Oslo, Norway is the only nonstop European destination reachable from FLL (not too far from Jupiter, Florida where we moved). I’ll be on the ground Monday through Thursday next week (August 29-Sept 1) and would be delighted to meet any readers (just email philg@mit.edu).
Our 7-year-old suggested to a COVID-concerned friend that he “dress up like Dr. Fauci” and hand out N95 masks to fellow passengers on commercial airline flights. I may try this if it seems that there are diseased deplorables on the Norse Atlantic 787.
After Great Smoky Mountain National Park, our family’s next stop on the way to Oshkosh was Indianapolis. We parked at Signature IND and Ubered into town for lunch in a sacred space:
Despite the sanctified-by-2SLGBTQQIA+ nature of the restaurant, it was tough not to notice that workers were unenthusiastic about being there, a sharp contrast to Gatlinburg in which genuine warmth is the usual attitude of a server.
First sightseeing stop, July 22, 2022, the children’s museum:
The museum has an epic dinosaur section with real fossils that visitors can touch. Real paleontology is going on in this museum and visitors can arrange to take part.
The museum reminds children that they can make a difference, but only if they can first be classified as victims (of the Nazis (including Donald Trump), of prejudice against Blacks, of prejudice against those with AIDS, or of the Taliban).
Comic books are available to flip through via touch screen, but only those featuring female superheroes.
Note the two guys wearing surgical masks in their lonely fight against an aerosol virus:
They’re concerned enough about COVID-19 to wear masks, but not concerned enough to refrain from sharing the museum’s indoor air with 100+ other folks nor to refrain from taking a bus ride around the track (I can’t remember if they actually kissed the bricks or not, a seemingly less-than-ideal way to #StopTheSpread).
Next stop was the Eiteljorg Museum, which specializes in Native American and Western art. The museum acknowledges that it is on land that rightfully belongs to others, but it refuses to give the land back:
And then there is the posted DEI “commitment”:
Just a few steps beyond the righteous floor sign, we get the Native American perspective on white say-gooders and their land acknowledgments:
A couple of cloth-masked visitors again raise the question for me… why are they in an indoor public place?
Native-created masks for horses and humans:
Prevent COVID-19 from spreading by shutting down the water fountains:
Will Florida ultimately be the only state left with working water fountains?
If you’ve got kids, don’t miss the basement of this museum, which has a lot of hands-on activities. Back on the main floor, the scale of the Western paintings is literally awesome:
Another museum (Newfields), another pair of masked visitors:
They’re enjoying “THE LUME”, an animated version of the Impressionists set to music. But if they’re worried enough about COVID-19 to wear a mask, why aren’t they worried enough to stay home?
Our kids loved this production (see below; #LoveIsLove) and were reluctant to leave even after two hours. “This is the best place ever,” was the explanation. There is a bar/coffee shop within the exhibit and also bathrooms, so it would actually be possible to stay the whole day.
One idea had been to leave for Oshkosh on Saturday night. The “shelter in place & stay safe” text message was not promising, especially given that it was being sent to people whose shelter options were a 10 lb. tent and a 1500 lb. (empty) airplane.
The next morning was not a lot better for getting to our actual destination of Appleton, Wisconsin:
Southwest Airlines was delayed 3.5 hours getting into Chicago, according to a friend coming into Oshkosh the easy/smart way, so we didn’t feel bad trying to wait out the weather at the Indiana State Museum.
What’s interesting about the U.S.S. Indianapolis? Not that the U.S. Navy failed to heed a distress call from the torpedoed cruiser. Not that the U.S. Navy failed to notice when the massive ship did not show up in port as scheduled. Not that nearly 900 men died, 600 of them unnecessarily (left to float in the water and be attacked by sharks until a PBY crew accidentally discovered them). Not that the tragedy figured prominently in the movie Jaws. See the sign below for what visitors can learn next to the model.
Suppose that a visitor wonders about the merits of low-skill immigration. He/she/ze/they will learn that “Securing the rights of all Hoosiers has been fought by many. Individuals and communities rally together to fight against hate and social injustices.” A migrant who shows up on a Monday morning is a “Hoosier” by lunchtime and, certainly, it would be “hate” and “injustice” if anyone were to regard the migrant as illegal somehow.
