Free State Observer

People sometimes ask me if I miss California, and my response is generally “no, not at all”. That’s not entirely true; there are things I miss, or remember fondly. But it doesn’t really make me sad, because there are an equal or greater number of things in New Hampshire that I have come to love. So far I have run into very few things I enjoyed in California that I haven’t found a decent surrogate for here.

First on my list would have to be Carl’s Jr., my favorite fast food burger chain. Apparently there used to be one (just one!) in NH, but it must have closed down in the not too distant past; one month it was listed on the corporate website, and the next month it wasn’t. I’m embarrassed to admit how many times I drove all the way out to the seacoast and cruised the streets of a particular town, desperately seeking a Bacon Guacamole $6 Burger, before figuring this out. The closest Carl’s Jr (or Hardee’s, as they call it on this side of the Continental Divide) is now in New York State. Woe is me!

Burritos. God told Jose he would “rain bread from heaven”. He provided Burritos, a new food that appeared with the dew each morning as large, white, round pieces of flat bread, filled with a variety of spicy, succulent fillings and rolled into a convenient, easy-to-carry log shape. The Californians were to gather each day the amount of Burritos they needed for that day. No more, no less. Each day God would give them that day’s burritos. They were to trust Him each day for the very food they ate. On the sixth day, He would provide two day’s burritos, so no one would work to gather them on the Sabbath. If one of them was mistrustful, and tried to stock up, their burrito would melt or rot away, or the salsa would lose its picante quality, or the tortilla would tear and spill out the contents, making an inconvenient mess. The Californians steamed, grilled and prepared the burritos several ways. They tasted sweet, like bread stuffed with marinated pork and grilled peppers. Exodus 16 3/4

San Francisco Bay, as viewed from the Marin Headlands, or the peak of Angel Island, or the 22 Fillmore cresting the hill. Provides all of a soul’s daily beauty requirements.

The sea. The other day, while sitting at my desk at work, I was inexplicably overcome by a wave of longing to go to the beach. When I lived in San Francisco, this could be accomplished quite easily by either hopping on a 5 Fulton or my bicycle (San Francisco is only 7 miles wide). Or if I was feeling really spunky, I could hop in the car and drive down to Santa Barbara, Los Angeles or San Diego for a WARM beach. New Hampshire does have an ocean front, 18 whole miles of it. I had hoped to live near it when I relocated. While I have lived in a lot of different places, most of them have been close to the ocean. I was even born on a U.S. Naval Air Station; I credit the fact that I am the child of not one, but two, naval officers, and grew up in a household so clean you could serve soup out of the toilet bowl, with making me the reactionary Madisonian I am today (I refer to Oscar, not James). But since I found a great job in Nashua, I didn’t wind up living in the Seacoast region after all. Must make the trek out there soon; I am dying to see a beach covered with snow.

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Female members of the Free State Project are just like other American girls: we talk about our relationships, bitch about our weight, fall in love, break up, get married, get divorced, have babies, go shopping, go to the gym/yoga class, nurse broken hearts, despair over our credit card bills. Some of us are married, some have kids, some have close personal relationships with Jesus, and some of us aren’t/don’t. In addition to all of that, we write legislation, campaign for our friends, run for public office, lead liberty-oriented organizations ranging from dozens to thousands of members, stage public acts of civil disobedience, serve time in jail for standing up for our beliefs, run liberty-oriented websites, and organize freedom-themed events ranging from 1 to 7 days in length.

Yesterday I spent the entire day with some of my fellow female early-movers to New Hampshire. It was a prototypical female Porcupine day: first seven of us went to the Wilson Hill Pistol Club in Manchester to take an NRA Basic Pistol course, taught by another FSP member. Then we peeled off our dirty T-shirts, slipped on feminine tops, and headed over to the Derryfield Country Club to hook up with several more female Porcupines to throw a combined bridal shower/bachlorette party for the fiancee of another FSP member.

