As someone who has lived in the West, it's amazing to me to think that those in the East are just a short distance away from anything, meaning walk 20 minutes in any direction and you will find civilization. In the West the distances between the urban centers can be vast with literally nothing in between for hours.
@@dans9463 Most of it is. Once California kicked off the Berkeley academic revolution during WWII most of the brains which did reside in upstate NY moved there. Now it's an area where there are some underserved populations (whom probably like it and don't care) and estates for the fabulously wealthy especially running up the Hudson river valley among the Appalachian hills. Ever since NY brought in high state taxes, regulation and began focusing on NYC and LI, most of the rural folks took off for Penn and westward or east into CT and Vermont. For example, artisans of fine cabinetry and custom craft still exist in upstate NY solely because the wealthy who buy estates there want that custom sort of thing so the demand for fine craftsmanship keeps them there.
Yeah, freaked a long-time friend out when I went to visit him (he lives in Massachusetts, BTW) by driving from Cape Cod to NYC. Worked out to about 125 miles one way. Which, by California standards isn't very much - it's not unusual for me to drive to the Colorado River for a day trip (about 160 miles one way). Bit of a different impression when I realized I'd driven in 4 different states in the 4 1/2 hours it took me to get there. 😳
When Lincoln was established as the capital of Nebraska (and renamed to Lincoln), it was considered to be the furthest point west where people would want to settle, marking the boundary of the westward great American desert. They even specified the exact location of this boundary to be the intersection of O St and 14th St. To this day it still marks a divider of the east/west population, where half of the state's population lives across a line just east of Lincoln, in the far eastern part of the state. West of Lincoln still remains the West as it did in the late 1800's.
@@starcrib So you must be like a loyal dog to the Democrats, because despite the absolute shitshow that was bidens presidency and the fact that everyone has lost the little faith they had in him you still eat up their propaganda. Sorry I went into my political opinion, I'll delete it if you guys want, it would be hypocritical of me to keep it up.
I didn’t know the history but leaving Lincoln traveling west really does feel like your entering something different entirely. East of Lincoln along I-80 your rarely a few hours from a major population center yet once you leave Lincoln heading west along I80 the next population center is Salt Lake City followed by Reno then Sacramento. It’s truly desolate.
I lived in Indiana 25 years, and left to see America 4 years ago. Driving through Nebraska, Montana, Texas, New Mexico, California, Nevada...life changing. The enormity of these open spaces makes you feel somehow more human and much less important.
@@Soldierboytrey life is IMMEASURABLY better since I left Indiana. The weather is better out West, the people are more diverse and easy going, there is less religious bigotry, I make more money, and there are endless free things to do in Las Vegas, where i spend the winter, and Montana, where I spend the summer. To boot, I am what most people would call poor. I make about 20 dollars an hour as a Chef. I was on the verge of suicide living in Indiana. I feel as though I have been born again out here. I will never go back to Indiana and I rarely talk to anybody from Indiana because I have already heard their piece. Everything... I mean EVERYTHING is better out West.
@@coryphillips7945, one of the best things I did after being fired from my electronics job in 1991 was to go to truck driving school. Eleven weeks after I started I had my Commercial Drivers License. Things only looked up from there. The guy I was working for before going to driving school even tried to get me to come back to work for him. I was enjoying myself too much going to new places and meeting new faces. Over the years some became friends.
@@mohit_zala_ It probably also depends on how much sight seeing you stop to do on the trip. 2-3 days if you only stop for pit stops and to sleep at hotels.
I'd like to hear his VAAAASST inflection on something more mundane. "I walked into Starbucks and began to wait for an ENORMOUS length of time UNPRECEDENTED in ALL of modern human history. When I gazed at the MONUMENTAL menu variety I was ASTOUNDED at the plethora of choices with a STAGGERING 40 choices. Each item weighing in at a COLLASAL 2.5% of the TOTAL menu availability."
@@soundscape26 Yeah it is hard to not hear now that it's noticed. I do hope he continues though, gives him fun character amongst some of the other similar channels...
I once drove from Provo UT to Austin TX and can confirm there are very few towns in between and TONS of desert, crazy that Phoenix and Las Vegas exist in this desert
I'm not sure about Phoenix, but Vegas is mostly a product of the Mob from California who ran gambling rings getting outlawed, and thus moving in to Nevada in a part of the state where there was no regulation due to being unincorporated territory.
I live in Phoenix. We often joke the only reason it exists was because air conditioning was invented. It would be absolutely inhospitable otherwise. Arizona actually gets the majority of its water from underground reservoirs, not so much from the Colorado.
I once drove from Fargo, ND, to Seattle Washington. And even up north, where there is absolutely no "desert" anywhere on the map, that vast stretch of region is so sparsely populated that, for a while, as I was driving across North Dakota/Montana at night, you could not see ANY city lights, on the horizon, and the sky was so clear from light pollution that you could see the milky way band CLEARLY! It was literally like driving across the surface of the MOON, in some locations! All you had was the interstate, and even then, you rarely passed any other vehicles going either way! It was so eerie, I remember actually getting to Boise, Idaho, and finally feeling relief at the sight of significant human population! lol
You should come, I'll show you around. America is really weird because there are so many different cultures and attitudes. Think you understand America by visiting NYC, drive 50 miles north, and it's completely different
@E Van Last thing I would do is take them to New England or Utah, best to go to NYC and actually experience what the city has. Of course, most people from outside the city only pay attention to everything down town.
I just got back from NYC, it was my first time ever on the east coast as a native Californian. The places I saw, people I met, and food I ate were unlike anything back home. It's an experience that showed me that the US truly has many different cultures
I was born and raised in NYC but I’ve never been to California before. I hope one day I get to experience what it’s like to live in California because I have never traveled to the West Coast ever in my life. I only have been to East Coast states.
@@DylanJo123Something interesting is that New Jersey is closer to New Hampshire and Vermont than the distance from New Jersey to North Carolina. NYC, Philly, are closer to Nunavut (Akimiski Island) than to Miami Florida.
Yeah, when I moved from East coast to West coast (I drove), I was shocked by how different everything felt when I got to western Nebraska. I had always been used to having an exit with a rest stop, gas station, etc every 10 miles or so. Wyoming was especially frightening because you could go 90 or 100 miles without a single exit, and then if there was one, there was no guarantee it wouldn't be a dirt road or something. I filled up the tank whenever I could. Stunningly beautiful though! First time I ever saw true wilderness as opposed to countryside. Then the sun set to a fiery red horizon and the stars and the milky way came out. Still remember it clearly.
Thankyou my friend for sharing that. It sounds amazing. Im from the UK but if i lived in America id love to be way out west with open space all around me.
I drove from Arkansas to California and back recently, and it’s really amazing to watch the landscape change like this. You can feel the land getting more and more parched as you go until you hit the dramatic, dry expanse of the Mohave desert where there is basically no life. As cool as the west is, coming back into the dense forests of the eastern United States was really comforting. I think we’re programmed to recognize dry places as hostile to our existence.
@@benrobinson1544 I’ve been to Washington as well, and I watched the same video with the same rainfall data as you did. I know the entire west isn’t a desert, but that experience of heading due west in the southern US is really something.
When I turned 18 I did a roadtrip from Vermont (North East, close to Maine, New Hampshire, New York) to Los Angeles. I think everyone should make a trip like this if you live in the United States. The appreciation it will give you for this countries structure, geography, and cultures is worth so much more than I thought. However large you imagine the distance to be, I can assure you it is larger.
Highly recommend east / west road trip. Don't go with a set plan if you can. Take two weeks to do it. There's a lot to discover, little nooks and crannies of food and culture all along the way. Every 200 miles is different. Goes to show that America with all it's claims of unity is very much a diverse place. (unless you're in the cities which are much more homogeneous culturally)
As a Canadian, I find this video very educational. I had no idea that the central states were so sparsely populated. It doesn't surprise me, as I went to Wyoming and Montana last summer and I was amazed by how rural it was.
@@ludicrousmodel3173 And in Canada I would imagine the vast majority of the population lives within less than an hour and half drive of the the border. Once you get too north the areas become a lot colder and less inhabitable.
@@joemckim1183yes it's true, but we also have the same lack of moisture drying out our interior, plus it's cold north of the Great Lakes in the east, so once you start going west of Toronto, population gets very sparse. The line shows up going to Winnipeg here in terms of precipitation, but it begins earlier in Canada due to temperature, even though Winnipeg is far more wet than anything west of it (until BC) Western Canada is extremely sparse. Vancouver is nice, I grew up here, but I am jealous of the many other places in the world where there are places to go within easy distance by road or rail. It takes 4 hours by train (if you're lucky) just to get to Seattle from here, and as much as I like Seattle it isn't too terribly different. And forget going anywhere else in Canada - the Canadian only runs twice a week, costs a lot, and won't get you anywhere quickly. Though it is a nice journey in itself - I enjoyed it - but not super practical to actually get somewhere.
@@leevikaunismaa9652 I have no idea what you're talking about lmao, but imagine that race, gender and wealth (?) was also factored in on this study and a clear inclination came out 😱 there might be... in each country... omg if only I were an anthropologist or smth 😩🤌✨
As someone who lives in Southern California, I think this is really interesting! In a way this is sort of similar to Australia and China in that most of the population lives on the East Coast and the West is mostly isolated and scattered.
Funny how being from Cali it doesn’t seem like we’re isolated. But then again I’m in the LA area so it’s just always busy and slammed everywhere. But we are surrounded by deserts if we want to go anywhere.
@Buck Rothschild I grew up in Utah, and you'd hear the same things there. Now I live in California.... and I gotta say most Californians are friendlier than most Utahns I've met. But you're right, the same problem effects Wyoming, Utah, and even California. Water. And it's so frustrating that at least when it comes to my family back home, they don't see the connection to pollution, climate change, and drought. A lot of us out on this side of the country are literally shooting ourselves in the foot.
@@Evil_Chronic I live in the Bay Area, and it feels like that here too, but it's crazy how you just go a little ways out of from San Francisco and it's immediately desolate. Was the same when I used to live in Phoenix. But I went to school in Nashville, and going out there you really see the difference. You leave the city, but you still see signs of human life everywhere.
@@anthonydelfino6171 I used to live by sac till I was bout 10, but now I live in Reno. Over here, if you just cross into a neighboring valley, it's completely devoid of civilization.
@@Evil_Chronic It definitely doesn't feel like we're isolated since we're in the middle of a fully developed island, but once you drive north on the Interstate 15 up to Barstow and Baker or travel east to like Anza-Borrego it truly does feel desolate out there. People in Perth, Australia probably feel the same way since they're surrounded by the Outback.
The line going right through Kansas explains a lot. I used to live in western Kansas, then eastern Kansas, and the divide between the arid west and humid east makes the two halves feel like different states.
And the latest referendum, and to avoid this getting too political I won't say what it was about, proved sort of like all Kansas elections prove. If you want a Republican ballot initiative or candidate to win you have to hope for mass turnout west of Wichita and average to below average turnout in Johnson, Shawnee, Riley, Douglas, Wyandotte, and Sedgwick counties. If you want a democratic initiative or candidate to win you are going to want massive turnouts in those counties and average to below average turnout in the west. In future, there may well be an Illinois effect in Kansas where Kansas is largely rural and Republican while the KC metro turns the state -at least in the senate- more purple or even light blue.
I live on the western border, its a night and day difference. I love where I live but its dry as fuck, and the farmers needing to irrigate only makes getting water harder as our watershed gets abused slightly it seems like with larger areas daming up the tributaries and stuff. Tho idk how much of that is true.
