The First Four Days

This post is being published on Friday morning. Donald Trump has been president for all of four days. 96 hours. That’s all. Seriously. A lot has happened over that time, so I’m going to share some thoughts and opinions on the first few days of the Trump administration.

I’m not going to comment on the pardoning of nearly all of the January 6th rioters, even those found guilty of assaulting officers. This is a big win for Antifa who I heard was behind the whole thing. I’m also not going to comment on the executive order to ban birthright citizenship. The 14th amendment wasn't even one of the Bill of Rights, and the only part of the constitutional amendments that are important are the first ten.

Instead, let’s look at some other actions that may not have received adequate attention.

Trump signed an executive order requiring the United States to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. This is clearly going to bring down the cost of groceries. And sure, media companies might need to start calling this body of water the Gulf of America, but that's like telling Pittsburghers to call Heinz Field the current name of Acrisure Stadium. My question is why stop there? Change the name of the state of New Mexico too! Pittsburgh’s Mexican War Streets should now be the American War Streets. Quarterback Michael Vick had an alias of Ron Mexico. It’s Ron America now! 

The Department of Defense is sending 1,500 troops to the southern border. Not widely publicized is that Trump is also ordering troops to the North Carolina border. Anyone who visits the rest stop/tourist trap South of the Border in South Carolina is not welcome in North Carolina, regardless of immigration and citizenship status.

Trump is ordering all federal employees to return to the office. While this impacts federal employees across the country, this is a bigger deal in places like Washington DC. Sure, it will take some people 2+ hours each day to commute (when they could use even half of that time to work from home), but the real reason behind this action is a little-known fact that Trump is a huge proponent of public transportation. Trump took the subway everyday when he lived in New York. Ridership has been down on the Washington-areas buses and trains significantly since COVID, and he wants to Make Metro Great Again!

Finally, just before inauguration, Donald and Melania Trump released the cryptocurrencies $TRUMP and $MELANIA also known as Trumpcoin and Melaniacoin. This is clearly a fundraising idea to help pay for the devastating destruction caused by Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and Tennessee and the wildfires in southern California. Or maybe to help offset some of the proposed tax cuts. Seems like selling cryptocurrencies is much more effective than a bake sale. I applaud the president and first lady for creating these coins to help the country as I'm sure that they wouldn't use the office of the presidency for their own financial gain. 

Photos by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images and Saul Loeb/AP

Vanessa Carlton and The Proclaimers Are Liars

With our mom passing away a few months ago, my brother and I put her home up for sale. Part of this process included cleaning out her place, so last week, we went through her home for likely the last time. We donated some items to a breast cancer charity and others to family friends who will use it to support other organizations. We also threw away a lot of toiletries and other items. It's amazing how many pairs of reading glasses she owned. (These got donated.) We found some fun personal items and pictures and loaded them into her car and drove up north.

Before writing about the road trip, here are a few pictures we found from my younger days. (I'm on the left in both pictures.)

My mom also saved cards from the last 50 years or so. Many cards from my dad included the phrase, I love you more today than yesterday but not as much as tomorrow. Try getting this song out of your head now!

On to the drive.

There is an arms race in South Carolina on interstate 95. There are dozens of billboards advertising Buc-ee's in Florence and South of the Border in Dillon immediately south of the North Carolina-South Carolina border. And Buc-ee's is the clear winner.

I had my first experience at Buc-ee's this trip and was completely overwhelmed. There are dozens of gas pumps outside and thousands of square feet of retail space inside. If you've never been, it's a combination of the non-restaurant portion of Cracker Barrel (on steroids) along with maybe Costco. There are pre-made brisket sandwiches, hundreds of various Buc-ee's merchandise, an entire section for jerky, and every type of snack food you could imagine...while you're surrounded with about 1,000,000 of your closest friends. While I should have used the much discussed clean bathrooms, I just needed to get out. Maybe I'll try again when it's less crowded at 5:00AM on a Tuesday morning! Meanwhile, driving past South of the Border, the place looked like a ghost town. We didn't stop, but we also didn't see anyone on the grounds and only saw a handful of cars in the parking lot. Maybe the place gets more crowded at other times. Like on Tuesdays at 5:00AM instead of a Saturday afternoon.

We stopped at Zaxbys for lunch along the way. Although I did not order the Mr. Beast meal, I made sure to take this picture just to make my kids jealous. I mean, I didn't meet Mr. Beast. Just took a picture of a cardboard cutout! They were jealous.

I'd like to thank the Hampton Inn & Suites in Brunswick, Georgia for being there. Nice hotel, spacious rooms, breakfast included, and right off the highway. Good place to stop after 7 hours.