Here are some of the topics discussed:

• my new boyfriend is awesome
• my old boyfriend is driving me crazy
• I have *got* to lose this weight
• I wish my boyfriend would lose weight
• I can’t believe how much weight I have gained!!
• I love the teachers (FSP members) at the Montessori school my kids attend
• I got married last month!
• my daughter is getting married!
• I’m getting married next month!!
• renovations on my house are *not* going according to schedule
• we’re going to let the gender of our new baby be a surprise
• my low-carb diet
• can I address the state House of Representatives with my four young kids in tow?
• I’m the state coordinator of the Second Amendment Sisters, and we need more strong women leaders
• I’m working on the schedule for PorcFest, the largest annual gathering of libertarians in the world
• my homeschool bill is currently sitting on the Governor’s desk, waiting to be signed into law

Yep, that about covers it.

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Free State Project migration Day 9 - Thurs. 5/26/05

At every other motel I’d stayed at, I appeared to be the last one to leave in the morning; but in Niagara Falls, the parking lot was still full when I left at around 9:00AM. I’d read about a place that offered a hot breakfast for only 99 cents, but I got a little lost downtown and never found it, so I settled for Starbucks. Holy Toledo. It cost $9.00 for a mocha and a pastry!! And since I hadn’t bothered to convert any currency, I just gave the clerk a ten and let her keep the change. That has got to be the most expensive mocha of my life. The town of Niagara Falls is very touristy, but not nearly as gross as Keystone, South Dakota. I checked out the Hershey store, just for the heck of it. I was very excited about riding the Maid of the Mist by the waterfalls, and it was worth every penny. It was an incredible experience. Going by the American Falls (which are smaller), I was giggling uncontrollably. But going by the Bridal Veil (the more impressive, Canadian falls), I had difficulty breathing. I may even have suffered a minor heart attack; I had a pain in my chest afterwards. It was epic. I have recurring nightmares about tidal waves, so it was kind of freaky being at the foot of an enormous wall of water.

Crossing the border back into the U.S. was significantly easier than crossing into Canada, oddly enough! I showed the guard my passport. He said “What is all this STUFF?” I said I was moving. He asked from where and to where. Then he said “OK!” I half wish I’d worn an Arab headdress, just to cause trouble.

Crossing New York took a good chunk of the day. I cannot believe how much the toll road cost: over $12.00!! Escape from New York: At one point I was running low on gas, but I figured it was no problem, I’d wait a while so I could combine stopping for gas with a bathroom trip. But I misjudged how far apart the rest stops are on the Interstate. My warning light for no gas came on, and I was nowhere near a rest stop. That woke me up. I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and exited at the first opportunity, right before making it to the Massachusetts Turnpike, which wound up taking me into the village of Chatham. I stopped at a gas station, started to fill my tank, and the pump cut off after giving me a mere $0.47 worth of gas. What the hell?! I hung up the gas nozzle and spoke to the clerk, who said I could try again. But the second time, my credit card didn’t work at all. The clerk said I could fill my tank, and then come into the office to pay. So I did that, and in the office, when he tried to run my credit card, it said I was over my limit. I was embarrassed and confused; I didn’t think I was at my limit. Later on, when I had time to tally up my trip expenses, I found that I was NOT over my limit, not even close; I still don’t know why the bank refused the charge. Bastards! Fortunately I had enough cash on me to cover it.

