Besides the obvious “welcome to [state name]” sign. Is there a significant change in architecture, infrastructure, agriculture, store brands, maybe even culture?
My state disallows billboard advertising, which I forget until I cross into another state and have to suffer through Jesus and injury lawyer ads.
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
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.
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.
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.
My state has piss poor roads.
Every time I leave my state the roads are noticeably smoother and less noisy.
It’s very distinct and almost comical.
I’m up in Canada and we have provinces here … I live in Ontario and in the year 2000 me and a friend took a motorcycle ride across Canada to the west coast. Great trip.
But for motorcycle riders in Ontario, especially northern Ontario, its famous for rain during the summer, especially when you want to go riding. Sure enough in the first week of July that we started our trip, trying to make sure to catch the best weather for riding, we rode through rain for about three days as we drove through northern Ontario.
The funniest thing was … as soon as we crossed the Ontario/Manitoba border, the skies parted and I could literally see dark clouds over Ontario and bright clear summer skies to the west … right at the border of the two provinces.
We had great weather the rest of the trip! … and sure enough when we did the return trip, we were rained on again in northern Ontario!
I had that driving into a new county by the coastline. Right at the county line it was like a sheet of rain pulled across the road.
I pray for my suspension every time I go from Ontario to Quebec.
Let me guess, South Carolina? Been through there twice, and the change was jarring and immediately noticeable crossing into Georgia or NC.
michigan?
I plead the 5th.
Lmao I was driving about 16 hours solo to get back to Michigan. Legitimately immediately after crossing the Ohio to Michigan border, the road contrast was so incredibly stark lol. Immediate potholes everywhere.
North Carolina paves its roads. South Carolina air drops its roads.
You know you have crossed into South Carolina when the suspension of your vehicle is torn out from under you.
I love that the Dutch talk the same way about the Belgian roads
I don’t live in a state that borders SC, but I can think of no better answer to the question at hand.
Even Asheville roads, post hurricane, are at this point way better then SC roads. Not saying we’re spending wisely, though. I sure wish DOT wasn’t just a highway/stroad development department.
It still kills me we got a hurricane in the mountains.
When you pass into Indiana, you’re immediately overcome with this opressive sense of forboding and despair. Also the roads immediately turn to shit.
Also, the ad signs will alternate between adult toy stores and anti-abortion messages every few hundred feet.
Connecticut is making a bold claim here to anyone leaving NY
Yeah I would hardly call Ned Lamont a governor.
Mayor of the town of Connecticut.
He legalized weed at least
What’s the point of putting the governor name on the road sign? How is that information useful to drivers?
Ya know. I don’t know. Every state does this as far as I can tell and so I’ve never questioned it.
If I had to guess, its how the DOT or Highway department shills to Tue new governor
“Hey look boss, we put ya name on da side of Interstate 69 from Illinois!,”
It’s totally legit highway info. Completely not grifting public money for the governors election campaign. /s
Something that surprised me in my travels (which are primarily West of the Mississippi) is how often the states actually line up with a significant geologic shift. Arizona is endless orange desert. New Mexico immediately becomes rainbow painted cliffs. Utah is somehow entirely vertical. California is a contradiction of green desert. Nevada is like a chemical mine puked on a bunch of bumpy ridges. Northern New Mexico falls off a cliff and the bottom is Texas.
If you watch closely, usually something fairly dramatic happens in the landscape within a few miles of the border.
Roads. It is pretty common around where I grew up to notice you are in a different states when there is a sudden shift in road conditions. They never communicated about when to do repairs or anything, so it was almost always an obvious line between either a really shit road and a smooth one, or vice versa. Sometimes you could even tell based on the noise or feel of the road, if the other state uses different road construction materials.
Well, I live on the Minnesota side of the Minnesota / Wisconsin border and normally I can tell I crossed the border because I have to cross the 4th largest river in the world, the Mississippi river.
Joking aside a big tell used to be frac sand mines. Minnesota cracked down on them much harder much more quickly than Wisconsin so you would see them all over the place in Wisconsin but not in MN. I haven’t seen as many of those lately though. Also If I drive too far south I wind up driving out of the Kwik Trip gas station zone and into the vastly inferior Caseys gas station zone in Iowa.
Drive south far enough and you reach the vastly superior QT gas station zone.
QT: Free air, Roller grills.
And much more. Not good prices though, they know how to separate customers from their cash pretty well.
Air is free at every gas station in CT
You have to pay to leave the state so very obvious leaving!
New Jersey?
Indeed!
you know, most roads will tell you. The change in asphalt for sure will tell you exactly
plus for me at least, Idaho is different than Washington
the roadside advertisements is instantly different
the highways are laid out in much different ways
the people are absolutely different almost to an extreme
Where I come from the asphalt change was how I knew I was in the next County
oh yeah, that happens here too, just not as much because our counties usually have the same funding and contractors
I’ll never forget driving home from college with some friends for the holidays one year. I was from PA, he was from Ohio and had never been more east. We were headed to NY with another friend and our route took us briefly through Jersey.
“How will we know we’re there?” he asked as the car suddenly lurched and felt like we hit a gravel road despite ostensibly being a paved highway …
That’s strange, I grew up in NJ and our roads tend to be well maintained. It was kinda shocking when I moved to PA and the roads had way more potholes and skinny useless shoulders!
Ah yes, CO to NM
It’s Nebraska.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Idaho -> Oregon: weed dispensaries
- Idaho -> Nevada: casinos
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
Leaving South Carolina to enter North Carolina or Georgia, the roads are so much better and there’s a noticeable decrease in overall loudness in road noise.
Holy fucking shit the SC roads are B A D
It’s like Mad Max out here