As a Minnesotan I am always so shocked when I go to one of the Dakota's. It's truly mind boggling how different everything is. The terrain, the vegetation, the amount of water, and thus the people. To anyone that lives near this line their is no mystery as to why it exists.
@@naddarr1 I'm currently living in Minnesota, and you're absolutely right about this one! I've spent my whole life around The Line and it's crazy how rain changes everything.
I wonder how the East will be modeled in American Truck Simulator compared to the West. The West Coast is very peaceful to drive the trucks on. Yet IDK if any DLC released for the game which takes place in the East
I worked in a small rural town in Idaho that fulfilled orders all across the US. Someone from New York city called in one day and asked if I was close to Bosie. I told him "No I'm on the east side of Idaho and Boise is on the west side." He responded "So what like 30 minutes?" I said "try 5 hours buddy."
@@rossco76tait48 Or he just lives in New York and never leaves. He could’ve been British they can go from one part of the country to another in the span of 5 to 6 hours. They think a 45 minute drive is an eternity. Too funny. Meanwhile I routinely drive 13 hours to go visit my family when I don’t feel like dealing with flying around.
I moved to the Phoenix metro area from the east coast and this remoteness outside of the populated areas was striking to me. Even in the rural areas of the east, there's almost always evidence of some form of human presence (a cornfield, a gas station, etc.). If you drive in any direction north, south, east, or west of metro Phoenix, you can go miles upon miles without seeing anything but the road, your car, the fairly steady stream of traffic, and a seemingly unending landscape of nothingness. It's a surreal experience. EDIT: In my original comment I stated you can go “literally hundreds and hundreds of miles” without seeing civilization. Admittedly, this is a bit of an exaggeration for the most part.
Agreed, I've lived back East and thought it humorous when my cousims went Camping and put on lumberjack attire and kitted out with every conceivable gadget. There are no mountains compared to the Rockies or Sierras and certainly none that match the sheer beauty of the grand tetons.
I drove from LA to Portland Oregon along the coast and in Washington and Oregon there were stretches where it was just forest and trees for 2 hours without anything. Forest so dense it blocks out the sun and makes the road look dark. Then one time i flew from from Houston to Anchorage Alaska and when you're over the border between Canada and US you look down and see nothing but endless trees
I've driven across country 3 times on a motorcycle. The diversity in this country is truly something to experience. Would love to spend an entire year just driving around, having adventures and solving mysteries, like BJ and the Bear. :)
As someone who lives in a small town in the Rocky Mountains far away from any major cities, this video was super interesting to watch. Especially the part where Mount Mitchell is mentioned and how it's only 6,684 feet tall. I say *only* 6,684 tall, because my town is more than 2,000 feet higher than that in elevation. The world is a pretty crazy place.
I completely get it! I live in Colorado Springs at 7000 ft and found it amusing the tallest mountains in east coast are lower then where I live hahaha😊
The pacific northwest weather is insane. Youll go from a cold rainy day surrounded by evergreen trees to crossing the cascades in 2 feet of snow, then out into the burning plains of eastern washington. Not a tree in sight for as far as you can see. Even though its called the evergreen state, half of washington is desert.
Oregon is even more extreme. The southeastern quarter of the state is almost completely empty and isn't really used for anything except ranching and mining. The land south of US 20 and east of US 395 (almost 18,000 sq. miles) has literally just 2 incorporated towns, both close to the Idaho border.
True I live near seattle and near there there is a lot of things so its not that different from the east coast, but once you get out of that little bubble around seattle its basically like a desert cause I had to drive all the way across washington for a game in Spokane once it was pretty crazy
Yeah, you got that right. I learned this from going to Seattle, WA back in the summer of 2009, and then going to Twisp, WA back in the Winter of 2018. It's like 2 totally different worlds.
I’m from Salt Lake City, and I’ve never gone past “the line” and I’ve never seen the ocean. It doesn’t bother me. It’s just weird to think that I live in a bowl with 2,660,000 people (Wasatch front) in an isolated bubble. I’ve always wanted to drive to New York just to see the endless small towns that people talk about existing. Heck I’ve never been in a metro sprawl with more than 5,000,000 people. And Phoenix was enough of a trip. I could see a huge city from end to end and it felt infinite. In Utah you look any direction and the buildings and homes end with mountains.
Salt Lake City is interesting. Basically one seemingly endless collection of cities and suburbs for over 100 miles from north to south, all tied together by a busy 10-18 lane freeway (Interstate 15). However, you can travel east-to-west in 10-15 miles and be completely surrounded by either forests and mountains to the east, or desert to the west. Nothing else like it in the US. Puget Sound sprawls for well over 100 miles north-to-south as well, but east-to-west sprawl isn't quite as narrow as it is in Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Front region.
Yeah I live in a small town in western Maryland and it’s nice living in a small community. I could never live in a big city but i would like to Live on the outskirts of one. I would love to visit the west coast though
@@NicotineRosberg I have a cousin who lives in nyc and I could never do it, for me personally the politics and the people are the worst along with the liberal mayor. Since I’ve always lived in a smaller community I’m definitely more conservative than liberal and especially with all the Covid shit and booster shots I couldn’t deal with that bullshit, but that’s just my opinion. Although I think you would be much happier in a smaller community you can really take in the sights and sounds of nature and just the world around you so much more. You won’t wanna live in a big city again
As a washintonian I am amazed to actually find a video that recognizes the diversity to my home state. Most Americans only understand Washington as a rainy forest mountain coastal state. Half of Washington is plains desert canyons. The way the weather comes off the ocean, hits those mountains and just empties itself is something I find hard to explain to people who are used to the east coast.
I’m an Oregonian (Hey neighbor!) 😀👋 and yes, it’s the same here. People only ever think of “rainy Portland” (Oregon, not Maine) and they never think about the vast diversity in landscape and climate/weather throughout the state. The Pacific Northwest truly is a natural wonder to behold 💎
You get used to it. My family once took a summer to take a road trip through the Western States. It was quite fun but like described, sparse, but it was inspiring. The East Coast imo, especially New England and New York are more fast paced and crowded for my tastes. And in the South East, the people are polite and hospitable as long as you extend the same courtesy.
@@boardcertifiable New England and New York have tons of rural areas tho, IMO we have the best rural land in the whole east coast especially up in Vermont, Maine, NH, upstate NY quiet and peaceful places with amazing beauty.
As a high school US History teacher, I use the night-time satellite photo of the US to introduce western expansion and the transcontinental railroad. If you look closely, you can see strings of lights in the West, denoting the paths taken by railroads in the 19th century.
@Joshua Stein As a railfan, I find this interesting. I often use Google Maps to discover long abandoned railroad right of ways. You can often see paths of coal dust that still show up on the map's despite the fields having been plowed over many times by the farmers. Plus tree lines often follow former right of ways. 🙂
I was an over the road truck driver for a while and I can verify the divide is obvious. I went from east to west coast and back again multiple times and you could always just tell when you were moving into that dead zone of no civilization, even without the "Last stop for next 100 miles" signs.
@@GMAMEC Yeah. I was a company driver, so they always made sure I had enough gas to get through those areas. Twice I stopped to top off while above half tanks and it didn't take much to understand why after seeing the signs.
@@GMAMEC When I drive to or from L.A. and Maine, I trip plan all my fuel stops. I make sure my fuel stops are 330 miles or less, which leaves me with an ¼ tank of fuel. I only stop at Costco, Sam's Club, or large travel centers. I set Google Maps from fuel stop to fuel stop as I cross the country.
@@GMAMEC I had a little over 3/4 tank and branched off of 80 for the non-trucker hiways and barely made it out of the mountains in Oregon. Told my experience of great anxiety to the nice mountain gal working at the restaurant/gas-station and she said she's seen people show up in tears. Once I even get near that that no-man's line... I'll top off at every gas station I see. Prolly gonna take a 5 gallon gas can too for me and any stranded poor souls.
Wow. 😳 The West is wateted via snowmelt. Of which, is dwindling. I can't imagine just nothing. I cross WA, and at least there are farms and incredible geological/geographical featuresto keep you company.
RANDOM FUN FACT: at 7:00 you can see a small part of the southern Mississippi that has a lower diversity of tree species than the rest of the map - this is due to the old and current meanders of the Mississippi that used to constantly create and fill flood plains! The tree species are less diverse because only certain ones could withstand constant bombardement from water! Just thought I’d share.
I am living in West side of India (Rajasthan) . Hot desert ,wind storms ,no greenery without population. I can understand those 20% people of America. Love you all my American brothers.
Americans are lucky to live in a vast country like that yet much populated but not to the extent of severe population density. Truly a lucky country, and terrain, Geography and sceneries make it one of the most beautiful countries on the planet.
due to relations i do hold a united states passport and i would not want to live there because of the helth systim lack of safty net and work life balince but on a cold dark winter day i do fantsize about living in florda
@@joesmith8701 you don't know what you're talking about. I'm an American. I've lived in Brazil, Mexico, Canada, India, and Australia. Despite the expensive healthcare the US is still by far better than those other countries. Free healthcare simply means you get what you pay for. . .which is nothing. I got food poisoning in Brazil once and waited in the most uncomfortable waiting room you can imagine for 10 hours before being treated. It was free but it was miserable. From that point forward I've always taken advantage of the private healthcare available in third world countries like Brazil because it's 100 times better despite the fact that it costs money.
I've driven across the US twice and it's very strange to be in states like Nevada or Oregon, where there are VAST stretches of just nothing, or entire towns that seem to have the same population as the street I grew up on. As someone that grew up in Orange County, places like that are just surreal to me.
For real! I've done a west coast road trip and an east cost, and going along the eastern coastline you just got town after town, there's so much to see and do constantly. VS the west coast where you can spend 6 hours driving and just see trees & desert
I could never permanently leave the West, I love it too much. I’m a geologist and love seeing exposed outcrops in the deserts of the west. The western regions have their own special, stark and clean, beauty.
I agree. I live in L.A., and I fly and drive to and from Maine a few times a year. Yes, everything is lush and green in the East, but it's boring. Farms, trees, and maybe a few rolling hills for hours and hours along with oppressive humidity. The West is so diverse and the scenery always changes. And the weather is dry too.
Haha I'm in the west right now but I really miss the South. I find the culture to be more friendly (though most people out west are very kind as well) and the biodiversity is much more vast and fascinating. There just aren't as many types of birds out here. I miss lots of rain too like this video talks about.
@@jerradwilson There's cool geology in Maine, New York and elsewhere, but you have to look harder. Or, maybe, take a step back and let the subtle differences start to sink in.
I'm from Boston and have ancestors in New England going back to the mid 1620s. One of them tried to make the trek to California but couldn't find a way past the big green line going from San Antonio to Winnipeg, so he came home to Narraganset Bay, broken and dismayed. That was before the airplane was invented, which allowed people to go over the green line.
What was crazy to me about the west, my first times touring the west coast in a rock band. There is a golden rule if you’re at a gas station GET GAS! Wether you are below half a tank or whatever. You get beyond Texas or the mid-west you can literally drive for four or five hours and never see one gas station. And that is the last place that you want to find yourself stranded on the side of the interstate with an empty gas tank.
Good point. This may explain the difference between how I get gas and my husband gets gas. He's from the east coast and is always fine with whatever, but I'm always wanting to fill up before I get too close to 1/4 tank....sometimes 1/2. He would low-key mock me on road trips.
