Random Thoughts From The Road

[Ruger]

This thread is for observations, oddities, and short philosophical essays pertaining to on-road and off-road travels. Nothing else, please.

Today I returned from a 3350 mile round trip to the San Juan Range of the Colorado Rockies to climb "14ers" with my daughter. Together we climbed Handies, Uncompahgre, and Redcloud Peaks and she also climbed Sunshine Peak. The Raptor was absolutely inperterbable on and off road. It'll pull any grade, overcome any obstacle, and pass any vehicle at speed. Total combined mileage was 15.9 mpg, most of that 70+ Interstate travel but that also includes four off-road trips of varying lengths, durations, and difficulties.

I will serialize the observations that I made on the trip...

* American entrepreneurs will set up shop anywhere. I saw a couple of girls selling home made cookies from a coffee table set up next to a dirt Jeep trail deep in the Uncompahgre National Forest at an altitude over 10,000 feet. They seemed to be doing well, too, because people were stopping to buy cookies from them at 6:00 o'clock on a weekday morning. The president and the congress can do what they like, but the American economy does not belong to them. It actually belongs to people like those two little girls.

* A so called "Safety Corridor" is a road through completely vacant New Mexico high desert on which the speed limit is arbitrarily reduced and doubled fines for speeding are threatened.

 

[Ruger]

* You have heard the statment, "Perception is reality." It's a quaint little aphorism meant to convey the concept that how a person perceives reality is more important than reality itself, and it is utter bunk. This can be demonstrated by way of a very common experience - looking in your rear view mirror.

Let us suppose that you see no one behind you in your rear view mirror. From this perception you might conclude that you are the fastest driver on the road, having left everyone else far behind. But you might also conclude that you are in fact the slowest driver on the road and that everyone else is far ahead of you. Thus you may come to completely opposite and mutually exclusive conclusions from the very same perception.

This proves, of course, that perception is NOT reality and that perception actually has no direct relationship to reality at all. In fact neither conclusion - that you are the fastest or slowest driver on the road - may be reality if your wife or girlfriend has used the rear view mirror to check her makeup.

 

[Ruger]

* Sign on a church marquee in the middle of a cornfield in Lauderdale County Alabama:

"HOLINESS OR HELL."

OK, 7 or 8 points out of 10 for enthusiasm, but several thousand points off for marketing strategy.

 

[Ruger]

* Picture of American Desire: A man with his hands and nose pressed against the front window of a Harley-Davidson dealership that hasn’t yet opened for the day or has closed for the day. (Observed in Muscle Shoals, Al and Amarillo, TX on the same day.)

 

[Ruger]

* “DRIVE FRIENDLY” – A road sign on deserted US-385 in the middle of nowhere in west Texas. A sign like that would have bullet holes in it if it was in West Los Angeles instead of west Texas, but it sure is a nice thought.

* “PRAYER TOWN" – An official marker on US-385 in the middle of the west Texas desert. There’s a sign facing either direction so that you see it no matter which way you're going, but the area is absolutely vacant desert. There is no evidence that there is much prayer activity going on there, now or ever. However a Google search turns up a convent of Catholic nuns at PO Box 64 / 404 Holy Way, Prayer Town, Texas 79010-0064. I have to tell you that from what I saw there’s no 403 or 405 Holy Way. There’s nothing there. These are evidently invisible nuns hidden away in a stealth convent.

 

[Ruger]

• *** adult stores in Arkansas advertise that they are open 24 hours a day, but why are they open during normal business hours? It’s hard to imagine a ****** emergency that occurs between 9 AM and 5 PM. (But then I am nearly 57 years old.)

• The disk jockeys of FM 98.7 state proudly, “Broadcasting from a dumpy little building in beautiful downtown Amarillo.” I wonder what my boss would think if I told the world that I do program analysis from a dirty, ten year old cubicle in a poorly ventilated government office building on beautiful Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. Uh-oh. Maybe I'm about to find out!

 

[Ruger]

Going nortbound on I-25 as you cross the state line into Colorado you will observe a sign that says, "LEAVING NEW MEXICO." Underneath that it says, "HASTA LA VISTA." One must wonder who that sign is meant for and what it really means.

 

[Rat]

* “DRIVE FRIENDLY” – A road sign on deserted US-385 in the middle of nowhere in west Texas. A sign like that would have bullet holes in it if it was in West Los Angeles instead of west Texas, but it sure is a nice thought.

