been outlawed throughout the U.S.
Since we are informed that abortion care is health care, let’s look at the public health situation in Norway, a Science-following Land of Shutdown to some extent (they didn’t do the 1.5-year school closure that Science imposed on NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles). Here’s the hand-drying technology at the gleaming modern airport terminal in Oslo:
Should this machine be called “the Coronaspreader” or the “Monkeypoxer”?
How can Norway get away with this kind of public health hazard? If we consider “population-weighted density” (i.e., how dense is the average person’s neighborhood), the lived experience of Norwegians is almost the least crowded in Europe (source):
(And they want to keep it uncrowded. I didn’t find anyone who supported increased low-skill immigration. Norwegians said specifically that they valued open space and freedom to move around without bumping into hundreds of other humans. Even if someone could prove to them that they could get somewhat wealthier by growing the population they would reject the option.)