I just drove from Toronto to the Bay Area a few weeks ago... it was crazy how it went to lush green in eastern Nebraska to desolate wasteland so quickly in the west of the state, and then completely devoid of life until I got to Lake Tahoe in California. Absolutely crazy.
My son got accepted to a grad school in San Francisco, and we live in the New York metropolitan area. I helped him move all his stuff, and we were driving through Nevada when we saw a gas station with a sign that said, "Next Fuel 75 miles." My son was at the wheel, and he said, "I know my car - we can make it without stopping now." Well, eleven miles east of Reno we ran out of gas. We called the AAA but they couldn't get someone out to us for a few hours. Eventually someone brought us some gas, and we got to Reno and filled up the tank, then went into an Elvis-themed diner (which had nickel slot machines inside the ladies' rest room). But west of that line, there's nothing out there but mile after mile of mile after mile.
Those of us who have driven the Alaska Highway can sympathize. There are one or two areas where if you get to the gas station and it's closed for the night, everybody just sleeps in their car in the parking lot because going forward is not an option.
I live in Midwest. I traveled 48 states. My favorite part is West. Love long , lonely drives, it’s safe if it comes to people. Only animals can be a problem. The time behind the wheel allows you to look into yourself. Same with Northern Canada. So gorgeous to hike ,drive.
Two summers ago, my family and I took a road trip from New England across the rest of the country, going as far West as Las Vegas before turning around. After leaving Illinois, the landscapes became emptier and emptier, but also more beautiful. Driving on highways in Wyoming and Montana was breathtaking, being able to see nothing but vast spreading landscapes for miles.
Also in some places in Wyoming you can still see the milkyway. It's really faint from my experience though. The best place I've ever seen the milkyway was on an island the boyscouts bought in the Florida Keys. Being 3 miles out from the Keys and Miami being over 130 miles away was pretty effective. Though I could see a glare in the sky looking in that direction, the side we slept on was facing the ocean.
@@Skylancer727 Remote parts of Vermont and Maine also do well with showing the night sky. On the road trip, we were camping near the Grand Canyon, far from town, and so we were able to see the Milky Way and thousands of stars that we don’t normally see at all.
I love upstate New York for many reasons and visited the Adirondacks a lot over several years. But I am a child of the Nebraska--the Great Plains--and am always happy to return.
I live in the UK, and have never visited the USA. I am stunned by the impression of the size, distances and terrain of the US given by this video. Americans who come to England must be equally stunned to realise how tiny it is by comparison. I knew, course, that America is a huge continent, but I somehow have never had the imagination to realise how this must feel. The vast emptiness. In England, everywhere is very close to everywhere else. The horizons aren't far away. Fields are small. Everywhere is small, small, small. Americans must feel claustrophobic over here. On the other hand, I would feel terrified by the endless spaces over there. England is so cosy, intimate and friendly by comparison. To an English person! We are more different than I thought!
Like the old saying, "a hundred miles is a long way in Britain but a hundred years is nothing." Pretty much the opposite in the U.S. I worked for a British company for several years, traveled to London many times and was amazed how Brits were so unaware of how large the U.S. was. I drove across England in about 2 hours once, bizarre how small it was but how crowded it is.
Take this line of thought, and apply it to the lower 48 States and Alaska. Alaska is comparable to 20% of the rest of the states by area yet contains 0.25% of the population. It is incredibly vast and beautiful and empty asf. Even more mind blowing is Hawaii. Alaska by area is 90x the size of Hawaii, yet Hawaii has twice as many people.
@@zazzyzzz yah, I mean, only a true degenerate would use just two letters, the first and last one, to disguise illiteracy. How sad. Thankfully we are happy to open the door to a fulfilling life, as I will gladly share my hooked on phonics cassette. You're welcomed!
I was born in the west (Arizona) and moved east (South Florida) as a small child and nothing could have prepared me for the massive culture shock. There was so much more…everything. More gas stations, more shopping centers and schools, and especially more people. When I first flew into MIA I was shell-shocked bc I had never seen so many people in one place. Excellent video!!
@@shinyy160 Yes I love it. I love the ocean, the water and rivers, more people means more things to do, and everything is within walking distance or a short drive. Although one thing I already miss about AZ are the mountains and vast land of the Southwest. You can camp basically anywhere in AZ and drive for hours down old two track roads and not see a soul, you can truly get lost in the woods there.
I lived on the East Coast for a few years. I was surprised that 90% of people I met had nver traveled west of the Mississippi. Also, they had no idea of how vast the western states are. I remember meeting a German immigrant who lived in Houston. He told me that he drove north for 9 hours are was "still in Texas". He told me that in Europe you can pass through 4 countries in 9 hours! Eastern states are "nice" but the western vistas are spectacular and unique locations. The vast and rugged beauty of states like Utah, Arizona, etc.are beautiful beyond description. Locations like Bryce Canyon only exist in the American West. Nowhere else in the world.
Thats because for people on the east coast most people have everything they need vacation-wise near them and they don't think of the west. Any kind of vacation goal in terms of beaches, mountains, lakes, cities, etc can be achieved on the east coast, so people choose closer to home. The only reason I went out west is because my dad worked on a ranch out in Montana in his youth and had deep ties to the family so we went out there for a reunion. Once you get out there you realize how incredible it is. While yeah we have mountains in the east, there's nothing quite like the west in terms of the sights you'll see. I'm planning to go back for the next reunion.
I thought the name ‘John Wesley Powell’ sounded familiar to me, turns out he taught at my alma mater! (Illinois Wesleyan University) IWU’s annual student research conference that I presented at is also named after him! Really cool to see the work that made him famous in the first place!
I got my BS in geology at ISU. Turns out that he kicked off his expedition to the Grand Canyon from the building most of my courses were in. Really cool dude!
I’m from the Grand Canyon and John Wesley Powell is an icon there. First to navigate through it. Powell point on the west rim and Lake Powell on the east.
I first heard of him watching this video. He was brilliant and his advice should have been followed. State lines should have been drawn based on the availability of water instead of doing something as stupid as drawing straight lines through the landscape.
Hmm... It could be random coincidence, but could the university (Illinois ...WESLEYan... University) be named for him and/ or family of John Wesley Powell?
If you grew up with lush vegetation, wetlands, and the bio-diversity of Eastern forests, you might have a different opinion. The sheer dryness of most of the West is off putting to me.
@@ryanjacobson2508 I am currently living in the foothills of the Appalachians right now. It's very beautiful but I feel it lacks the enormous raw and wild feel that the west has.
@@ryanjacobson2508 I moved from Eastern Pennsylvania to South West Idaho. I must say I appreciate the dry because it’s not as suffocating as the humidity I’m used to. I feel as if I can breathe and sit in awe of the marvelous landscapes. It isn’t for everyone .. . I’ll say that. But I much appreciate the low population.. feels safer somehow
As a British person who visited Washington State, I was shocked when we rode from the forested west to the Great Plains in the east. I did not know there was literally a desert sitting as far north as Canada!
Guests from Ireland were shocked s well. We went from coastal Oregon to the SE corner of the state where it is a very dry desert. One remarked that it was hard to believe that it was the same country.
As someone who has lived in Washington State my whole life I can confirm you are not alone in your discovery. Even people who live in the middle and eastern part of the US are shocked to find that we have a desert in Washington State. But like most areas- the most populated are the areas that the media covers. I didn't know that New York state has some very rural and scenic backcountry in the middle of it. Same with Pennsylvania. On the west coast almost all we hear about regarding the northeastern US is New York City, Boston, Washington DC.
@@paulsmith5611 You make a good point. When I was 18 and moved to south-central Pennsylvania - I was expecting suburbs. Instead what I got was the Appalachians and country music!
Fascinating analysis, thank you. May I mention that distances between locations should be spoken of as being farther, not further. You have given us a further understanding of this phenomenon.
I grew up near Boise Idaho. The area has grown a lot. I say the main issue with the west coast is that the cities are surrounded by mountains. At some point you run out of flat land to expand the city. It's really as simple as that and when you drive around the west, you're amazed at how huge the mountains are. I'm still impressed how we even managed to make some of these roads and bridges.
Wow.. ok i know idaho.. can you explain lombard street in sanfrancisco? It just doesn make much sense. Also as far as stop signs hills do not seem to matter there.
I live in eastern Washington. Driving to seattle from here is a trip. The scenery changes from dry dead grass and tumble weeds to lush green ultra dense forest. It's crazy to watch the transition as you drive and it happens very fast. Also crazy you choose Mattawa as a reference point lol. That place is TINY.
As an E. WA native myself, I love the insane variety of our state. The only place I found to be about as geographically diverse was Afghanistan. Where you have the vast deserts of Kandahar, and then high peaks surrounding Kabul. There were days where it would be 90-100 degrees in Kandahar and just 200 miles NE in Kabul it would be snowing. Such an incredible planet we have.
I'm from Minnesota and we took a road trip to Seattle. South Dakota and Montana were pretty much the same throughout each state. Washington was different. Spokane and Seattle seemed like they were in two totally different states it was pretty unbelievable.
Dude I do the drive from Spokane to Gig Harbor and back once a month. It is literally mind boggling how the environment changes. We once took a friend from Japan on the road with us and she was completely astonished to see how it changed from one part of the state to another
Washington has pretty much every type of land form. From desert to rain forest. Washington also has the most glaciers of any state besides Alaska and has the largest ferry system in the U.S. The drive between Spokane and Seattle is pretty varied.
There's something important here that wasn't mentioned. There is a reason why the rainfall drops sharply across the 100th meridian. It's not just that the Atlantic winds don't make it in... they do but they dump their water as they rise and cool. The North American continent is tilted and across this whole region, there is a steady elevation gain going westwards.
Does it rain less at higher altitudes or something? That wouldn't make sense to me because any mountains I've been to are always 10x greener than the land next to them
Also the eastern pacific ( west coast of us) is cooler and brings in much less moisture than the warm Atlantic does in the east. Why we don’t have hurricanes out west.
@@negativenarwhals mountain ranges force air up where it cools. Cold air holds much less water so it rains and leaves the area after the mountain range very dry
This big empty dry area is an awesome place to go on a motorcycle tour. If you stay off the Interstates, the windy roads to nowhere are awesome. Scenery is beautiful - weather is beautiful - traffic is non-existent.
I visited family in Los Angeles in September this year. Drove the length and breadth of California. It is so unimaginably large and empty, it really hits you when you’re driving and getting out of LA/SFO. And I’m from India, which is a pretty big country but this was unbelievable
As a teen, our family traveled across from New Mexico to Toronto. It amazed me that you could go through 3 to 4 states in a day. Try driving across Texas. It can be more than one day in some cases.
I live in Western South Dakota, and although there's so much so-called "Empty Space" here, it's an amazing place. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I've traveled all over the country as a truck driver, and I always breathe easier when I come home. You can keep the highly populated areas to yourself, thank you!
Driving from interior Alaska to the southeast portion of the Lower 48’s was the hardest trip I ever made. You don’t realize how in tune with the wilderness you are until it is no longer a part of your life.
I’ve been to every “Western” state, anything West of the Dakota’s and i’ve been there by road and some people don’t realize how EMPTY these states can really be. I drove north across Nevada and didn’t see ANY civilization for roughly 5hrs, I drove 300 miles before seeing another gas station… boy was I glad I had pumped ahead of time when I still had 200 miles in my tank.