* “PRAYER TOWN" – An official marker on US-385 in the middle of the west Texas desert. There’s a sign facing either direction so that you see it no matter which way you're going, but the area is absolutely vacant desert. There is no evidence that there is much prayer activity going on there, now or ever. However a Google search turns up a convent of Catholic nuns at PO Box 64 / 404 Holy Way, Prayer Town, Texas 79010-0064. I have to tell you that from what I saw there’s no 403 or 405 Holy Way. There’s nothing there. These are evidently invisible nuns hidden away in a stealth convent.

They got "Raptured" !

 

[Ruger]

* In his “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series of books, author Douglas Adams makes several points about the difficulties associated with the infinite dimensions of the universe. For example, if the universe is infinite then there can be no imports because there is nowhere from which imports could be imported. There can be no exports for the very same reasons. In fact there can be no money, since the average amount of money in any one place in an infinite universe is close enough to zero as makes no difference. Again, for the same reason there can be no economy. There can be no rain because if the universe is infinite there is no up from which the rain can fall. The same logic eliminates the possibility of snow, hail, sleet, dew and even fog. And so forth. It’s pretty whimsical, but it’s fun and it does lead to further thought.

Extrapolating this reasoning to its inevitable and logical conclusion, there can be no people in the universe because the average population at any one point in a universe with an infinite number of points must be zero. Likewise, life. Likewise, everything. An infinite universe must necessarily be empty. But, of course, it isn’t. Therefore it is perfectly logical to conclude that the universe is not infinite. This necessarily means that there is something - or somethings - outside the universe. What could they be but other universes?

Now this introduces more difficult problems than the infinite universe concept. We like to think that God created the universe. It’s handy, you know? One infinite God, one infinite universe. But if the universe is not infinite and is simply one universe among many, who created the rest of them? One way or another, the one God – one universe concept is a gonner. Multiple Gods is unthinkable to modern man – we got rid of Zeus, Thor, and Mercury millennia ago – so we stick to our one God – one universe concept despite the fact that it’s logically impossible.

If we stick with one God, then we have left to us one alternative: God created many universes besides our own. How many, one might ask. Well, our current (I am avoiding the use of the term “modern” here with fierce determination) understanding of God is that He is infinite and does things accordingly. He is infinitely good, infinitely great, infinitely loving, infinitely wise, and so on in an infinite fashion. Taking that as a basis, one might conclude that the number of universes that God created is infinite as well. And then one might wonder why. Well, maybe it’s just natural for an infinite God to do things in an infinite way. Or maybe He did it “for the sport of it.” Or perhaps there’s more for an infinite God to love in an infinite number of universes. I’m sure we’ll all find out some day.

 

[Madcowranch]

* In his “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series of books, author Douglas Adams makes several points about the difficulties associated with the infinite dimensions of the universe. For example, if the universe is infinite then there can be no imports because there is nowhere from which imports could be imported. There can be no exports for the very same reasons. In fact there can be no money, since the average amount of money in any one place in an infinite universe is close enough to zero as makes no difference. Again, for the same reason there can be no economy. There can be no rain because if the universe is infinite there is no up from which the rain can fall. The same logic eliminates the possibility of snow, hail, sleet, dew and even fog. And so forth. It’s pretty whimsical, but it’s fun and it does lead to further thought.

Extrapolating this reasoning to its inevitable and logical conclusion, there can be no people in the universe because the average population at any one point in a universe with an infinite number of points must be zero. Likewise, life. Likewise, everything. An infinite universe must necessarily be empty. But, of course, it isn’t. Therefore it is perfectly logical to conclude that the universe is not infinite. This necessarily means that there is something - or somethings - outside the universe. What could they be but other universes?

Now this introduces more difficult problems than the infinite universe concept. We like to think that God created the universe. It’s handy, you know? One infinite God, one infinite universe. But if the universe is not infinite and is simply one universe among many, who created the rest of them? One way or another, the one God – one universe concept is a gonner. Multiple Gods is unthinkable to modern man – we got rid of Zeus, Thor, and Mercury millennia ago – so we stick to our one God – one universe concept despite the fact that it’s logically impossible.

If we stick with one God, then we have left to us one alternative: God created many universes besides our own. How many, one might ask. Well, our current (I am avoiding the use of the term “modern” here with fierce determination) understanding of God is that He is infinite and does things accordingly. He is infinitely good, infinitely great, infinitely loving, infinitely wise, and so on in an infinite fashion. Taking that as a basis, one might conclude that the number of universes that God created is infinite as well. And then one might wonder why. Well, maybe it’s just natural for an infinite God to do things in an infinite way. Or maybe He did it “for the sport of it.” Or perhaps there’s more for an infinite God to love in an infinite number of universes. I’m sure we’ll all find out some day.