Nope, sky is still there

I heard that the sky is falling so I decided to take a look.

But I return home disappointed.

Expecting to travel over barely passable roadways through dangerous, crumbling cities filled with angry, disenfranchised Americans, my wife and I found instead a country little changed from what we saw two years ago on our last 6,000-mile road trip to Florida and back.

Oh, there were some differences.

We saw more “Now hiring” signs than ever before. And not just at fast food restaurants and convenience stores. Toyota was seeking workers at a plant in Indiana. So was Carhartt at a factory in Kentucky. Wal-Mart was hiring at a regional warehouse in Wisconsin.

Gasoline was also considerably cheaper than it had been last time, probably part of the reason traffic was so heavy. And that traffic was, for the most part, made up of just one person per vehicle. It appears car-pooling has yet to catch on and Americans still enjoy the luxury of traveling by themselves in vehicles designed to carry at least four.

But despite all the traffic, the roads from here to there remain in relatively good shape. Good enough shape that most everyone was driving at least 80 miles per hour, regardless of the posted speed limit. There seems to be a feeling among drivers in this country that the heavier the traffic, the less chance anyone gets pulled over for speeding. It’s a school of thought I readily embraced.

The biggest change we noticed this year was that everywhere we went was more crowded than before. The beaches were swarming, the shopping centers bustling, the restaurants packed.

We expected to see “Going out of business” and “Closed” signs on businesses all across the country due to government overreach, but we didn’t.

And we never feared for our safety. Not once did I have to pull the .38 and shoot anyone. Not even in the seedier parts of town, which I have always enjoyed visiting.

There do remain some seedy places across the country, but they appeared no seedier than ever. I was bummed.

It’s possible I was lied to in an election year, told things are worse than they actually are. I certainly didn’t find the chaos, see the rampant poverty or suffer the discrimination of being a white Christian male that I expected.

It was all quite the opposite.

In fact if this is what it’s like to go to hell in a handbasket I say “bring it on, Chicken Little,” I’m still enjoying the ride.

Parker Heinlein is at

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