I'm not in the US, but driving from Baja California to Baja California Sur is basically a 7hr long drive full of nothing after Ensenada. Maybe a very small town every now and then but its basically empty desert until you get to the state border with BCS, after that thats another 6-8 hours of nothingness until Mulege and even a few more hours until Cabo. People say Nevada is empty, but heck, they have never seen this old empty peninsula below California.
The Colorado river is moreso an example of politically motivated water mismanagement than of climate change. To cut a long story short: The states along the river measured how much water was flowing through the river (during an unusually rainy year), and then apportioned that water to themselves based on that.
even better, is that the rainy year + 20% is what they based the allocation at. So they very, very grossly overestimated the capacity. It's never been sustainable. This isn't a "drought" it's a return to normal.
@@CRneu where did you get that plus 20 percent? I also beleave they had several years measure that 15 million acre feet flowed past lees ferry. The fact that FDR gave Mexico 1.5 may in 43 to not join the axis powers was done with the states having a say. The average flow since 1922 has been about 13.2. Is that where you got 20 % being 13.2 + 2.64 comes close to the 15 maf figer
The big island of Hawaii is quite unique weather wise as well. Land in Hilo on the east side, drive to the south and the around to the west side where Kona is located. I think Hilo gets over 100 inches of rain per year and area just north of Kona basically desert, or around 10 inches a year. All in less than 100 miles of driving.
Love the Western United States. It has some of the most beautiful and diverse scenery in the world. Incredible how Powell so accurately predicted what the limiting factors of the area would be. Unfortunately, even today, leadership is mostly failing to take appropriate action to remedy the water related challenges that are now becoming so glaringly obvious.
@@bertanelson8062 I did love the sounds of coyotes in the evenings, the short 4 months I spent out there this spring/summer. Sadly, I love water more and while like the feeling of being "water responsible" by using and reusing water all the time, I hate only taking a shower once a week and wiping down the other days. San Bernardino valley is a rough place, but beautiful never the less.
@@bertanelson8062 Coyotes are doing quite well, in spite of the traffic! What can we do about the traffic? People try to discover nature near their homes, and not just have a knee-jerk and go out for a drive?
@@blackbway Does your home have gutters that direct the occasional rain into gutters, to become waste water? Have you looked at water catchment? It doesn't have to be big.
@@sonjalewis3047 it wasn't necessary my home, I was just staying there. There was a well on the property that we got water from but it takes gas to pump it and gas prices in CALIFORNIA was the highest it has ever been. I am back in New York again.
I'm a nomad who travels and lives across the country. This line is pretty visible when driving. In some places it happens quickly and drastically, in some it's a little more gradually but one thing is for sure, YOU KNOW when you "crossed into the west" the vegetation changes, the humidity changes, everything. The most dramatic change I've personally driven though is leaving Portland Oregon heading east. Once you past mt hood it goes from a literal rainforest to dry desert in almost an instant. Same when leaving reno and crossing into California. In texas where I am from 87 percent of texans lives east of this line. Once you go west of San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, it becomes no man's land compared to the eastern part of the state. One of the emptiest I've driven is the loneliest hwy across Nevada. I remember seeing a sign that said "128 miles to next gas station". The western US and the eastern US are like 2 different countries. Even the states on the line are like two different states. Go to far east Oklahoma then go to west Oklahoma, it's a whole other world.
@Buck Rothschild That took a lot of effort to read wall of text and I disagree, if you look anywhere in the nation, cities have generally democrat politics and the surrounding countryside have generally republican politics. The assumptions you make are based on your familiarity and political bias. In reality, it's a cultural thing. Cities are generally more homogeneous and necessarily dependent but are commerce nexuses with the rest of the world while the countryside just wants to be left alone for the most part.
@@miinyoo exactly thank you! what a wasted monologue and long ass boring diatribe and espoused garbage that buck rothchild typed up. keep crying Buck! its ok! stay where your at! wyoming doesn't need you! stay in your little metropolitan tik tok colorful culture "open-minded, diverse secular, athiest, marxist" bullshit bubble. the big cities are usually the ones to go first in a war anyways. nuked, bio-hazard crisis, marshall law instituted etc. while the small grassroot outskirt towns will still be around and able to fend for themselves and come together as a small tribal community. whereas in a big ass city... its every man and family for themselves and everyone devolves into animals... absolute total break down of society in a big city. freeways exiting the city would be totally shut down jam packed due to everyone wanting to leave the city all at once. hahahahah. no thank you! ill stay in my little mountainous town high up in elevation surrounded by mountains on all four sides. keep your big city unelected beaucratic policies out of my life! As the Great Tommy Lee Jones once said as Kay in Men in Black 1: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.
I live in northwest Iowa, kind of sandwiched between Omaha and Sioux Falls, and you can really tell a difference when you start to go west. This summer I drove to Colorado and you can go hours without seeing another human driving through Nebraska or Kansas for that matter.
One of the awesome benefits of living in the West is being able to get to an area unpolluted by city lights, glowing satellites and twinkling airplanes to enjoy the star filled Night Sky. When you can drive 1 hour or less out of town and see the Milky Way it is indescribably beautiful and inspiring. Also every American should get to visit the Grand Canyon, if only on the South Rim for a few hours at least once in their life. Also the Petrified Forest and Meteor Crater are unique feats of Nature. Yet, even in the West there are people who live their entire lives in the cities and never have these uplifting experiences. Most of the land in the dry Western states is federally owned, next is state owned and a lot of sparcely populated tribal land. So very little can be privately developed, ranched or farmed. Its beauty is likely to be preserved for a long time. Also the mighty Colorado controls the future for many states. For example, since the 1930's Los Angeles takes 40% of the Colorado River water to make possible its metropolis in the Southern California semi-desert. The federal government has reduced the 60% remainder that is divided among NV, CO, AZ, and NM due to the drought for 2022 by 5% and expects to reduce it another 5% in 2023. Since 80% of that water is used for crop irrigation, lots of land that produces food is being taken out of production in those states. Under a Water Treaty of 1944, the US must deliver a given amount to Mexico, which cannot be reduced. The state of Sonora, Mexico has felt the effects of the reduction however for decades. So much water has been diverted to supply farms and cities that the Colorado River has seldom met the Gulf of California. Its once 9,650 square miles has shrunk to less than 1 percent of its original size, the river reduced to a dry riverbed, with only small remnants of its once-vast wetlands surviving. Fortunately this year water is released from an irrigation canal as part of an agreement between the Mexican and U.S. governments to restore the ecosystem, and not reduced for the drought like the deliveries to NV, AZ and NM.
hi I want to correct you on a couple of things you may never have been made aware of because your operating on some assumptions that most people have for good reason but are just not true, There are not that many satellites not nearly as many as were told though the numbers they claim seem to change often.. more importantly if they are around 12,000 miles up as they claim our human eyes would not be able to see them, The ones we do see are the real ones but there not in Middle earth orbit there very close to us and being held up by hot air baloons (so technically advanced eh) we do see a lot of plains near cities. now you seem to indicate that the grand cannon is a natural wonder... it is not its an old abandoned quarry mine and its really really sad not wonderous.. a lot of people actually do get an ominous vibe when visiting and dont understand why its because its dead waste land. The petrified forrest was likely placed there like that for a reason though i dont quite understand it but it does serve as a clue as to what trees used to be (mesa) as for meteors there not real its more liekly that what we are told are meteor craters are actually openings to "the great deep" (the water below) you see were lied to and brainwashed about everything yet the truths and clues are right Infront of us but we have been programmed not to recognize them. These things I claim can and have been proven I have given you clues if you care to do the research. You are like the majority of the population living in a false reality. I mean no offence by saying these things I only hope that someone reading will look into these things and can learn where they are and what reality actually looks like.
I've watched grown adults look up at night and see the Milky Way for the first time ever . Its cool introducing young folks to new sights , experiences .. then watching an "adult " discover what theyve only heard about, Read about, Is equally rewarding. Maybe more
The discussion about the scarcity of water out west is very very true, although one 😊of our homes rests upon a spring fed creek with the cleanest water in California-and it runs 12 months a year, regardless of rain or snowfall. We benefit from a $45/month water bill and no water meters!
I’m from South Carolina and a few years back I visited Phoenix Arizona for the first time and I was immediately dumbfounded by how vastly different the landscape looked. I’m used to seeing grass, trees, and rolling hills everywhere I look so it was quite a shock for the only green thing to be cacti which previously I hadn’t seen larger than a few inches tall.
Right? I visited Phoenix and Prescott a few years back and the environment and landscape were so strange to me as someone who's lived in Indiana their entire life. It was pretty interesting, but not something I got used to.
@@MrFfuckUp Yeah I definitely felt the same way. On my trip we traveled north to Yellowstone national park and it was crazy how much the environment changed just from going in that direction. Still very dry, but less red rocks.
I work at the airport in Phoenix. I get a chuckle from all the people taking pictures of the local mountains through the windows. Dull red rock without a spot of green on them. People seem almost shocked how arid the city is. Then they put their hand against the glass and their eyes widen from the heat radiating off (in the summer.)
I grew up east of reno in rural Nevada and now I live in Wisconsin. Even though it's mostly farmland around me it feels so dense and populated compared to the high desert.
welcome to the state! Born and 'raised here, so not much to compare it to, however, to go with you point, I remember the first time flying into Vegas at night and I was struck with how desolate the area is once you get outside of Vegas itself
One thing you neglected to mention, a huge portion of the land in the western part of the United States is owned by the US government! Huge, huge tracks of land that are not allowed to be lived in or on. Also there are many large Native American reservations, again not allowed for average people to live on. You need to be a member of a tribe to live there. Government doesn't own nearly as much land in the eastern part of the US. Plus we have a water situation here in the West that makes it difficult to establish communities
It's so gross to me when people complain about not being able to live on a native american reservation. They are terrible places to live, hot and harsh, and still white people want to complain they can't live there?
There’s no Native rule or sovereign charter that I’m aware of that bars regular folks from living in reservations, i just don’t know why one would want to.
Absolutely not true that non natives can’t live on reservations, don’t spread misinformation. A simple google search easily refutes this, and reservations only make up a total of 2.3% of the Entire US, so no, they don’t take up large areas of the west.
This is a very good video telling us why some places are crowded with people but some are plain lands: rain fall is the main reason, I think other reasons like tornado and hurricane could make some differences as well. More and more climate disasters these days like earthquake, flood, wild fire at the west coast could make future changes, too.
Washington State is two different worlds. I lived in and graduated high school in Olympia, and then was stationed in Spokane. Weather aside it might as well be a different state. A lot of us called that part of Washington and Idaho the “south of the north” because of how conservative their politics are
Grew up on the westside and now live north of Spokane. I much prefer the northeast part of the state. The westside has become incredibly "peopley" since the early 90's. Rat race🐀🏎
I grew up in rural Michigan, and always thought that I lived in the middle of nowhere. After living in Alaska and New Mexico, I've realized that there are significantly more accurate definitions of the middle of nowhere.
When I spoke about a woman from Texas (TEX-sis) , my friend replied, "One day, they will divide Texas into two States. THEN, TEX-sis will have the honor of being the country's THIRD largest State. " Wow!
@@Zerox_Prime Under the terms of its admission into the United States, Texas may legally divide itself into as many as 5 states, which would give Texans 10 US Senators.