There’s a hands-on cardboard engineering lab on the top floor. Here a 2-year-old learns to build a park that is welcoming to the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community:
Is there room in Indianapolis for every American who identifies as 2SLGBTQQIA+ and for the entire populations of Haiti (11 million) and Honduras (10 million) to become Hoosiers? It sure feels as though there is! Downtown, at least on the weekend, feels empty.
To escape the crowds of Great Smoky Mountains National Park during our five-night visit to Gatlinburg, we went to Dollywood in Pigeon Forge. Is a jammed theme park actually less crowded than a national park? It feels less crowded because it is properly engineered for crowds. Unlike in the national park, it is possible to find a parking space at Dollywood (pay up for premium parking; there is a separate entrance from the premium lot and no waiting in line for security or ticket scanning). Unlike in Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge, it is fairly easy to get a counter-serve or table-serve meal (plan ahead for dinner, perhaps, but overall the food-to-customer situation is vastly better than at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom). Here’s the health food shack (pork rinds):
In addition to long lines and hassles to get basic food, the Orlando theme parks suffer from a lack of local feeling. Few of the park workers are from Orlando and, except perhaps for Legoland (in Winter Haven, FL) with its botanical gardens and water ski show, there isn’t much that relates to Florida. Disney is reasonably successful at finding people who are happy to be working at Disney, but the other parks are often staffed with people who seem disappointed that they couldn’t get a job at Disney and/or that they have to work at all. Dollywood is the opposite, being centered in eastern TN culture and staffed with people who grew up in the area, love the area, and are happy to be working at Dollywood.
Dollywood is built into a hillside and retains the mountain steam train ride from which it was seeded. In addition to the expected terrifying rollercoasters there are a lot of music shows. One artist that you won’t hear too much, not even covers of her songs, is… Dolly Parton. She uses the park to showcase lesser-known musicians. There are some craft demonstrations. Our boys (7 and 8) were fascinated by the blacksmith shop in which visitors can participate (makes sure to wear closed-toe shoes and stop by early in the day to book a slot).
The associated water park is underwhelming by Florida standards and there weren’t enough slides to handle the crowds of a hot weekday afternoon. Definitely invest in the line-skipping pass if you’re going to hit the water park.
The evening fireworks were worth staying up for, though the Oshkosh blow-out puts them to shame! There is a creative pre-fireworks drone show. Traffic into and out of the park is well-organized so you won’t be stuck trying to get out.
Budget $1,000 for a family of four if you want to hit the main park, the water park, and pay for line-skipping and premium parking. (If $1,000 seems like a lot, remember that you don’t have to take the day off work so long as you’re a member of the laptop class. Just answer the occasional email from your phone while in line for a ride.) The day after you can return to Great Smoky Mountain National Park with a renewed appreciation for the woods:
For a former New Englander, the big shock of being in the Great Smoky Mountains in July was the bug situation. Following standard practice from the Appalachians in MA, NH, VT, and ME, we had brought enough DEET and picaridin to cover a herd of elephants and yet found ourselves in the woods without being bothered by any flying insects, even in wetter lower-lying areas.
We spent our first day driving to Kuwahi, known to the white invaders as “Clingmans Dome,” the highest point on the Appalachian Trail and, at 6,643′, the third highest mountain in the land that we stole east of the Mississippi. We left the cabin before 7 am because we had been warned that parking lots within the park tend to fill up.
Our reward for the drive was getting progressively deeper into a cloud until, at last, nothing was visible.
On the way, official government scientists reminded us that, while diversity is our strength and non-native humans are hugely beneficial for any ecosystem, non-native insects are a disaster:
Cars feature a lot more religious and political expression than in Florida. We can be grateful to Jesus for the dinosaur blood that saved us from walking up 4,000′ from the Gatlinburg airport (KGKT):
On the back of a small SUV, a reminder not to follow the examples of Al Franken and Harvey Weinstein when visiting the Knoxville Zoo:
How about the bears? We spent a day driving to Cades Cove to see the bears. The approach to Cades Cove from Gatlinburg follows a winding river and features more curves than all of the roads in South Florida combined. The kids loved it and asked if we could go back the same way.
