Besides the obvious “welcome to [state name]” sign. Is there a significant change in architecture, infrastructure, agriculture, store brands, maybe even culture?
field on one side, field on the other. if I am on the interstate, the surface gets really shitty on our side because brownback and the republicans in topeka drained the highway fund to give the koch bros and fat corpo-farmers a tax break.
Ah yes, CO to NM
It’s Nebraska.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’ve lived near the Mason Dixon line for my whole life and you know when you get to Maryland because the roads aren’t covered with potholes and/or construction.
The same goes for the Netherlands and Belgium. Or at least it used to be, I haven’t been to belgium in years.
Wait are you coming from PA or DE? Because the Maryland roads near Virginia are god awful. And I mean the little roads as well as the Maryland half of the beltway that seems to always be under construction.
Coming from PA. As bad as MD roads are ours are worse
Most major roads have a sign. If I’m using Google Maps, it will yell at me: “WELCOME TO [STATE NAME]”.
this is such an adorable question.
I cross a river and my first emotion is usually eww.
PA -> NJ
I travel a lot throughout the US, and sometimes the changes are obvious while other times I can be driving and not entirely sure which state I’m in. As others have said while driving on a major highway a clue can be a huge store full of items like fireworks just across the border from a state they aren’t legal in.
Staying in different states I notice alcohol sales rules are different. In some states you basically don’t see any alcohol outside of designated stores for it including no beer at gas stations, in other states you see beer for sale widely but hard liquor only at designated stores, and in other states hard liquor at WalMart is perfectly normal.
I’ve found on the whole that people are actually nicer than average in Utah. While coffee shops exist I have noticed in offices there is often a lack of a central coffee machine.
Louisiana everyone I deal with from there has a tendency to be much more relaxed than average about showing up exactly on time for things. Louisiana itself also has a cultural divide between the northern part which is more generic US south, and the southern part which has the more creole and tourist heavy atmosphere.
I honestly don’t mind Ohio. I know it’s an internet meme to hate it, but aside from their obsession with dumping chili on unrelated foods it’s decent. Has a strong blue collar streak kind of like Pennsylvania culture.
Texas has a big cowboy influence and they don’t let you not know it. The roads tend to big big and wide which is great, except the freeways especially in Dallas can become confusing multilevel nightmares.
California has lots of Spanish signs, lots of first generation Mexicans who bring culture with them. Lots of for example Mexican super markets. Californians have a culture of going FAST on freeways if there isn’t gridlock traffic, in some cases going 100mph just barely keeps you up with traffic.
My state disallows billboard advertising, which I forget until I cross into another state and have to suffer through Jesus and injury lawyer ads.
Why is it always lawyers?
I saw one that was just a photo of an eye and a phone number. I wasn’t from the area, so it was driving me nuts wondering what it meant. Didn’t take long driving through the area to learn that this lawyer has so many different billboards up, that his eye alone has become recognizable.
That’s crazy! Hope he never gets a retina biometric lock on his door.
There must be a lot of money in injury law, but no nationally-known firms, so your choice is either a referral or their name bobbing out of your subconscious from driving past it every day.
In CA there’s this injury lawyer who has billboards all over highway 101 from San Francisco to San Diego. Hundreds of billboards. His name on the billboards is Sweet James and he has a pony tail. Sweet James. I don’t know how a lawyer could become so seemingly popular while using that name.
I couldn’t believe driving through Missouri. What a shit hole.
I never saw these personally, but ten years ago in Matt Gaetz’s district a shelter ran billboards with “She’s your daughter, not your date”. Yikes.
One of the many great things about Vermont
Never been, but I’ve heard it’s lovely.
Not the easiest place to get to, but it sure is beautiful
Vermont? I remember that that’s a thing there.
In most cases it isn’t apparent and doesn’t matter. But there are some that are* noticeable and do matter. Having traveled to most states via car, it’s been interesting to see the ones that stood out.
As soon as you get out of Pennsylvania you see a marijuana store. Regardless of which state you’re going into.
As soon as you set foot in Pennsylvania there’s a fireworks store
Obviously pot is more dangerous than Uncle Teddy shooting fireworks off the back of his truck next to all the young children in the family
Well, there’s a big fucking river—so that helps.
Highways go from being free to costing money (Illinois 😒)
Max speed limits can vary by states.
I knew a family who’s house was in New York and the backyard was in New Jersey. No, you couldn’t tell.
Haha, I’d be combing through the state codes for shenanigans to get up to.
I wonder what their property taxes were like.
Two separate tax bills.
One just for an empty backyard? It would suck if they got taxed twice on the whole property, although it’s possible.
Technically 2 lots … https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/32392931_zpid/
Sounds like Upstate New Jersey, hill country. That’s pretty neat, though.
A lot of territories end at a river, but when the boundaries were set for New York they asked for a buffer zone (10 miles I think?) away from the Hudson River. So it really is an arbitrary boundary.
I live close to the Louisiana border, so I know I’m in LA when the roads turn to shit.