I crossed the border into Massachusetts. Hooray! I could almost taste the free air of New Hampshire! But it started to rain for the first time in days. The traffic became terrible, the worst of the entire trip. At one point it was at a standstill. There was road construction; there were breakdowns; there was standing water on the freeway (which was very frightening). And there were a hell of a lot of Dunkin’ Donuts at the rest stops; I was clearly approaching New Hampshire! I exited at what I thought was the rest stop at the border, hoping to take a photo of the “Welcome to New Hampshire” sign, but either there wasn’t one or I just couldn’t spot it in the dark and the rain. I remember very clearly the song that was playing on the radio, though: “Kickstart My Heart” by Motley Crue. Ah, the music of my youth! I was listening to Rock 101.1, a New Hampshire hard rock station, and they were talking about how they were having a big outdoor rock concert, with fireworks, for free, in Manchester that very weekend. My own personal Welcome party! I had forgotten to charge my cell phone the night before and its battery had died, so I didn’t know if anyone was trying to check up on me and I couldn’t let anyone know that I’d finally made it to New Hampshire. I made it to Manchester, and it was a good thing I’d visited the city recently because I got off course in the dark and the rain but knew how to get to my final destination. I stopped at one of the many, many Dunkin’ Donuts in town for a celebratory Boston Creme, then continued on to my new home.

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Free State Project migration Day 8 - Wed., 5/25/05

I spent this day driving through the “Rust Belt”. And let me tell you, parts of it were pretty rusty. Definitely the ugliest day of driving of my whole trip. There was nothing attractive about the state of Indiana, as far as I could tell (to be fair, I only saw a small part of it). I was pleased that a Guns N’ Roses song came on the radio as I was crossing it, though (Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin’ both come from Indiana). Michigan wasn’t so bad. I’ve known a lot of cool people from Michigan, for some reason. And you’ve got to love a state with a town named “Kalamazoo”. I headed north at Ann Arbor and bypassed the greater Detroit area. Michigan had more roadkill deer than I’d ever seen in my life. I sent loving thoughts to Michael Moore (just kidding) as I passed Flint and headed east towards Canada, which I had never been to. The border guard asked me a lot of questions; I was a bit surprised. Maybe he saw my boxes of STUFF and thought I was smuggling something. I was shocked to find that the speed limit signs all switched to metric in Canada; fortunately, my speedometer lists kilometers as well as miles, or I wouldn’t have had a clue. I tried to follow the speed limit, but that was apparently considered uncool; absolutely everybody was passing me. But for some reason I was really stressed out at the thought of getting a ticket in another country, so I continued to drive slower than average.

Western Ontario was amazingly empty. They have different fast food chains there. I passed a couple of good-sized cities, but there was no traffic to speak of. I didn’t arrive at my destination of Niagara Falls until 10:00PM. My motel (the first one that wasn’t a Motel6) was disappointingly ratty; I’ll bet it was nice when it was new, but my room had not been well-maintained. I had a coffee maker in my room, but was only given DECAF. The outrage!! The air conditioner was a joke; I blasted it all night long and the room never cooled off. The motel restaurant was closed for the night, so I ate leftovers from Chicago that I’d had unrefrigerated in my car for 24 hours, hoping they wouldn’t kill me, then went to sleep.

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Free State Project migration Day 7 - Tues., 5/24/05

Milwaukee is a large city; I felt intimidated dealing with the traffic. It was the first bad traffic I’d experienced since leaving the Bay Area, and I’d gone by some pretty large cities. I went on the free tour of the Miller Brewing Company, which was pretty fun, and provided lots of free beer at the end; more than I felt comfortable drinking in the middle of the day right before getting back in my car, actually. I had gone to Denny’s for breakfast beforehand, officially because I didn’t want to go on the brewery tour on an empty stomach, but secretly because I was thinking about how awesome their pancakes had been a few days before! The tour guide at Miller noted that the brewery is “just like Willie Wonka’s Factory…only, it makes BEER!”