Upon reaching Cades Cove the National Park Service warned us, via a big electronic sign, that it would take 2-3 hours to drive the 11-mile loop. This was, if anything, an underestimate. Traffic moves slower than in midtown Manhattan. We were grateful to take a break in the middle and walk to Abrams Falls:
How about those bears? We did see a few during the Cades Cove day, usually at least 100′ away and often obscured by trees. After a long day of attempted bear-viewing in the National Park we found that the street right in front of our cabin was blocked by four bear cubs and a bear parent of unknown gender ID. After 20 minutes, one cub hadn’t moved at all and we began researching wildlife rescue options, thinking that perhaps the cub had been hit by a car. Eventually, though, all of the bears got up and moved up the hill and we were able to get to our cabin (that’s actually our rental, in the photo).
Apparently, even the bears can’t handle the epic crowds within the National Park and prefer to hang out in Gatlinburg and even inside our rental:
After a day off at Dollywood (maybe I’ll do that as a separate post), we returned to the park for a walk to Grotto Falls. We didn’t get out quite as early and found that we needed to park roughly 1/2 mile downhill from the trailhead. The parking areas within the Park would need to be 3-4X bigger to handle even the weekday demand for the more popular trails. Most of the photographs taken in the Park are lies. Most visitors, even those willing to go on a 2-3-hour hike, will have an essentially urban experience inside the National Park. The trail to Grotto Falls is more crowded than a typical American city sidewalk, but it is possible, even in the middle of the day, to make it look like you’re in the woods by yourself:
Where to stay? We liked our cabin, which had a great view from the desk and enabled us to see bears up close and personal. But it was 10 minutes of driving down some scary mountain roads to get to a supermarket, restaurant, or the main roads into the Park. Remarkably, there were delivery services that would, at a reasonable price, bring groceries (the Publix app works!) or meals up to the cabin, and it was also possible to get an Uber either to or from the cabin. If you want to go back to your lodging in between activities it probably makes more sense to stay closer to one of the towns.
Pigeon Forge, home to Dollywood, is a serious challenge to those who believe that markets will result in reasonable outcomes. It is a strip of hideous commercial development, fronted by massive parking lots, jammed with 6 lanes of traffic, and inaccessible to pedestrians. Every urban planning major should be sent here so that if he/she/ze/they is ever experience self-doubt or doubt in his/her/zir/their chosen profession, he/she/ze/they can think back to the Pigeon Forge experience.
The only thing that can be said in favor of Pigeon Forge is that people are friendly and seem happy to be working. Well, and that it is possible to purchase socks celebrating Rainbow Flagism:
And maybe the Titanic Museum, which gets great reviews, but was rejected by our 8-year-old: “Titanic hit an iceberg and sunk. What’s the problem with you?” The kids were irresistibly drawn to the medieval castle containing MagiQuest (not to be confused with MAGAQuest, in which the task is helping non-partisan FBI agents find documents) and it was actually a lot of fun (buy the unlimited time option because there is no way you’ll get out of the Magi section in less than 2.5 hours) and a smart air-conditioned choice on a hot afternoon or evening.
Gatlinburg is just as traffic-clogged, but at least it is walkable and it is closer to the Park:
Maybe the best compromise between a mountain experience, access to the Park, and access to services and attractions: the DoubleTree Park Vista hotel. It is right next to a road leading into the Park and high enough above the town that you get some mountain views and mountain air. We drove by it on our way to Grotto Falls. The reviews suggest that the place needs renovation, but once it does get a make-over it should be nice.
Travel tip: bring some mini bottles of maple syrup. The local mania seems to be for making pancakes (not obviously better than those McDonald’s serves as part of the Big Breakfast), but corn syrup with a touch of artificial flavor is the only topping that is reliably available. Our kids got a surprise after we asked a waitress “Do you have real maple syrup?” and she responded “Yes,” then returned with what used to be called Aunt Jemima. We explained that this was “real” to her.