I’ve drove across both lines different times on interstates 80 and 90. You can immediately notice the change. For example, once you cross the Minnesota border into South Dakota, it’s easily noticeable you are in the high plains with a completely different landscape
Driving up and down the west coast I love seeing the shift between states. Leaving Oregon and entering California the dividing line literally was the break between dark grey sky's and mountain to sunshine and open spaces
Many moons ago I drove from the Houston area to New Mexico and I had to turn on the A/C at 07.30 am @ 76 F and turned it off in Van Horn about nine hours later at ~94 F, humidity sucks!
Great video! I have driven throughout this amazing country but have always lived in the west California, Arizona, Oregon and Washington state. You can’t drive anywhere in the West without either being in the mountains or mountain ranges in view. The first time driving East through the flat Midwest was definitely an eye opener. The western US is probably the best geological masterpiece on earth. From the beaches, rainforests, glacial mountains to the most desolate deserts. It never gets old exploring it.
The Midwest can get really flat, like in central Illinois where the glaciers scraped through, but it's still fairly wet and well populated. Once you leave the Midwest and get into the Plains west of the Mississippi River, it gets flat and unpopulated.
Live like mateo, I agree. I was born and raised in the west. I've had to move to the east coast. It is pretty and interesting in very different ways. But after only six months here , I find I'm missing the views and beauty we take so for granted in the West: the mountains, the deserts, the canyons, the forests, the wide open plains and the big skies of the west. It is like an ache inside me. The beauty of the east is different, in scope and scale. I'm missing the glory and majesty of the wide open west way more than I ever thought I would. I didn't realize how much I miss real mountains, either admiring the view from their feet or breathless at their heights looking down over the vast lands below.
@@aguest4408 I'm from Washington state and have moved to Georgia for college. I can't even tell you how depressed I've been missing my home state and all the mountains and hikes I've taken for granted. It's a major bitterness inside of me and I want to move back where my family is so badly. The west is so much better than the east, it isn't even a fair comparison.
@@ethanmietzner5218 To each their own…I live in California, born in New York, raised in Florida and partly in Puerto Rico…the west is nice and all but the “beaches” are trash and the bodies of “water” are a joke. Of course you miss where your from lol it’s what your used to but one doesn’t make the other one less beautiful.
What's interesting is that a lot of these exceptions, too, seem to be humans trying to force survival in a specific area to work. Like Salt Lake City where the Mormons settled after being kicked out of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, so they took an area they wouldn't have to fight anyone over. And this might be the same (but I'm not 100% certain) for Los Angeles where the film industry was specifically built up there as a place that was far away, geographically, from Thomas Edison since he was trying to stop people from being able to use movie film unless they paid him.
Year Salt Lake City is one of the driest in the country, and current residence are now paying for their ancestors settling since the Salt Lake is being drained dry, over 70% gone already. Spells disaster for their agricultural industry, as well as the city's residents itself since toxic dust clouds are forming in parts for the lake that used to have water. Don't settle in the desert.......
I'm not surprised my Ancestors decided to come to Wisconsin in 1843 from Norway to farm around the lakes. Wisconsin/Minnesota/Michigan really are the gems of America. Where the beauty lies in Nature and where you get all of the seasons with perfect weather for that season. This Summer it was 75 degrees everyday with low humidity and also rained at a steady pace to keep everything very green, nice for farming.
That's nice. The last time I was in Wisconsin in summer, it was about 60 and overcast. The time before that, 90+ and dry. Still better than southern California, where winters are in the 80s and summers are unbearable. Western Washington - that's what I call home. Rains and green in spring, warm days in summer, changing colors in autumn and cool -cold days in winter with a bit of snow.
My favorite vacations were Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay and Door County. I chose those places over OBX, Myrtle Beach, Destin and Gulf Shores. I'm from CA so beaches weren't a must see at this point. I grew up in a concrete jungle. Seeing trees and green colored landscape was calming. Low humidity and tolerable heat was comforting. Fortunately, I just live a few hours away and can escape their as needed.
Someone had posted this with ads on FB without attribution and I recognised your voice. So I posted your link in the comments. Keep doing the good work!
As someone who lives out east in Tennessee where there is a ton of rivers and lakes I feel blessed we've never had to worry about water. I hope they can figure out the water situation out west!
My Wife and I just made a road trip from Denver to Virginia, and that line is so stark. We hit it right in the middle of Kansas. West Kansas is just empty, just absolute emptiness. Even when we drove through the deserts of California and Nevada, there were mountains, valleys and you can even see the next town in the distance, even if it were miles away. But West Kansas is truly pure nothingness.
@PremoMeztiso HAHA! I drive thru that area twice a year. If the flat lands and dust don't get you the acrid smell of cow waste will. And there's really no decent places to spend the night in that region.
Being from rural TN where I have in laws that live on 50+ acres of untouched wilderness, doing a road trip to Lake Tahoe and back was probably my biggest eye opener of how freaking massive our country is! It was that terrible 5 hour(can't exactly remember) of desert from Reno to Las Vegas that didn't settle well with me. I remember absently texting my fiance(now husband) where my friends and I were whenever we got a decent signal. The constant thought of "If we get strained here we're f***ed!" kept going through my mind. I'm claustrophobic and that was the complete opposite of that and I DID NOT LIKE IT EITHER! Regardless, I loved my time at Lake Tahoe and Reno(Vegas not so much) but will be flying the whole way next time.
It's interesting you mention Lake Tahoe as that's a special place we visited often as a family in my youth especially. Always felt like a magical escape from the city life. To take the trip all the way from TN to Tahoe would be like a moving psychedelic experience! I'm actually ready to leave the west for various reasons with TN as a primary location in mind. I'll be going the opposite direction from coast to desert to mid-continent and east of the 98th parallel. God bless you and yours.
It's crazy how ancient events can have impact on today's society. I recall seeing a post about a year or so ago where an ancient volcano erupted leading to slightly more fertile soil in a certain stretch of the state of Georgia. The fertile soil led to more farming in that area, which lead to more slave plantations, which led to a higher population of Black people, which leads to that same stretch in Georgia tending to vote vastly more Democrat than the rest of the state. It's crazy.
The aftermath is kind of amazing when you think about it because everything has it own path. For example the atomic bombs that United States dropped in Japan. Hiroshima was the first city they wanted to nuke and the second was actually Kokura (I am almost sure that is the name of the city) they were going to eliminate. Since Kokura had a lot of smoke from Hiroshima they had to bomb Nagasaki instead. Like I said, everything has it own path...
@@lieutenantdan8541 Sorry, I wrote that while watching the video and because real life lore usually talks about social subjects, I thought this comment was about some historical thing that happened during the american colonizstion. I deleted the comment
It is beautiful in the Midwest! My husband and I went across the country in the 70's What a wonderful time to travel!! The air quality was so good, and the sky was so blue 💙!! There was such a remarkable difference in people also! The people were friendly!!
Let me guess you’re your family is white, the Midwest is perceived as super friendly because of the low record of non white immigration there, so in turn it’s “safe” “ and “friendly” but good luck driving in Wisconsin while being black
Midwest nice is gone. Lived their most of my life and it’s no where near the same. The south is still the only true and real friendly society left in this country. Makes sense as most of those states are red. The democrats and liberals ruin everything with their hate for each other and this country.
I think it is worth mentioning another reason people grow wheat across that line is because wheat does well in clay and they have more of that across the line, especially in Kansas.
This video should be shown in all schools in US. Wow - so packed with information! Details and maps and more maps! Simply amazing piece of work you produced here! 5 stars ⭐Bravo!! (OH and the comments 9,824 add so much more to the main story - so many people lived this story!)
Just got done with my 2nd cross country trip back to the East & I honestly love the vast emptiness of the west, it feels so serene and spiritual to explore and I'm glad there are vast areas in this country that get u away from the dense hussle n bustle of the east
I used to live in Flagstaff, AZ and there was a road I always drove on called JW Powell, named after this guy. I find that super interesting because Flagstaff does not use the Colorado for water and I believe is actually known for having great water management, as there is a huge lake nearby that barely needs any treatment to be potable.
Flagstaff’s San Francisco Peaks give us two advantages. We have a slight rain shadow that creates a little more precipitation to the west. Also, the SFP are ‘circular’ creating a caldera that catches water in an aquifer for our use. In addition, the volcanic rock that surrounds this unique range (not caused by tectonic plate shifting, but extinct volcanoes) is a wonderful filter for this water.
For the past few summers I've been veey fortunate to be able totake a yearly drive from Denver up to just south of Lake athabasca in sakatchewan for fishing. 3 day all day drive through this stretch of ranch land, farmland and wilderness. And the culture really doesn't change, even moving over borders. I moved from the east to Denver as a teenager and absolutely love it. Land and exploration as far as the eye can see. Real wilderness in the mountains. And the distance between people breeds a very special culture of nice and mild-mannered folks.
Something you forgot to mention is this is the reason there's so many more tornadoes in America on this line than anywhere else in the world. It's very unique to severe supercell thunderstorms because drylines happen here all the time
@@User31129 Not Entirely true. However the United States does make up about 75% of All the World's Tornadoes. In fact, there was a tornado in another country. In Asia somewhere recently, if I'm remembering correctly.
@@User31129 Tornados regularly form in all of Europe, South Africa, Philippines, Bangladesh, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Japan, and far eastern China. They normally refer to them as Cyclones - but they are, alas, what Americans call Tornados.
@@AmyC28713 Cyclones most often refers to hurricanes not tornados. The rest of the world get 200-300 tornados a year. The US averages over 1000 a year. The tornados are often (but not always) bigger and stronger in the US than in other countries as well.
As someone who moved from Yokohama Japan and lived in Seattle Washington for 12 years and Salt Lake City for 4 years then moving east to Mississippi for 5 months and now currently just moving to Dallas the south and east feel weird, it’s nice but it’s completely different from the west it’s like I’m away from home. I miss the west coast I hope to move back as an adult.
i'm a floridian, but my parents are national park nerds so i've been out of the state plenty of times. all the places we've been are so different; it's quite impressive honestly. as of writing this our next trips planned are utah's parks (as well as the grand canyon) in march, a few cali parks in april (we've hit up some before), and some of alaska's over the summer
Just curious. If possible, find some videos of many of national parks Rangers and US forest Rangers, and even some who have been around for decades , have hard to believe stories. The phenomenal creature's have grown in population and remain mostly unknown to the public because parks and forest Rangers are told to keep quiet about scary creatures that many know exist but visitors will not visit if many people realize truths that really happen more often than people realize. The encounters are only from the few people that survived or bothered to report things that happened. 🤔 Native Indians culture traditionally pass down information about the protector of the forest "Bigfoot Sasquatch" to avoid going to far into the woods and respect territory of nature's unknown creatures.. .... That was probably the most repeated sensible fact for centuries as various "nations" (tribal territories) of various Native Indians will confirm true 👍 The encounters are from credible people who are military, ex military, forest Rangers and police officers and people from all over the country. The UA-cam channels like these describe various ongoing events, Lilith dread, Donavan dread What learks below, Buckeye Bigfoot And many UA-cam channels that recently have grown awareness of cryptic creature evidence and encounters. Just saying to check with options of information about the related topics. Good luck to everyone 👍🙏
Scouting three states over next ten summers. Montana, Wyoming and my fall back is West Virginia if I don’t make what I need. I plan to retire to part time handyman or some other trade at 55. I’d just retire fully but I’m realistic I make good money but unfortunately my other half became disabled early in the relationship and right when the kids are most expensive. 7 more years and they will all be over 20 so on your own kids our time to live how we want… or I at least😂😂😂
When I was 20 I drove a Volkswagen from North of Detroit to Anaheim CA to visit a friend. I remember a sign that said "No gas for the next 100 miles". It was shocking how big this country actually is.
as a californian who loooovvvvess nature, i consider myself blessed to live in the west. the nature here is just magnificent. in just my state alone, the diversity is insane! beaches, mountains, desert, cities, we got it all. love it so much.