I had scheduled minimal driving on this day, because I wanted to give myself plenty of time to sightsee in Chicago (well, a day, anyway). But the traffic was terrible; it took me twice as long to get there as I had expected. There were very aggressive drivers on the freeway. I parked in a garage downtown that ended up costing $23! I had planned on going on a Duck Tour; the one in Seattle was great. But I failed to find the tour company at its designated location; after asking a few people for help, all of whom were rude and unhelpful, I borrowed a phone book in Starbucks and called the company. It turned out they weren’t operating “this year”, but had failed to note that on their website. Bastards! By this point, it was after 3:00PM. I decided to take a double-decker bus tour instead, since I had seen one of their stops close by. It was very entertaining, and the weather was beautiful. The only bad parts were when we were hit by the wind off the lake; it was like a freaking hurricane. I had to close my eyes and put my fingers in my ears!

After the bus tour, I went to the John Hancock Observatory for the obligatory Ferris Buehller moment. Then I ate dinner at the House of Blues, a restaurant opened by Dan Akroyd and the late John Belushi. The food was excellent and they were going to have live music later in the evening, but I was alone and didn’t want to linger that long. I had planned on reading a magazine while eating, but it was so dark in there, I couldn’t even read the menu! I spent the night in the suburb of Arlington Heights; I figured my car full of STUFF would be safer there than if I stayed closer to downtown.

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Free State Project migration - Day 6, Mon. 5/23/2005

Everyone in Sioux Falls is ancient! I mean, I had noticed in Coeur d’Alene that there were an inordinate number of people of retirement age, but in Sioux Falls, everybody was downright elderly. I visited the Falls downtown, which are in a nice park, and felt out of place because I didn’t have a walker. I noted that the state penitentiary is right in town; how convenient! I walked around downtown a bit; it was very pleasant, and had numerous places to eat al fresco, but there didn’t appear to be any European-style cafes; I had to order coffee in a pizza parlor, and they had no fresh milk or cream, just that disgusting non-dairy creamer stuff which I refuse to imbibe. But I did spot a Starbucks on my way out of town, so I stopped and had a second coffee there.

I proceeded to drive across Minnesota, which is boooooooring! It was all farmland (at least along I-90). The billboards that peppered the SD landscape dropped off precipitously. I did spot the first Dunkin’ Donuts in Minnesota (I was watching for it). I stopped off in the town of Blue Earth to view their 60′ statue of the Jolly Green Giant (no explanation was provided).

Minnesota redeemed itself in my heart by providing one of the highlights of my whole trip: the Spam Museum in Austin. It surpassed my wildest expectations. I didn’t know it was coming; I was driving through the town of Austin, which I had never heard of, and saw a highway billboard that said, in fairly small letters, “the Spam Museum”. And in huge block letters, it said “Come On… It’s Free”. How could I resist? I exited the freeway and doubled back to find the place. I highly recommend it!! A friendly security guard offered to take my picture in front of the museum, which features a statue of pigs (Spam is made of the other white meat, in case you were wondering). The place is huge, with lots of displays about the history of spam and the various incarnations of its marketing strategy. There’s a very entertaining 15-minute film that features people who are really into spam. There’s a guy who wears nothing but Spam-themed T-shirts. There’s a women’s quartet that sings only Spam-related songs. I’m not making this up. I think my favorite part was the Congressman from Austin who forced his fresh-faced aides to cut up Spam into appetizing cubes on toothpicks to serve at a Congressional committee meeting. Mmmmm… Spam! I was completely alone in the theater, but laughed my head off. There was also a cool gift shop with a lot of clever Spam-related items. The Hormel marketing team is clearly not above playing with their own image.

I crossed the Mississippi River and went for a walk alongside it. Very relaxing.

Wisconsin is noticeably greener and has more trees than Minnesota. I spent the night in Milwaukee. They have non-white people in Milwaukee! I don’t think I’d seen any since California. No, that’s not fair; I saw exactly two black people in Montana. The Motel6 was quite possibly the scariest Motel6 I have ever stayed in.