Overall: Great Smoky Mountains National Park is, in fact, great. But unless you’re a serious backcountry hiker, it is also mostly ruined by the crowds. Everything was designed for the U.S. circa 1960 (population 180 million and most people had to work on most days), not for the U.S. circa 2022 (population 333 million and the entire laptop class can pretend to work from Gatlinburg just as easily as pretending to work from home). If you don’t love crowds you probably won’t find the Park relaxing.
At the same time that we were in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a friend was in a $7,000/night dude ranch in Montana. The elites were paying $7,000/night for, essentially, the same experience that our family had in the National Parks circa 1980. An elite family could go for a walk without bumping into a lot of other people. They could park wherever they wanted to. They could get into a restaurant and eat without waiting 45 minutes or an hour. They could ride horses without making reservations in advance. But we could do and actually did all of those things as an upper-middle-class family (my dad worked for the Federal Trade Commission) in the early 1980s in Yellowstone, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Grand Canyon, etc.
For Floridians hoping to cool off, the nearest mountains are the Appalachians in TN/NC, i.e., the Great Smoky Mountains. It’s an 11-hour drive from Palm Beach County to Cherokee, NC, the southern gateway to Great Smoky Mountains National Park and a 12-hour drive to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, TN, the northern gateway and home to Dollywood. In a small airplane, however, the trip can be done in approximately 3.5 hours to KGKT (550 nm). A 3.5-hour flight in a vibrating noisy bathroom-free piston-powered airplane is too much for most pilots and nearly all passengers. Where to stop, then?
The simplest route from flat Florida to mostly-flat eastern Tennessee bends around the west of the Appalachian Mountains via Chattanooga. Why go over these mountains, which generate all kinds of clouds and bumps, when you can instead relax on windward side, entirely free of turbulence and with a much wider range of altitudes to choose from? (as shown below, the FAA considers any altitude lower than 6,600′ to be risky with respect to terrain)
On our way to Oshkosh, however, we enjoyed a rare day on which thunderstorms were not forecast, except on both coasts of Florida (see Garmin Pilot app screen shot from halfway through our first leg). The winds aloft were forecast to be light and therefore there was no risk of powerful downdrafts on the lee side of the mountains. So we planned a scenic crossing of the Appalachians with a first stop in Lake City, Florida (KLCQ). The kids learned to appreciate our pool table by playing on a table with trashed felt using cues with no tips.
Our next stop was KDNL, the “downtown” airport for Augusta, Georgia. There is a flight school on the field and the learning continues even in the men’s room, however Ketanji’s panel of biologists might define the term “men”:
We hopped in the courtesy car and headed downtown to the Morris Museum of Art, “the oldest museum in the country that is specifically devoted to the art and artists of the American South.” It is situated on an attractive river walk and right next to a good restaurant, Augustino’s, within the Marriott hotel.
The final leg required a climb to 10,500′ and weaving to stay out of the clouds and bumps. The forecast was accurate regarding the lack of thunderstorms, but there was still some pop-up convection that made an indirect route seem wiser.
A Cirrus about 15 miles north of us apparently went into one of the above small rain showers and reported “severe turbulence” to Air Traffic Control (“large and abrupt changes in altitude and/or attitude and, usually, large variations in indicated airspeed. The airplane may momentarily be out of control. Occupants of the airplane will be forced violently against their seat belts.”). A combination of NEXRAD and ATC kept us out of anything upsetting. Upon landing, we found that our Enterprise Cadillac(!) sedan had been pulled up next to our airplane by the alert line staff at KGKT.
