America needs to get out of the house and airports and take a road trip

One of the things about taking the car for our vacation is that it gave me the opportunity to really see parts of the country, parts that you would never see otherwise. Small towns, towns that you may just drive through, some you stop in to get gas or food or both. See the farms and ranches, the places where people really work. And seeing all that gave me an even greater appreciation and understanding of how bad things are in this country.

We saw an odd dichotomy on our trip. One day we were in small town Texas, where most of the buildings on the main drive are abandoned, empty. Where people struggle to make ends meet, working as painters, plumbers, framers, and grocery clerks, living in small run down houses, eating the food from the gardens because it is the cheapest way to eat. The next day we were in a mall in an upscale suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth, watching families splurge on taking their kids to a Lego theme store.

While there were places like that Lego store, it felt like for every place like that I saw 3 or 4 abandoned, closed businesses. And on the drive I saw a part of the country suffering through it's worst drought in 50+ years. We saw some scorched land, and 2 days after we got back the highway we drove on was shut down by a wildfire. And the highways, while they were generally maintained, were definitely showing signs of wear and tear, and there were not a lot of road crews at work.

I think it is easy to get a feeling that things aren't really all that bad when you never leave the house. Learn about new vacation spots from cable TV, watch people remodel homes, and the only disasters you are aware of are ones that make the evening news. And you can get the same thing if you when you travel you only take the plane, and fly over all those areas that are suffering.

I think that is what our country is missing right now. People are only getting their knowledge of the country from cable TV, and when they travel they spend their time in just the nice areas. A great example of this was in San Antonio, we were in downtown, saw the Alamo, then took a short walk on the River Walk, and if you stayed there you would have thought the economy was going great guns. But if you walked 3 blocks away you ran into run down, abandoned buildings.

So before you think that the greatest problems facing this country are the Federal Deficit, Gay Marriage, and Congressmen who can't control their urges on the Internet, get out of your house, get in your car and leave your pleasant little suburb, and see what is really happening. There are far bigger problems out there, but we as a country will only ever tackle them if we accept and see them instead of ignoring them. We can have a set of priorities where we spend $300 on a kids birthday party while at the same time just covering our broken windows with cardboard. Or we can fix the windows first, and just serve cupcakes in the park. It's a question of priorities, and who we listen to and see.