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Free State Project migration Day 5 - Sun 5/22/05

I was very excited about visiting Devils Mountain, and set my alarm clock to get there good and early. Crook County is beautiful; best wishes to Boston T. Party and the Free State Wyoming. I hope they get things going so that I have an excuse to visit the area again! Devils Mountain is quite impressive; I can see why some people are inspired to pray there. It has a sort of magnetism. I walked the paved trail that encircles it, taking lots of pictures. I wished that I had more time to loiter and hike some of the other trails in the park. I noted lots of porcupine paraphernalia in the National Park Service gift shop, and bought several items. In fact, you can see a lot of evidence of real porcupines living in the area; they like to nibble the bark off of trees.

[obligatory reference to Close Encounters of the Third Kind]
After leaving Devils Tower, I stopped for gas. When I started up my engine again, my car radio wouldn’t work. I was quite annoyed, as I had planned on listening to it for most of my drive. But a little while later, it spontaneously started working again! I am not making this up!! This is the only time it has ever done this.
[/obligatory reference to Close Encounters of the Third Kind]

I drove over the border into South Dakota. Thoughts on South Dakota: hot, flat, lots of wild turkeys hanging out by the freeway, more billboards than I’ve ever seen in my life. I stopped in Sturgis and got a souvenir for a motorcycle-obsessed friend. I stopped for BBQ for lunch on the way to Mt Rushmore. The pace of life is very different here; the wait staff talked slowly, and moved slowly; I felt this insane urge to snap my fingers in their faces and shout BIPBIPBIP! They were friendly, though. The BBQ was a bit disappointing, though, and their hot sauce was weak.

The town of Keystone, which is where Mount Rushmore is located, is revolting. If you were trying to design a town that incorporated every possible variety of tourist trap and Fat-American-In-Bermuda-Shorts cliché, you couldn’t do a better job than that town. They also charge $8 to view Mount Rushmore, and don’t honor National Parks passes (which I had). It is impressive, though. The gift shop has everything you could possibly think of with dead presidents plastered on it. One question: Teddy Roosevelt?!

It was a long, boring drive across South Dakota. Aside from the wild turkeys scaring me with their suicidal tendencies to loiter on the freeway, the only notable thing was the advertising for Wall Drug. I know nothing about the place; I assume it’s the drugstore in the town of Wall. But there were so many billboards for it, it was freaky. I’m talking dozens! And some of them said bizarre things like “As featured in the Wall Street Journal”. I couldn’t tell if this was Great Plains humor or what. I refused to give in to their advertising onslaught, so I missed experiencing the epic Wall Drug. During the day, I crossed into the Central Time Zone, where TV shows are on an hour earlier than they are in the rest of the country. That’s kind of weird.

I stopped at a rest stop alongside the Missouri River and took pictures of it and the Lewis and Clark Memorial Bridge at sunset. A mosquito spoiled the moment. There’s another river in SD called the Vermillion River, which I thought was a lovely name. I spent the night in Sioux Falls.

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Free State Project migration Day 4 - Sat., 5/21/05

I continued on across eastern Montana, which is much drier than the western part. I stopped at a state park featuring a Prairie Dog Village. There was nobody else around, but I went ahead and did the honorable thing and wrote them a check for the $2 admission fee and dropped it in the box. I think I was robbed, though; those prairie dogs saw me coming and ran and hid from me and my camera. The wind was absolutely howling, too; I guess they get the same wind in southeastern Montana that Wyoming is famous for.

Close to the Wyoming border, Montana became pretty again. Northern Wyoming is beautiful, with rolling green hills, tons of deer, and cool red highways. I visited the western part of Wyoming last summer and thought it was horribly ugly (except for Yellowstone, of course), but eastern Wyoming is quite nice. I drove through Sheridan, which is a lovely town. It has all the charm of Cody, but seems less fake and touristy. I saw two prairie dogs chasing each other through a parking lot downtown!

I spent the night in Gillette, which I was expecting to be ugly but wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be. All the customer service people in town were teenaged girls and some of them were kind of rude, though. I ate dinner at Applebee’s, which was packed.

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