Working through my backlog of summer photos, I stopped off in Denver during Pride Month. In traveling from California to Colorado, both states in which people say that they Follow Science, hardly anyone was wearing a mask:
I stayed in Arvada, which is 90 percent white and 0.9 percent African American according to Wikipedia. Nonetheless, a sign downtown informed me that this was a “Community of Color”
Someone with a commitment to social justice and an air rifle may have developed this sign starting from “Community Banks of Colorado”. Hanging a rainbow flag was popular in a variety of locations around Denver (also the rugged Toyota just for fun!):
Considering that half of the nation says it wants to stop the spread of COVID-19, the airport seemed to be at or beyond its design capacity:
As United Airlines was rapidly consuming Jet A, the company reminded me that we should all travel by sailboat as Greta Thunberg does:
Following a mask-free flight between the Science strongholds of Denver and Atlanta, I learned that some people are concerned enough about aerosol COVID-19 to wear a surgical mask, but not concerned enough to avoid the crowded airport or the Chick fil-A line:
Having the Garmin Pilot app running while on a commercial airliner yields some unsettling messages:
Digging through the summer photo backlog, a report on a June trip to San Diego where I slaved away as an expert witness on a software case in federal court (the jury stuck around to be interviewed by the attorneys after the trial and said that they understood and enjoyed my testimony!).
The local public library sends travelers off from FLL with free music and movies:
If you don’t download these on the airport WiFi, JetBlue will prepare you for California’s state religion on the flight out with movies classified as “Pride Picks”:
I saw more homeless people, pit bulls, homeless people with pit bulls, pit bull poop, and trash in the street in my first two days in San Diego than during nearly a year in the West Palm-FLL-Miami area. Here are a couple of sidewalk-dwellers just steps from where the laptop class enjoys $50/person meals:
San Diego presents a huge challenge to those who believe that a market economy is efficient. There are gleaming new skyscrapers next to lots used for surface parking or other low-value activities. If the land isn’t valuable, why would people build up 15 or 20 stories? If the land is valuable, why is so much of it still not developed in any significant way?
Whatever the real estate values might be, one great thing about California is the Chinese food. While waiting for a table at the San Diego outpost of Din Tai Fung, we learned that Lucid has dog mode:
The shopping mall reminded us to observe Rainbow Flagism:
Back downtown, the official city art shows Mexican-Americans taking the bus while rich white people yacht in the background:
My favorite images from the trip depict a debate between saving Mother Earth via light rail or via battery-electric vehicles that turned violent:
I suspect that the Tesla 3 in the image was rented to the driver for $390 per week by Uber, as was a Tesla 3 in which I rode (“horrifyingly bumpy and uncomfortable compared to the Hyundai Sonata I was in yesterday,” I wrote to a friend at the time). The drive says that he must do 30 trips per week in order to keep the car and that this corresponds to 1.5 days of Ubering. I posted about this on Facebook, which helpfully added some editorial content of its own: “Explore Climate Science Info”. In the same vein, Google ran a big animation for Juneteenth:
Californians did manage to steal some great land from the Native Americans and Mexicans. Here’s some topiary:
Old Town featured a CDC reference work on how to prevent an aerosol respiratory virus with a cloth mask:
Compared to southeast Florida, it was much more common to see fully covered women:
Aside from observant Muslims, it was rare to see someone following the Science by wearing a mask, despite a raging COVID-19 epidemic at the time. A jammed street fair, with no masks:
It was outdoors, though, right? In my courthouse experience, only one juror and one chubby clerk wore masks. The guards in the lobby were unmasked. The judge was unmasked. More or less everyone in the building was unmasked. These folks will say that they’re preventing COVID-19 from spreading by behaving in a more scientific manner than residents of Florida, but I couldn’t figure out what they were doing differently.
Circling back to the observant Muslims depicted above… they were just a few steps from an official city-flown rainbow flag:
If they were to need to transact some business at the bank they would have to walk under the sacred symbol of Rainbow Flagism:
I recommend the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park:
But of course my favorite tourist attractive was the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier launched just as World War II was over. The ship is now a museum and Navy veterans, including aircrew, give fascinating lectures on how everything works.
San Diego is a great place to spend 7-10 days as a tourist, hitting all of the museums and parks while enjoying great weather and great food. If one were to live there, however, the contradictions would eventually begin to rankle. Why are there so many unhoused people if rich Californians say that they want to provide housing to the unhoused? Why isn’t there enough civic spirit and agreement that people will get organized to pick up trash and dog poop in their city? (Florida has almost no litter by comparison and dog pick-up bag dispensers are common anywhere that people want dog owners to clean up.) If California wants to welcome millions of migrants from conservative societies, which Californians say that they do, how does it make sense to have Rainbow Flagism as the state religion?