@Timothy Pickard try beating a days drive to the beach, try beating a days drive to the desert like death valley, try beating a days drive to the cali coast to drive on highway 1, one of the most scenic drives ever; try beating a days drive to the mountains: sierra nevadas; home to the last remaining sequoia trees in the world and yosemite national park. dude listen to yourself. you're flexing gas prices as if that's the absolute best thing ever. sad.
@Timothy Pickard I've lived in SoCal my whole life. If you apply yourself and have the right qualifications, you can find really good paying jobs in just about any industry or run your own business to afford the cost of living here. We have the largest economy than any other state for a reason.
This is crazy to me. I have lived in metropolitan Denver my whole life and I have never thought it weird that it takes at least 45 minutes to get to another major town.
I live in St. Louis it’s 5 hours to chicago 3 hours to Kansas City , 3 hours to Indianapolis …leave st louis and it takes no more than 15 minutes to find another smaller city..Everything is close around here
They may have meant to get from the Denver metropolitan area with smaller nearby cities, to the next metropolitan area. That would be like quibbling about whether Pasadena or Fairfax/La Brea are part of Los Angeles. All are part of the Los Angeles metropolitan statistical area, but Pasadena is its own city whereas Fairfax/La Brea is actually just a neighborhood or region of the city of Los Angeles. So no doubt the cities you mention like Longmont are independent from Denver proper in terms of separate city governments etc., but they are considered part of the same overall metropolitan statistical area (and maybe in the same county too, I’m not sure).
I have been across the 98 degree west line. Once you pass San Antonio going west, it suddenly becomes a lot more desolate, arid, and rural. Around 98 to 100 degrees west is also where the Koppen Climate types shift from SubTropical or Continental to Semi-arid. The 25 inches a year is generally the dividing line for what is semi arid.
You’re 100% correct. The change that takes place is pretty drastic considering you don’t have to travel very far to notice it. Same when in Austin traveling on 290w. It turns from relatively lush thickets with grass lands to a a very distinct drier terrain. This is all within 20 miles or so…
You are right as far as Texas and NM concerned. But, here in CO, we have fairly moderate weather year round with plenty of snow in winter and torrential rain in summer, of course we have cold deserts too and the evapotranspiration is quite low even though precipitation amounts are high, the soil stays dry. The cold semi arid transitions to an alpine subarctic climate in higher elevations resulting in more snow. In general the boundary for subarctic is pushed further south in the west compared to the east. For example, Calgary, Alberta has a subarctic climate sitting at 50N, but Tundra is pushed much further south in the eastern seaboard, in fact the southernmost boundary for tree line is in NL at only 55N one the cold shallow waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
@@Primitive_Code Well, yeah, mountains have orographic lifting that increases precipitation there on the mountains. But, in valleys /basins, where most people live, it is quite dry. Look at cities above 100,000 people west of 100 degrees west. Amarillo, Lubbock, Denver, Colorado Springs, Albuquerque, El Paso, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, Spokane, Billings, Boise, Salt Lake City, Reno, Fresno, etc... These places all have fairly dry climates (roughly 20 inches of precipitation or less) unless you stay on the Pacific coast north of San Francisco, where you have places like Forks Washington getting 100 inches a year and Portland Oregon and Seattle getting around 40 inches a year. As for the subarctic getting pushed south, yes, it's primarily the elevation. Even valleys/basins/great plains in western states are still quite high in elevation (2000+ feet for most).
Being from the East but living out West you realize how vast the country is. The West feels oddly isolated even in the major areas, everything is just much further apart and the mountains and valleys make you feel very separated from one another.
ive lived in Arizona my whole life and when i visited the east i LOVED it, it was so green and i was shocked how everything was close together, and the subway.
I live in Sacramento CA and love it. It’s just enough and not too much lol. I travel frequently between Las Vegas (by car and plane), So Cal, Bay area and Idaho and I have my likes/dislikes all the same. I can’t wait to visit Europe and South Korea. I appreciate this video/information and reading everyone’s comments. I’d rather watch this vs the other stuff. Thank you peace out ✌🏾
As someone who has lived in the West, it's amazing to me to think that those in the East are just a short distance away from anything, meaning walk 20 minutes in any direction and you will find civilization. In the West the distances between the urban centers can be vast with literally nothing in between for hours.
Yet, I'm amazed that upstate New York is rual
@@dans9463 Most of it is. Once California kicked off the Berkeley academic revolution during WWII most of the brains which did reside in upstate NY moved there. Now it's an area where there are some underserved populations (whom probably like it and don't care) and estates for the fabulously wealthy especially running up the Hudson river valley among the Appalachian hills.
Ever since NY brought in high state taxes, regulation and began focusing on NYC and LI, most of the rural folks took off for Penn and westward or east into CT and Vermont.
For example, artisans of fine cabinetry and custom craft still exist in upstate NY solely because the wealthy who buy estates there want that custom sort of thing so the demand for fine craftsmanship keeps them there.
@@miinyoo
Thank you
I guess Socialist distancing helps that area to maintain its natural characteristic.
Yeah, freaked a long-time friend out when I went to visit him (he lives in Massachusetts, BTW) by driving from Cape Cod to NYC. Worked out to about 125 miles one way. Which, by California standards isn't very much - it's not unusual for me to drive to the Colorado River for a day trip (about 160 miles one way).
Bit of a different impression when I realized I'd driven in 4 different states in the 4 1/2 hours it took me to get there. 😳
Then take it a step further and go to western Canada that’s where I’ve always lived the closest city to the city where I grew up was an 11 hour drive
When Lincoln was established as the capital of Nebraska (and renamed to Lincoln), it was considered to be the furthest point west where people would want to settle, marking the boundary of the westward great American desert. They even specified the exact location of this boundary to be the intersection of O St and 14th St. To this day it still marks a divider of the east/west population, where half of the state's population lives across a line just east of Lincoln, in the far eastern part of the state. West of Lincoln still remains the West as it did in the late 1800's.
And where the conspiracy theorists- and republican rage grievance hysterics flourish 🦖☄️
Nice. My home
@@starcrib So you must be like a loyal dog to the Democrats, because despite the absolute shitshow that was bidens presidency and the fact that everyone has lost the little faith they had in him you still eat up their propaganda. Sorry I went into my political opinion, I'll delete it if you guys want, it would be hypocritical of me to keep it up.
@@starcrib Also, always bringing up politics in a video that has nothing to do with politics, congrats dude, your an outcast.
I didn’t know the history but leaving Lincoln traveling west really does feel like your entering something different entirely. East of Lincoln along I-80 your rarely a few hours from a major population center yet once you leave Lincoln heading west along I80 the next population center is Salt Lake City followed by Reno then Sacramento. It’s truly desolate.
I lived in Indiana 25 years, and left to see America 4 years ago. Driving through Nebraska, Montana, Texas, New Mexico, California, Nevada...life changing. The enormity of these open spaces makes you feel somehow more human and much less important.
I live in Indiana. Do you regret leaving or is life better?
@@Soldierboytrey life is IMMEASURABLY better since I left Indiana. The weather is better out West, the people are more diverse and easy going, there is less religious bigotry, I make more money, and there are endless free things to do in Las Vegas, where i spend the winter, and Montana, where I spend the summer. To boot, I am what most people would call poor. I make about 20 dollars an hour as a Chef. I was on the verge of suicide living in Indiana. I feel as though I have been born again out here. I will never go back to Indiana and I rarely talk to anybody from Indiana because I have already heard their piece. Everything... I mean EVERYTHING is better out West.
@@coryphillips7945 Indyanimal for life!
@@coryphillips7945, one of the best things I did after being fired from my electronics job in 1991 was to go to truck driving school. Eleven weeks after I started I had my Commercial Drivers License. Things only looked up from there. The guy I was working for before going to driving school even tried to get me to come back to work for him. I was enjoying myself too much going to new places and meeting new faces. Over the years some became friends.
@@coryphillips7945 People who abandon their past and have no family/friends to speak with usually indicates YOU were the problem.
I drove from NYC to San Francisco. It was amazing. The amount of uninhabited land was surprising and the U.S. highway system was impressive.
Please leave our "flyover country" uninhabited. We do not need city slickers from NYC and San Francisco ruining it.
How long did it take you? What car did you drive in?, and how many miles did you drive?
@@mohit_zala_ It probably also depends on how much sight seeing you stop to do on the trip. 2-3 days if you only stop for pit stops and to sleep at hotels.
Yes, if potholes impress you then yes, it's very impressive! LOL
Alright good, hopefully this proves we have enough land for people to fit in on for billions of years for humans,
I'd like to hear his VAAAASST inflection on something more mundane. "I walked into Starbucks and began to wait for an ENORMOUS length of time UNPRECEDENTED in ALL of modern human history. When I gazed at the MONUMENTAL menu variety I was ASTOUNDED at the plethora of choices with a STAGGERING 40 choices. Each item weighing in at a COLLASAL 2.5% of the TOTAL menu availability."
Lmao true
It's like he discovered adjectives and now cannot stop filling the script with them... while narrating in the most over the top way possible.
@@soundscape26 Yeah it is hard to not hear now that it's noticed. I do hope he continues though, gives him fun character amongst some of the other similar channels...
@@DoodleDangWang I mean, only if he wants to be the Jar Jar Binks of the geopolitical channels.
😂🙏
I once drove from Provo UT to Austin TX and can confirm there are very few towns in between and TONS of desert, crazy that Phoenix and Las Vegas exist in this desert
Irrigation is the only reason that desert cities can exist.
I'm not sure about Phoenix, but Vegas is mostly a product of the Mob from California who ran gambling rings getting outlawed, and thus moving in to Nevada in a part of the state where there was no regulation due to being unincorporated territory.
I live in Phoenix. We often joke the only reason it exists was because air conditioning was invented. It would be absolutely inhospitable otherwise. Arizona actually gets the majority of its water from underground reservoirs, not so much from the Colorado.
I know someone else also answered, but vegas is also there because of Hoover dam as well, since it gave a more consistent source of water
I once drove from Fargo, ND, to Seattle Washington. And even up north, where there is absolutely no "desert" anywhere on the map, that vast stretch of region is so sparsely populated that, for a while, as I was driving across North Dakota/Montana at night, you could not see ANY city lights, on the horizon, and the sky was so clear from light pollution that you could see the milky way band CLEARLY! It was literally like driving across the surface of the MOON, in some locations! All you had was the interstate, and even then, you rarely passed any other vehicles going either way! It was so eerie, I remember actually getting to Boise, Idaho, and finally feeling relief at the sight of significant human population! lol
As someone who’s never been to America, I find this really interesting
You should come, I'll show you around. America is really weird because there are so many different cultures and attitudes. Think you understand America by visiting NYC, drive 50 miles north, and it's completely different
@@CharlieKellyEsq ...or 50 miles south of DC.
@@CharlieKellyEsq Yep even within a single state it can be crazy. Here in SC and the lowcountry region differs a good bit from the upstate.
@E Van visit India and you would find the same every state different language and culture
@E Van Last thing I would do is take them to New England or Utah, best to go to NYC and actually experience what the city has. Of course, most people from outside the city only pay attention to everything down town.
