MARYLAND TACOMAS

from the little i saw of maine last weekend, I loved it there too

This is the weirdness of Washington state, though - all of these photos are from WA (not my pics):



The Hoh Rain Forest records an average of almost 12 feet of rain every year. Some parts of WA get less than 8" rain yearly. Some parts have tumbleweeds rolling across the highways and all that.



While some of the coast of WA is uninspiring, a solid half is gorgeous.



San Juan Islands. Orca. neat stuff.



North Cascades.



(that's not me in the pic, but the mountain looks good too) South/central Cascades



Politics aside, this is literally the biggest ashhole in the state




Central WA



Eastern WA



Also Eastern WA



Also eastern WA

@turbodb has incredible trips within WA if folks are interested - https://adventuretaco.com/tripstate/washington/

 

I'm speaking from purely a 'beautiful place' perspective. The other stuff you mention - no disagreements from me. For the poors, the normal-wage-earners, the whole west coast feels unlivable and that's sad for me on two parts. First part is, Sad I didn't keep the house I bought in WA in 2000. I would have quadrupled my investment. Second part, related to the first, I am now priced-out of my hometown.

 

Obviously crime is everywhere but I was recently reading a article about the tremendous increase of crime in Washington state in just the past few years. I agree it's a beautiful state, but like California, their politics is damaging the quality of life for the hardworking tax paying citizens. It's truly sad what's happening in alot of our major cities today. I recently read that NY city has installed crack pipe vending machines on their streets, imo that's just ridiculous! I'm surprised Baltimore city hasn't done the same. I'll just keep myself up here on the mountain lol.

 

Talking about the increase in crime out west….When I was driving across the flyover states last month headed to Montana, I went into one of the gas stations during a pit stop to get food. The girl at the cash registered asked where I was from and I said Maryland and headed to Montana. She was like “oh don’t go past there, it’s real bad in Washington and Oregon. Everything you own will get stolen”. It was kind of funny but also sad at the same time.

We did consider pushing past Montana to Idaho but time constraints stopped us. I have family in Washington State so I have been there before.

 

Yeahhhhh Washington is gorgeous, you're not wrong. I'd love to live there but I don't think we'd be able to survive employment-wise

 

You'd need probably $150k/year to live marginally well in Western WA - just based off the cost of housing. it's worse there than here in harford county.







We can call that $5000/month in house + utilities.


Getting paid bi-weekly, before any 401k deductions, health care deductions - just going of taxes,



Means more than half your take-home income is going to the house. And that may not be a bad thing, except that house is a piece of shit.

 

Driving to Deep Creek yesterday I have a better idea on location of the greenish pavement. I68 both directions on the west side of sidling hill for a while. Also WB by the Hancock exit.

That’s cool. My brother lives on S Curley. It’s a neat area. Not for me but it’s still fun to visit.

thanks! That’s pretty cool.

 

All that green reminds me of a joke: What do you call a Irishman who cannot be directly shot? Rick O'Shea.

 

Interesting! I haven’t been out that way in a while so that explains why I haven’t seen it.

 

Fear mongering.

There are safe places in all states.

Would I willingly leave my vehicle parked in San Fran overnight? NO.

But at the same time, I also wouldn’t leave it parked in much of Chicago. Or Harlem. Or …

Plenty of places in CA where your stuff should be perfectly safe, or at least as safe as your norm in Maryland.

 

Yep I agree, I’ve been through much of California over the years as well.

 

On the green pavement...asphalts and concretes are using more recycled material or byproducts now that can change the color. In asphalt its common to get reddish coloring from iron, especially out west, but wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of furnace slag that made it greenish. Other possibility is that recycled green glass aggregates were mixed in.

 

Interesting. A lot of the pavement on 68 is actually a pink/reddish tint. I thought that’s just how that faded. The green was newer I could tell.

 

wyoming:

 

Looks a little too crowded there

 

Looks a little too paved. I prefer my roads like this.

 

Damn that’s red. And cool

 

Morning MD!

 

Morning everyone

 

Howdy