My brother and I decided to play the license plate game where we tracked the number of license plates by state. Driving from Florida to Virginia, we saw plates from 34 states, DC, and five Canadian provinces. My brother claimed to see two more states (Delaware and Vermont) after dropping me off. In case you are wondering, we did NOT see plates from Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Iowa, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Made it home after 27 hours and just over 1,000 miles. No one is walking 1,000 miles to fall down at your door or to just see you tonight!

Interstate 95 Road Trip

I mentioned recently that we passed a funeral procession while driving on Interstate 95 near Cape Canaveral National Cemetery in Mims, Florida. I also wrote that this was part of our first family vacation in two years. (The passing of a funeral procession was an unexpected part of the trip.) What I didn't include is that we spent a lot of time driving on I-95. And by a lot, I mean A LOT.

I think it's really easy to forget sometimes just how big the United States is. I mean, sure, if you look at a map, California is far away from New York, but it's one thing to fly from the East Coast to the West Coast and quite another to drive hundreds of miles...especially with three kids. Here are some observations from driving from Northern Virginia to Hilton Head, South Carolina to South Florida and back to Virginia.

* Until this trip, I was unfamiliar with Law Tigers, America's Motorcycle Lawyers. I passed plenty of their billboards on the drive, and all I thought of every time I saw one was Tony the Tiger being a lawyer. 

Tony The Tiger in a courtroom: Your honor, if you rule in favor of my client, that would be grrrrrreat!

* We passed a billboard in Richmond for The Joel Bieber Law Firm. I wonder how many clients ask if he's related to Justin Bieber.  

* If they could, my kids would eat chicken tenders/nuggets at every meal. No matter where we stopped, they had chicken tenders. While I'm on the topic of chicken, I don't think Zaxby's gets enough credit for being a terrific restaurant. It's probably because most locations are in the southeastern US and you only tend to see commercials while watching the ACC Network. I just learned that there is a Zaxby's about 20 minutes from me, and I don't know why I'm not a regular customer.

* Speaking of fast food restaurants, we passed hundreds during the trip, but there were no Long John Silver's. That is the reason why this country is falling apart!

Well, that or maybe the guy driving this van, who I'm sure is a kind and reasonable person.

* There are a group of truck stops in North Carolina called Big Boy's. Based on the location of the apostrophe, I guess there is one big boy and not a group of big boys.  

* Much of the drive is the same. Miles and miles of tree-lined highways. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, you go over beautiful Lake Marion in South Carolina. It's such a shocking and unexpected difference in scenery. And then, it's back to tree-lined highways.

* If you're driving on 95 through North Carolina and have an extra 45-60 minutes, I recommend visiting the Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park in Wilson, NC. While the entire story is on the Whirligig website, the late Simpson created dozens of "Whirligigs" out of recycled metals. The city created a downtown park and pavilion for these sculptures, and it's a cool little area to walk around. Unfortunately, the air was completely still when we visited, so we didn't see the sculptures move with the wind. 

* We also didn't get to visit the "Treat Yo' Self Bakery" just down the street from Whirligig Park since they were closed for the day. I hope that Michael Schur and the folks at Parks & Recreation are okay with the bakery name. 

* I have never been to Savannah, so I had a brilliant plan to break up the Florida to Virginia drive by staying overnight in the "Hostess City of the South." The day before leaving, I looked up hotels in the Savannah area and found that just about everything was sold out. The only exception was what appeared to be a really nice hotel in downtown Savannah which cost about $500 or 60,000 Hilton Honors points. That wasn't going to happen. I ended up booking a hotel in Manning, SC instead. This turned out to be a fantastic move. By the time we arrived in Savannah, we definitely wouldn't have had time to enjoy the city or the hotel. When we got to Manning after 9:00PM, the hotel and others in the area were sold out. Making the reservation worked out very well. 

* Can we talk about South of the Border? This cornucopia of activities is located just south of the North Carolina border in South Carolina. South of the Border bills itself as "America's Favorite Highway Oasis."  I'll admit that I have never stopped, but the countless signs on 95 promoting the venue are unavoidable. I truly appreciate the name, the idea, and the fact that it's been around for over 70 years. Now the negative. Some of the ads, which were probably created about 70 years ago, are just racist. Keep the premise, but get rid of the stereotypical Mexican cartoon and images.

* I was really disappointed that the musical group Florida Georgia Line wasn't just hanging out and playing on the Florida-Georgia line. We crossed this border twice, and they weren't there either time. (And in case you think this is just a Florida-Georgia Line thing, I fully expect to see Boston in Boston, Chicago in Chicago, etc. Europe in Europe or Asia in Asia might be a stretch though.)

* I'm fascinated by the Roanoke Rapids Theatre about 15 minutes south of Virginia-North Carolina border. It's just a beautiful building seemingly in the middle of no where. I'd love to see a show there someday. 

Total mileage driven on this 15-day trip: 2336.2 miles

Total miles driven in the car in the 15 months prior to the trip: 3939 miles