Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
tions, the largest cars, the cheapest gasoline, the most abundant natural resources, the most
productive farms, the most devastating nuclear arsenal and the friendliest, most decent and
most patriotic folks on earth. Countries just don't come any better. So why anyone would
want to live anywhere else is practically incomprehensible. In a foreigner it is puzzling; in
a native it is seditious. I used to feel this way myself. In high school I shared a locker with
a Dutch exchange student and I remember him asking me one day in a peevish tone why
everybody, absolutely everybody, wanted him to like America better than the Netherlands.
“Holland is my home,” he said. “Why can't people understand that it's where I want to
live?”
I considered his point. “Yes,” I said, “but deep down, Anton, wouldn't you really rather
live here?” And funnily enough, in the end, he decided he did. The last I heard he was a
successful realtor in Florida, driving a Porsche, wearing wraparound sunglasses and say-
ing, “Hey, what's happening?” which of course is a considerable improvement on wearing
wooden shoes, carrying pails of milk on a yoke over your shoulder and being invaded by
Germany every couple of generations.
InthemorningIdroveontoWyoming,throughscenerythatlookedlikeanillustrationfrom
some marvelous children's book of Western tales-snowy peaks, pine forests, snug farms,
a twisting river, a mountain vale with a comely name: Swan Valley. That is the one thing
that must be said for the men and women who carved out the West. They certainly knew
how to name a place. Just on this corner of the map I could see Soda Springs, Massac-
re Rocks, Steamboat Mountain, Wind River, Flaming Gorge, Calamity Falls-places whose
verynames promised adventure andexcitement, even ifinreality all they contained were a
DX gas station and a Tastee-Freez drive-in.
MostoftheearlysettlersinAmericawereoddlyineptatdevisingplacenames.Theyeither
chose unimaginative, semirecycled names-New York, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New
England-or toadying, kiss-ass names like Virginia, Georgia, Maryland and Jamestown in a
generally pitiable attempt to secure favor with some monarch or powdered aristocrat back
home. Or else they just accepted the names the Indians told them, not knowing whether
Squashaninsect meant “land of the twinkling lakes” or “place where Big Chief Thunder-
clap paused to pass water.”
The Spanish were even worse because they gave everything religious names, so that every
place in the Southwest is called San this or Santa that. Driving across the Southwest is like
an S00 mile religious procession. The worst name on the whole continent is the Sangre de
Cristo Mountains in New Mexico, which means “the Blood of Christ Mountains.” Have
you ever heard of a more inane name for any geographical feature? It was only here in the