I just got back from NYC, it was my first time ever on the east coast as a native Californian. The places I saw, people I met, and food I ate were unlike anything back home. It's an experience that showed me that the US truly has many different cultures
@@ChrisE2019 Pubic comment section bud
I was born and raised in NYC but I’ve never been to California before. I hope one day I get to experience what it’s like to live in California because I have never traveled to the West Coast ever in my life. I only have been to East Coast states.
@@mattr2626This is a very hairy comment section
@@imreallyagoatBe sure to know how to drive. Public transportation is terrible here compared to NYC
@@DylanJo123Something interesting is that New Jersey is closer to New Hampshire and Vermont than the distance from New Jersey to North Carolina. NYC, Philly, are closer to Nunavut (Akimiski Island) than to Miami Florida.
Yeah, when I moved from East coast to West coast (I drove), I was shocked by how different everything felt when I got to western Nebraska. I had always been used to having an exit with a rest stop, gas station, etc every 10 miles or so. Wyoming was especially frightening because you could go 90 or 100 miles without a single exit, and then if there was one, there was no guarantee it wouldn't be a dirt road or something. I filled up the tank whenever I could.
Stunningly beautiful though! First time I ever saw true wilderness as opposed to countryside. Then the sun set to a fiery red horizon and the stars and the milky way came out. Still remember it clearly.
Thankyou my friend for sharing that. It sounds amazing. Im from the UK but if i lived in America id love to be way out west with open space all around me.
Loved Wyoming driving through!
Very interesting what year did you head west?
@@timhorrocks3515 come Tim. I'm headed west to the Rockies myself soon. NYC metro area is not what it once was. 👍
@@nyy1960 This happened in 2013. I moved to Portland, OR for a 1 year contract job. I've since moved back to the east coast though!
I drove from Arkansas to California and back recently, and it’s really amazing to watch the landscape change like this. You can feel the land getting more and more parched as you go until you hit the dramatic, dry expanse of the Mohave desert where there is basically no life. As cool as the west is, coming back into the dense forests of the eastern United States was really comforting. I think we’re programmed to recognize dry places as hostile to our existence.
@@benrobinson1544 I’ve been to Washington as well, and I watched the same video with the same rainfall data as you did. I know the entire west isn’t a desert, but that experience of heading due west in the southern US is really something.
Rain? Dense forests? What are these foreign concepts?
-someone born and raised in the LA region
@@bluesbest1 Griffith Park in January; its an approximation, but should help you get there.
@@bluesbest1 angeles national forest is nice when its super foggy.
@@YourLoyalDeserter you forgot thunder and lightning and wind. we have newcomers to the state who wondered if our spring weather was normal.
When I turned 18 I did a roadtrip from Vermont (North East, close to Maine, New Hampshire, New York) to Los Angeles. I think everyone should make a trip like this if you live in the United States. The appreciation it will give you for this countries structure, geography, and cultures is worth so much more than I thought. However large you imagine the distance to be, I can assure you it is larger.
Did you see SLC or St. George?
@@SamuelSamuelSamuel1 SLC is amazing to see when you breach the mountains in the middle of the night. It's like a city came out of literally nowhere.
Highly recommend east / west road trip. Don't go with a set plan if you can. Take two weeks to do it. There's a lot to discover, little nooks and crannies of food and culture all along the way. Every 200 miles is different. Goes to show that America with all it's claims of unity is very much a diverse place. (unless you're in the cities which are much more homogeneous culturally)
It's a good thing you specified that Vermont is in the northeast.
I’m straight
As a Canadian, I find this video very educational. I had no idea that the central states were so sparsely populated. It doesn't surprise me, as I went to Wyoming and Montana last summer and I was amazed by how rural it was.
Canada is the same way. It's like the Outback but not as extreme. Gotta stay networked to the coast.
@@Nyder I know about Canada, I just didn't know about the states.
@@ludicrousmodel3173 And in Canada I would imagine the vast majority of the population lives within less than an hour and half drive of the the border. Once you get too north the areas become a lot colder and less inhabitable.
Philly, NYC, are closer to Nunavut (via Akimiski Island) than to Miami.
@@joemckim1183yes it's true, but we also have the same lack of moisture drying out our interior, plus it's cold north of the Great Lakes in the east, so once you start going west of Toronto, population gets very sparse. The line shows up going to Winnipeg here in terms of precipitation, but it begins earlier in Canada due to temperature, even though Winnipeg is far more wet than anything west of it (until BC)
Western Canada is extremely sparse. Vancouver is nice, I grew up here, but I am jealous of the many other places in the world where there are places to go within easy distance by road or rail. It takes 4 hours by train (if you're lucky) just to get to Seattle from here, and as much as I like Seattle it isn't too terribly different. And forget going anywhere else in Canada - the Canadian only runs twice a week, costs a lot, and won't get you anywhere quickly. Though it is a nice journey in itself - I enjoyed it - but not super practical to actually get somewhere.
This is one of the more amazing videos I’ve watched on UA-cam. It’s extremely educational and i never realized a line divided the US like this!
Not so accurate tho atleast when it comes to Finaland, like sure most live on the south but for me 90% of people I know are from white area :D
@@leevikaunismaa9652 I have no idea what you're talking about lmao, but imagine that race, gender and wealth (?) was also factored in on this study and a clear inclination came out 😱 there might be... in each country... omg if only I were an anthropologist or smth 😩🤌✨
Agreed!
You need to get out more!
@@uncensored5104 I mean I don't wanna drive 400km to the "zone" where people live😁
As someone who lives in Southern California, I think this is really interesting! In a way this is sort of similar to Australia and China in that most of the population lives on the East Coast and the West is mostly isolated and scattered.
Funny how being from Cali it doesn’t seem like we’re isolated. But then again I’m in the LA area so it’s just always busy and slammed everywhere. But we are surrounded by deserts if we want to go anywhere.
@Buck Rothschild I grew up in Utah, and you'd hear the same things there. Now I live in California.... and I gotta say most Californians are friendlier than most Utahns I've met.
But you're right, the same problem effects Wyoming, Utah, and even California. Water. And it's so frustrating that at least when it comes to my family back home, they don't see the connection to pollution, climate change, and drought. A lot of us out on this side of the country are literally shooting ourselves in the foot.
@@Evil_Chronic I live in the Bay Area, and it feels like that here too, but it's crazy how you just go a little ways out of from San Francisco and it's immediately desolate. Was the same when I used to live in Phoenix. But I went to school in Nashville, and going out there you really see the difference. You leave the city, but you still see signs of human life everywhere.
@@anthonydelfino6171 I used to live by sac till I was bout 10, but now I live in Reno. Over here, if you just cross into a neighboring valley, it's completely devoid of civilization.
@@Evil_Chronic It definitely doesn't feel like we're isolated since we're in the middle of a fully developed island, but once you drive north on the Interstate 15 up to Barstow and Baker or travel east to like Anza-Borrego it truly does feel desolate out there. People in Perth, Australia probably feel the same way since they're surrounded by the Outback.
The line going right through Kansas explains a lot. I used to live in western Kansas, then eastern Kansas, and the divide between the arid west and humid east makes the two halves feel like different states.
And the latest referendum, and to avoid this getting too political I won't say what it was about, proved sort of like all Kansas elections prove. If you want a Republican ballot initiative or candidate to win you have to hope for mass turnout west of Wichita and average to below average turnout in Johnson, Shawnee, Riley, Douglas, Wyandotte, and Sedgwick counties. If you want a democratic initiative or candidate to win you are going to want massive turnouts in those counties and average to below average turnout in the west. In future, there may well be an Illinois effect in Kansas where Kansas is largely rural and Republican while the KC metro turns the state -at least in the senate- more purple or even light blue.
I live on the western border, its a night and day difference. I love where I live but its dry as fuck, and the farmers needing to irrigate only makes getting water harder as our watershed gets abused slightly it seems like with larger areas daming up the tributaries and stuff. Tho idk how much of that is true.
As a Minnesotan I am always so shocked when I go to one of the Dakota's. It's truly mind boggling how different everything is. The terrain, the vegetation, the amount of water, and thus the people.
To anyone that lives near this line their is no mystery as to why it exists.
Oregon is like this too
@@naddarr1 I'm currently living in Minnesota, and you're absolutely right about this one! I've spent my whole life around The Line and it's crazy how rain changes everything.
As a truck driver ,always waiting to pass that line ,so I can enjoy the ride ,everything east of that line is nightmare.
I wonder how the East will be modeled in American Truck Simulator compared to the West. The West Coast is very peaceful to drive the trucks on. Yet IDK if any DLC released for the game which takes place in the East
I worked in a small rural town in Idaho that fulfilled orders all across the US. Someone from New York city called in one day and asked if I was close to Bosie. I told him "No I'm on the east side of Idaho and Boise is on the west side." He responded "So what like 30 minutes?" I said "try 5 hours buddy."
Wow. I didn't even know that. And I'm so glad I don't live in NYC anymore! Never again.
@@CaliWeHo And I miss it every day. It is definitely not for everybody.
American geography wasn't his strong point I guess 🙂
@@rossco76tait48 Or he just lives in New York and never leaves. He could’ve been British they can go from one part of the country to another in the span of 5 to 6 hours. They think a 45 minute drive is an eternity. Too funny. Meanwhile I routinely drive 13 hours to go visit my family when I don’t feel like dealing with flying around.
just moved, learned this the hard way😭
I moved to the Phoenix metro area from the east coast and this remoteness outside of the populated areas was striking to me. Even in the rural areas of the east, there's almost always evidence of some form of human presence (a cornfield, a gas station, etc.). If you drive in any direction north, south, east, or west of metro Phoenix, you can go miles upon miles without seeing anything but the road, your car, the fairly steady stream of traffic, and a seemingly unending landscape of nothingness. It's a surreal experience.
EDIT: In my original comment I stated you can go “literally hundreds and hundreds of miles” without seeing civilization. Admittedly, this is a bit of an exaggeration for the most part.
Agreed, I've lived back East and thought it humorous when my cousims went Camping and put on lumberjack attire and kitted out with every conceivable gadget. There are no mountains compared to the Rockies or Sierras and certainly none that match the sheer beauty of the grand tetons.
I drove from LA to Portland Oregon along the coast and in Washington and Oregon there were stretches where it was just forest and trees for 2 hours without anything. Forest so dense it blocks out the sun and makes the road look dark. Then one time i flew from from Houston to Anchorage Alaska and when you're over the border between Canada and US you look down and see nothing but endless trees
It's gorgeous
It is lovely.
@@ari_california8873 I want to do that drive someday.
I've driven across country 3 times on a motorcycle. The diversity in this country is truly something to experience. Would love to spend an entire year just driving around, having adventures and solving mysteries, like BJ and the Bear. :)
And then, there's NEVADA. What made them the hooker state?
Gen Xer I presume ?
@@jason9035 u should join me detective
A romantic idea with an enormous carbon footprint
@@lifeonahilltop fair enough.
As someone who lives in a small town in the Rocky Mountains far away from any major cities, this video was super interesting to watch. Especially the part where Mount Mitchell is mentioned and how it's only 6,684 feet tall. I say *only* 6,684 tall, because my town is more than 2,000 feet higher than that in elevation. The world is a pretty crazy place.
