Category: Uncategorized

Got to the site of the Battle of Little Big Horn only to be disappointed. This was the first casualty of the government shutdown. So, not much to say except that if I had to miss this site due to a shutdown which the Democrats stupidly caused, so be it. I’m glad the GOP isn’t giving into their demands. They’re like Hamas!

On to Three Forks, Montana. Never been to Montana. All I can say at this point is that it’s BEAUTIFUL!

How’s this for starting your morning! I’ll just have to watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind again!

From Devils Tower I drove to Sheridan, WY where I stopped in to see an old client of mine! (From 40 years ago, I was Roy Weatherby’s banker when Weatherby was located in South Gate (LA) California.

On to Three Forks, Montana tomorrow!

There are two stories for today, well, maybe three.

Story 1 – The weather was absolutely spectacular.

Story 2 – The speed limit up here in South Dakota is 80 mph! It is also windy as hell! I now understand why there are so many wind turbine farms up here, but they’re still and eyesore/blight on the landscape and half of them aren’t working, a quarter of them are turning (on electricity, not wind!!!) and the balance is providing how much power???? And for whom???? Now, imagine flying down the road at 80 mph in an RV and one of those wind gusts comes along. Long story short, there is absolutely NO relaxing driving here…it’s white knuckle all the way – taxing on the nerves and exhausting!

Story 3 – I felt like a Mormon pioneer being infested with grasshoppers. They’re EVERYWHERE. I stepped out of the RV and they were jumping around like rice frying in a pan! Hudson thought they were fun to try to catch, but even he tired of them after a while. Oh, and they’re not the only bugs around… there are common, everyday flies in all sizes, stink bugs, ladybugs, wasps and a bunch of bugs I’ve never seen before. Like the people around here though, they’re all friendly and don’t really bother us much.

Tomorrow headed to Mt. Rushmore, my first target stop. It’s supposed to be overcast and cold, but at least I will have seen it and been there!

Think I bit off more than I can comfortably chew with over 300 miles per day. With stops for stretches and to drain Hudson’s radiator (and sometimes transmission!) everything takes longer than what Google Maps says! But we made it to Champaign, IL where I popped in on an old high school chum and his wife (they own a family farm in Champaign and just happened to be there – they live in Maryland!) Getting there was a chore! It rained cats (no dogs or Hudson would get upset) all day long. So driving 70 mph among 18 wheelers in the FOG and the Rain…..thank you God for keeping us safe!

Today was the longest day yet. We’re west of Des Moines, Iowa. Not a cloud in the sky today and the landscape is that of freshly harvested cornfields marred (maybe I should say scarred) by wind farms, half of the turbines inoperative…What a waste of money and what a blight on the otherwise serene beauty of the Great Plains!

Note to self – the gravel coming off the truck in front of you and hitting the windshield was NOT gravel! It was BUGS! Godzillions of them of every size shape and variety! What’s that old question…would you rather be the bug or the windshield? It’s going to take me 1/2 hour tomorrow morning at a truck stop to get them off!

Hudson is going a little nuts with all the sites, sounds and SMELLS! He can’t get enough of it all!

Gotta crash…gained an hour today so am now Central Time.

PS how’s the above for a harvest moon? Taken around 9PM on October 7th in Champaign.

“In search of American Goodness.”

Some of you have asked, “Where are you going?” Here’s my prospective itinerary:

Total Mileage: ~7,600 Total Driving Hours: ~132 Total Days: ~30-31

I’m going to take the month of October to road trip around the US (see map above) in an RV with my dog ‘Hudson” – a bucket list trip to see some of the great wonders of America, including many of the National Parks.

But the trip is also to get the hell away from the Northeast and meet REAL people, traditional people, God-fearing people, good-natured people, and sample and hopefully savor what’s left of some of the sights and sounds of the America I grew up with. I fear they’ve been so diminished by the Leftist orthodoxy and anti-American rot that seems to have permeated so much of our society I’d better get out there before either we have a civil war or we slip down the remainder of the slippery slope to oblivion. (Even though the tide may already be turning, it’s going to take some time to rid ourselves of the cancer.)

Anyhow, I’ve planned to keep in touch via Satellite (Starlink, thank you Elon), and I’m hopeful my iPhone will be able to grab a signal at least while I’m on highways so those of you who are my personal friends, family and acquaintances, please feel free to reach out.

I hope to see that God really has blessed America and pray He’ll continue to do so, the crazies and leftist idiots notwithstanding.

Wish me luck!

Treadstone

I monitor the news continuously and that includes the “news” reported by talking heads. I’m disgusted by what passes as “reporting” these days…

1. There’s no such thing as an honest reporter/journalist anymore. (Victor Davis Hanson, maybe Katherine Herridge, a few others being a handful of exceptions)
2. We live in a “Post Truth” world. Don’t believe ANYTHING, from ANYBODY. The only way to survive and prosper in this new world is to become a dedicated SKEPTIC.
3. What drives “reporting” is $$$$$! “If it bleeds it leads” was never more true. Doesn’t matter whether it’s Fox News or Breitbart, MSDNC or CNN….it’s all about attracting eyeballs, thus advertising revenue.
4. The discussions about Globalism, Climate Fascism, Gender, Deportations, Democracy are all just that: DISCUSSIONS. The only thing that REALLY matters is what is happening to YOU, and YOU are unique and have circumstances, concerns, preferences that may be similar to some, but not identical to ANYONE. Thus, THE DEFICIT (for example) impacts you differently from the person next to you. Forget what the talking heads are saying. Look at EVERYTHING through your OWN LENSES!
5. Ask yourself, “How has the DEBT and/or DEFICIT affected ME?” The pundits who squeal that the world is ending due to tariffs or deportations or deficits or debt or any other headline issue put forward by the media are simply all wrong. The world is NOT ending. Change and disruption and chaos is GOOD if it exposes and roots out intractable problems.
6. Here’s a truth you can relie on because you can see it in your own life: “A rising tide lifts all boats.” Instead of focusing on the LOSERS, we must focus on the WINNERS. Instead of the unproductive “victims”, we need to watch the productive growth creators.
7. GROWTH solves virtually all problems. Deficits/debt…remember what Reagan inherited? Remember the hand-wringing as he tuned out the leftists and listened to Jack Kemp and pushed tax CUTS instead of the tax INCREASES demanded by the chattering class? How quickly did we emerge from the depths of economic despair and experience the 80’s BOOM after the tax CUTS?
8. And once again, the notion that tax cuts have to be PAID FOR is simply ludicrous! Think about that for a second. Taxes are transfers of money from the working to this amorphous thing called government. It’s not THEIR money, it’s OURS! Why in the world should we PAY THEM more to get back our money??? One can argue that tax cuts, ceteris paribus, must be OFFSET somehow to keep the budget equation balanced, but it’s not by PAYING for them. It’s about finding a way to reduce the spending on the other side of the equation OR, increase revenues. The latter happens with GROWTH! It’s simple arithmetic. But the pundits conflate and confuse the issue to support arguments that favor their leftist or rightist postions. It’s insidious! SO DON’T LISTEN TO THEM!

You have to hand it to Trump, Vance, and a few of their cabinet members/staff who tell it like it is. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if everyone said what they really think like Tom Homan does instead of continuously calculating the political ramifications of what they’re saying?

Keep your seat belts fastened. History is being made right in front of us and we’ll look back and be glad we were there for it!