If your mind and feet are burned out during a week of EAA AirVenture, one idea is to take a day off in Green Bay, Wisconsin, which is 45 minutes northeast. The Green Bay Packers have an interesting museum and do tours of their stadium:
Right next door is Titletown, a paradise for kids with a steep hill covered in real grass, live music, epic playgrounds, etc. All free. There is a great 5th floor restaurant with an outdoor terrace overlooking the stadium. Taverne in the Sky, part of the LodgeKohler hotel.
The National Railroad Museum is a few minutes away by car and has roughly 80 locomotives and cars to look at, plus a diesel-powered train to ride.
The Great Trek to Oshkosh begins on Sunday. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a natural stopping point. This is America’s most-visited national park so I’m hopeful that readers have some brilliant ideas for activities in the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area. To refresh your memory:
First, if coronapanic ever does end, the government invites you to think about all of the other bad things that could happen and “Make an Emergency Plan”:
Here’s an establishment serving healthful beer, wine, and mixed drinks in an environment that is perfect for spreading SARS-CoV-2 variants. They explain that they enjoyed checking vaccine papers so much that they’re going to continue doing it (“Gotta give the Freedom Fighting Anti Vaxxers Something to Whine About”) even though it is no longer required by mayoral order.
Folks in DC and suburban Maryland have so many masks that they had trouble keeping track of them. Masks were some of the most common street litter in various locales.
What about in Northwest D.C.? Here are some photos from the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood (houses: $1-3 million). First, a street dining venue that is technically “outdoors” but also reminded customers that masks are required (between bites?):
The typical shop front door had signs in both English and Spanish, often referring to a government order from July 31, 2021. Here a worker cleaning the front door wears a mask in the outdoor heat (over 80 degrees):
Some miscellaneous images from the same neighborhood.
Despite the love of mask-wearing, COVID-19 seems to be raging among the Followers of Science right now. A cousin who is a clinical psychologist in D.C. restricted her practice to Zoom more than two years ago and has barely left her house. She explained that she couldn’t meet us because… she has COVID-19 right now. Her symptoms are similar in nature and severity to what unvaccinated friends suffered in 2020, but she attributes her survival to having been vaccinated. She would share the mystification of the following tweet:
My mom (nearly 88) and I attended what was supposed to be a 100-person Bat Mitzvah celebration. The hostesses put “vaccination required” prominently on the invitation. Nonetheless, multiple D.C.-area people guests failed to show up at the last minute because they were sick with COVID. Masks were not required at the gathering, but roughly half of the invulnerable teenagers attending wore masks (for four hours straight, while dancing, etc.) while only one or two of the older people, all enthusiastic Democrats (and therefore voters for politicians who order mask-wearing), wore masks. For privacy’s sake, I don’t want to show the kids, but here’s an adult with a rainbow mask:
My favorite photo from the trip is this Toyota Sienna with a “MINIVAN” vanity plate:
Related:
now that everyone in D.C. has COVID-19, the public health experts who live there are willing to think the unthinkable: “What Sweden Got Right About COVID” (Washington Monthly, 4/19/2022)
from the same date, “Correlation Between Mask Compliance and COVID-19 Outcomes in Europe”: Surprisingly, weak positive correlations were observed when mask compliance was plotted against morbidity (cases/million) or mortality (deaths/million) in each country (Figure 3). … While no cause-effect conclusions could be inferred from this observational analysis, the lack of negative correlations between mask usage and COVID-19 cases and deaths suggest that the widespread use of masks at a time when an effective intervention was most needed, i.e., during the strong 2020-2021 autumn-winter peak, was not able to reduce COVID-19 transmission. Moreover, the moderate positive correlation between mask usage and deaths in Western Europe also suggests that the universal use of masks may have had harmful unintended consequences.
D.C.’s most powerful politician says “everyone encouraged to wear a mask all the time”:
