One of the things that Ruthie and I discussed a fair bit
while on our road trip was the prevalence of the little blue and yellow i. Every town that we have entered – not just on
this particular trip – has had a well-marked location where you can find information
about the town you’ve just entered.
Allow me to caveat this with the fact that it must actually be something
of a town, as some of the bumps in the road we’ve passed, might not actually
classify as towns, but definitely had no i.
Naturally, some information locations are bigger than others: some are
whole buildings, and some are just little billboards. But mostly we’ve seen staffed buildings, with
someone always willing to provide some assistance, advice, or just some small
talk.
We’ve agreed that this is something just not as common in
America, and that’s just a bit sad. It
seems that gone are the days of the epic road trips. Everyone just seems to drive to and from work
and fly everywhere else. My theory is
that the retired generation in this country caravans. While the US is plagued with snowbirds,
Australia is riddled with geriatric RV owners/drivers. In fact, the couple we ran into at the
sculpture garden had bought a trailer and was spending six months driving Oz.
Again, theory only, but my guess is that because
Australia’s taken some time to provide for the road tripping pensioners, others
have followed suit [actually, it really does seem to be pretty common to find
Aussies who genuinely enjoy camping].
Meanwhile, the US has spent money building up 10-lane superhighways, and
thus killed Scenic Route 66 and the road trip beauty that goes with.
-EP
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