Family Stories In Virginia-Where To Next-Podcast 638

Short road trips are great. Going away for the weekend is fun. My preference is for much longer trips. Storm Chasing in Missouri. Visiting the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma. Don’t forget Arkansas. Meeting up with my son on his own road trip in Kansas. Visiting old friends in Tennessee. Now in Virginia checking in with family in Family Stories In Virginia-Where To Next-Podcast 638.

Happiness Is A Clean Windshield and A Full Tank Of Gas

There is a sense of peace that only comes from seeing the highway through the windshield. If you happen to be in the mid south, try a couple of the highways I mention in Family Stories In Virginia-Where To Next-Podcast 638. Backroads are always better and some of them are spectacular through Tennessee and Arkansas.

Seeing The Real America

The media is full of locators. This happened in California. That happened in Florida. Atlanta. Chicago. LA. New York City. York PA. The news gives us a sense of the United States as either exclusively urban or hopelessly rural. Travel on the highways and backroads reminds us how vast and actually empty our country is.

Family Stories

One of the missions of this road trip is to visit the hometown of my grandparents and great grandparents, great uncles and aunts and cousins. Most of my life I’ve been hearing apocalyptic stories of coal mining in southern Ohio. I don’t know about your family get togethers but mine are punctuated by confirmations of some of those stories, and guffaws. “Grandpa made that up!” is a common refrain. Time to at least go back to the old village and at least get a sense of the ground. In Family Stories In Virginia-Where To Next-Podcast 638.

Where Did That Happen?

Doing a long road trip? You’re mind will wander. Thoughts will come in and go out just as quickly. Months later you’ll be doing something and a thought and experience will come to mind. You will think, “Where was I when I thought that?”. We don’t always have the time to do this, we don’t travel like this enough, and it is good for the soul to do it. In Family Stories In Virginia-Where To Next-Podcast 638.

Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul

Family Stories In Virginia-Where To Next-Podcast 638

 

Planning First Summer Road Trip-Storm Chasing-Podcast 632

Americans are allowing themselves to disregard most of the news they don’t agree with. Everything is ‘fake news’, unless it tells me what I want to hear. For those addicted, disengaging is nearly impossible. It’s important to realize in a concrete way, there is another world out there. There are many escapes. One of the best is travel. Time to prepare to head out in Planning First Summer Road Trip-Storm Chasing-Podcast 632.

Getting Ready

Planning the trip. The moment before the trip begins is almost as fun as the trip itself. Makes me recall getting ready for camping trips as a boy. Everything laid out on the floor for packing in the back pack. Calling friends and figuring out what everyone was bringing. What we would be cooking over the open fire.

Storm Chasing

This Memorial Day weekend I am Storm Chasing! Many things on this week’s check list. Getting Mobile Podcast Command checked out. Renewing my drivers license. Getting a haircut so I can do my You Tube videos. Loading in the sound board, microphones, the office stuff, and the food. Double and triple checking.

Into The Belly Of The Beast

Some of the underrated but fertile Tornado Chasing areas include Southeastern Iowa, Northeastern Kansas, Eastern Arkansas and Western Texas. Then the standard destinations for Storm Chasers. Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa. We will chase the storm chasers and get an idea of what this tribe is all about these days. In Planning First Summer Road Trip-Storm Chasing-Podcast 632.

Nature’s Summer Show

Storms are obviously bigger than all of us. Uncontrollable. Following these storms takes you through rural America. Two lane roads. Farm roads. Small towns across the Midwest and Mid South. Places made famous during the Bonnie and Clyde era. Places generally forgotten but magnificent in their own way.

It’s All About Anticipation

Join me planning the first three legs of this summer trip, with a hint of what is to come after. This isn’t a vacation. This is how the Bob Davis Podcasts works on the road. No talking heads. No one telling me what to think. Nothing but the open road, a clean windshield and fuel tanks full. (Editor’s Note: A few hours after posting this podcast I realized I referred to the movie ‘Twister‘ as ‘Tornado‘. What was I thinking? Maybe ‘Sharknado‘? LOL)

Sponsored by Brush Studio in the West End, Saint Louis Park

Planning First Summer Road Trip-Storm Chasing-Podcast 632

Podcast 554-Latest Election State By State Polls

Podcast 554-Latest Election State By State Polls. For you political junkies, which includes me, it’s been a month since the last analysis of political polls state by state, and I promised another one at the end of September, 2016. If you want to compare the two state by state poll podcasts to really get a sense of movement check out Podcast 541. I do not intend to analyze the debate. I will not tell you who won the debate. I will not tell you whether people pay attention to the debates. None of the current state by state polls were taken after the debates so they do not reflect the effects on either candidate of the debates. With this in mind, over 80 million people watched the September 26th debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The next state-by-state poll roundup podcast at the end of October will show what effect – if any – the debates may or may not have had. The biggest change between this podcast and the podcast in late August is that there are now more ‘toss up’ states — that is states with poll averages for president within the margin of error. In Podcast 554-State By State Polls, I am drawing on data from Real Clear Politics. Follow the link directly to an interactive electoral map of the United States and follow along, or may your own map. The tightening could be knock on effects from Clinton’s bad week of September 11th, or it could just be due to more polls closer to the election, when respondents start paying attention and are more likely to give responses. You’ll have to listen for my conclusions about whether more toss up states mean anything, but for the most part, both candidates are within the margins in 2012 and 2008 in the states they lead, or are trading leads. The big questions remain Florida, Ohio, Pennsyvania, Virginia, and to a lesser extent North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, and western states like Colorado, Arizona and Nevada. This is a state by state electoral election, so the national polls don’t matter, and the snap polls on who won the debate don’t matter. All that matters is the candidate’s performance, and get out the vote efforts for them in key electoral states. Listen and learn the state by state strongholds, battlegrounds, advantages and disadvantages, roughly a month out. We’ll come back at the end of October and again just before the election in early November, and see how the campaigning, media, and news events have changed the political landscape. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing of Saint Paul.