I completely get it! I live in Colorado Springs at 7000 ft and found it amusing the tallest mountains in east coast are lower then where I live hahaha😊
@@alvaroperez7879are you from South Park?
which town
@@bluebeef_MCI live in Seattle and he didn’t ignore it
The pacific northwest weather is insane. Youll go from a cold rainy day surrounded by evergreen trees to crossing the cascades in 2 feet of snow, then out into the burning plains of eastern washington. Not a tree in sight for as far as you can see. Even though its called the evergreen state, half of washington is desert.
Oregon is even more extreme. The southeastern quarter of the state is almost completely empty and isn't really used for anything except ranching and mining. The land south of US 20 and east of US 395 (almost 18,000 sq. miles) has literally just 2 incorporated towns, both close to the Idaho border.
Until you get to Spokane. Then the trees lakes reappear.
@@DDBurnett1 I've seen maps that place that part of Oregon in the Great Basin, so that makes sense.
True I live near seattle and near there there is a lot of things so its not that different from the east coast, but once you get out of that little bubble around seattle its basically like a desert cause I had to drive all the way across washington for a game in Spokane once it was pretty crazy
Yeah, you got that right. I learned this from going to Seattle, WA back in the summer of 2009, and then going to Twisp, WA back in the Winter of 2018. It's like 2 totally different worlds.
I’m from Salt Lake City, and I’ve never gone past
“the line” and I’ve never seen the ocean.
It doesn’t bother me. It’s just weird to think that I live in a bowl with 2,660,000 people
(Wasatch front) in an isolated bubble.
I’ve always wanted to drive to New York just to see the endless small towns that people talk about existing.
Heck I’ve never been in a metro sprawl with more than 5,000,000 people.
And Phoenix was enough of a trip. I could see a huge city from end to end and it felt infinite.
In Utah you look any direction and the buildings and homes end with mountains.
Salt Lake City is interesting. Basically one seemingly endless collection of cities and suburbs for over 100 miles from north to south, all tied together by a busy 10-18 lane freeway (Interstate 15). However, you can travel east-to-west in 10-15 miles and be completely surrounded by either forests and mountains to the east, or desert to the west. Nothing else like it in the US. Puget Sound sprawls for well over 100 miles north-to-south as well, but east-to-west sprawl isn't quite as narrow as it is in Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Front region.
Yeah I live in a small town in western Maryland and it’s nice living in a small community. I could never live in a big city but i would like to Live on the outskirts of one. I would love to visit the west coast though
Meanwhile I'm sick of NYC and want to live in a small town or a less populated area
@@NicotineRosberg I have a cousin who lives in nyc and I could never do it, for me personally the politics and the people are the worst along with the liberal mayor. Since I’ve always lived in a smaller community I’m definitely more conservative than liberal and especially with all the Covid shit and booster shots I couldn’t deal with that bullshit, but that’s just my opinion. Although I think you would be much happier in a smaller community you can really take in the sights and sounds of nature and just the world around you so much more. You won’t wanna live in a big city again
You should really visit NYC. It's truly magical. Lived in Hells Kitchen for 3 years.
As a washintonian I am amazed to actually find a video that recognizes the diversity to my home state. Most Americans only understand Washington as a rainy forest mountain coastal state. Half of Washington is plains desert canyons. The way the weather comes off the ocean, hits those mountains and just empties itself is something I find hard to explain to people who are used to the east coast.
Lived in Eastern WA most of my life and I love it here.
Spokane is so dry next to Seattle
I’m an Oregonian (Hey neighbor!) 😀👋 and yes, it’s the same here. People only ever think of “rainy Portland” (Oregon, not Maine) and they never think about the vast diversity in landscape and climate/weather throughout the state. The Pacific Northwest truly is a natural wonder to behold 💎
Spokane is the best for militias
I love the diversity tho. Great state for hiking a variety of terrain if you're willing to drive a few hours.
Having grown up in New Zealand which is a small island nation, the size of a country like the USA is mind boggling for me.
You get used to it. My family once took a summer to take a road trip through the Western States. It was quite fun but like described, sparse, but it was inspiring.
The East Coast imo, especially New England and New York are more fast paced and crowded for my tastes. And in the South East, the people are polite and hospitable as long as you extend the same courtesy.
@@boardcertifiable New England and New York have tons of rural areas tho, IMO we have the best rural land in the whole east coast especially up in Vermont, Maine, NH, upstate NY quiet and peaceful places with amazing beauty.
As a high school US History teacher, I use the night-time satellite photo of the US to introduce western expansion and the transcontinental railroad. If you look closely, you can see strings of lights in the West, denoting the paths taken by railroads in the 19th century.
@Joshua Stein As a railfan, I find this interesting. I often use Google Maps to discover long abandoned railroad right of ways. You can often see paths of coal dust that still show up on the map's despite the fields having been plowed over many times by the farmers. Plus tree lines often follow former right of ways. 🙂
Flying across the plains at night, I look for those strings of lights. Neato.
I was an over the road truck driver for a while and I can verify the divide is obvious. I went from east to west coast and back again multiple times and you could always just tell when you were moving into that dead zone of no civilization, even without the "Last stop for next 100 miles" signs.
If you ignore those signs once, even if you have a little more than a half of tank of gas, you will never do it again.
@@GMAMEC Yeah. I was a company driver, so they always made sure I had enough gas to get through those areas. Twice I stopped to top off while above half tanks and it didn't take much to understand why after seeing the signs.
@@GMAMEC When I drive to or from L.A. and Maine, I trip plan all my fuel stops. I make sure my fuel stops are 330 miles or less, which leaves me with an ¼ tank of fuel. I only stop at Costco, Sam's Club, or large travel centers. I set Google Maps from fuel stop to fuel stop as I cross the country.
@@GMAMEC I had a little over 3/4 tank and branched off of 80 for the non-trucker hiways and barely made it out of the mountains in Oregon. Told my experience of great anxiety to the nice mountain gal working at the restaurant/gas-station and she said she's seen people show up in tears.
Once I even get near that that no-man's line... I'll top off at every gas station I see. Prolly gonna take a 5 gallon gas can too for me and any stranded poor souls.
Wow. 😳 The West is wateted via snowmelt. Of which, is dwindling. I can't imagine just nothing. I cross WA, and at least there are farms and incredible geological/geographical featuresto keep you company.
RANDOM FUN FACT: at 7:00 you can see a small part of the southern Mississippi that has a lower diversity of tree species than the rest of the map - this is due to the old and current meanders of the Mississippi that used to constantly create and fill flood plains! The tree species are less diverse because only certain ones could withstand constant bombardement from water!
Just thought I’d share.
That’s really neat thanks for that tidbit
Aspen and Birch there?
I am living in West side of India (Rajasthan) . Hot desert ,wind storms ,no greenery without population. I can understand those 20% people of America. Love you all my American brothers.
There’s greenery in the west coast
Americans are lucky to live in a vast country like that yet much populated but not to the extent of severe population density. Truly a lucky country, and terrain, Geography and sceneries make it one of the most beautiful countries on the planet.
You said this like the lack of population density is a good thing
due to relations i do hold a united states passport and i would not want to live there because of the helth systim lack of safty net and work life balince but on a cold dark winter day i do fantsize about living in florda
@@forestkane_ you've clearly never been to the United States.
@@joesmith8701 you don't know what you're talking about. I'm an American. I've lived in Brazil, Mexico, Canada, India, and Australia. Despite the expensive healthcare the US is still by far better than those other countries. Free healthcare simply means you get what you pay for. . .which is nothing. I got food poisoning in Brazil once and waited in the most uncomfortable waiting room you can imagine for 10 hours before being treated. It was free but it was miserable. From that point forward I've always taken advantage of the private healthcare available in third world countries like Brazil because it's 100 times better despite the fact that it costs money.
nothing to do with luck. They committed near genocide to get it.
I've driven across the US twice and it's very strange to be in states like Nevada or Oregon, where there are VAST stretches of just nothing, or entire towns that seem to have the same population as the street I grew up on. As someone that grew up in Orange County, places like that are just surreal to me.
For real! I've done a west coast road trip and an east cost, and going along the eastern coastline you just got town after town, there's so much to see and do constantly. VS the west coast where you can spend 6 hours driving and just see trees & desert
And some says earth is overpopulated when in fact there are plenty of land to live
@@majkbajk8411 Whether land is overpopulated depends more upon available resources per person than upon available land per person.
I have the opposite feeling. I’m from that dark zone. Going where people live so close to each other gives me anxiety.
Sounds like a stressful place to live with no privacy 😜
I could never permanently leave the West, I love it too much. I’m a geologist and love seeing exposed outcrops in the deserts of the west. The western regions have their own special, stark and clean, beauty.
Too much smog nowadays for me. LA just infects so much of the west with its smog and way too many people
I agree. I live in L.A., and I fly and drive to and from Maine a few times a year. Yes, everything is lush and green in the East, but it's boring. Farms, trees, and maybe a few rolling hills for hours and hours along with oppressive humidity. The West is so diverse and the scenery always changes. And the weather is dry too.
WOW. That's pretty neat.
Haha I'm in the west right now but I really miss the South. I find the culture to be more friendly (though most people out west are very kind as well) and the biodiversity is much more vast and fascinating. There just aren't as many types of birds out here. I miss lots of rain too like this video talks about.
@@jerradwilson There's cool geology in Maine, New York and elsewhere, but you have to look harder. Or, maybe, take a step back and let the subtle differences start to sink in.
I'm from Boston and have ancestors in New England going back to the mid 1620s. One of them tried to make the trek to California but couldn't find a way past the big green line going from San Antonio to Winnipeg, so he came home to Narraganset Bay, broken and dismayed. That was before the airplane was invented, which allowed people to go over the green line.
@WalkaboutPhilippines Then you should understand my dry humour 🙂
What was crazy to me about the west, my first times touring the west coast in a rock band. There is a golden rule if you’re at a gas station GET GAS! Wether you are below half a tank or whatever. You get beyond Texas or the mid-west you can literally drive for four or five hours and never see one gas station. And that is the last place that you want to find yourself stranded on the side of the interstate with an empty gas tank.
Good point. This may explain the difference between how I get gas and my husband gets gas. He's from the east coast and is always fine with whatever, but I'm always wanting to fill up before I get too close to 1/4 tank....sometimes 1/2. He would low-key mock me on road trips.
So true! I remember freaking out thinking I was going to run out of gas on a cross country trip.
maybe back in the day, now they have those trucking stops at least every 50 miles or so
@@hames100 yeah it’s been awhile back since I’ve been out west so that’s good to hear.
Can confirm, I'm a trucker that goes to all 48 states. There's no interstate where you will be driving 4 to 5 hours without fuel.
I just drove from Toronto to the Bay Area a few weeks ago... it was crazy how it went to lush green in eastern Nebraska to desolate wasteland so quickly in the west of the state, and then completely devoid of life until I got to Lake Tahoe in California. Absolutely crazy.
Ahhh gotta love I-80 haha. Yeah from Grand Island Nebraska to Salt Lake is pretty much nothing. Then again from Salt Lake to Reno
Driving west of Grand Island really does have a “Here be dragons” vibe.
I live in Reno, a city in Nevada maybe 40 mins away. Anytime I go up to Tahoe I still am in awe of how beautiful it is
My son got accepted to a grad school in San Francisco, and we live in the New York metropolitan area. I helped him move all his stuff, and we were driving through Nevada when we saw a gas station with a sign that said, "Next Fuel 75 miles." My son was at the wheel, and he said, "I know my car - we can make it without stopping now." Well, eleven miles east of Reno we ran out of gas. We called the AAA but they couldn't get someone out to us for a few hours. Eventually someone brought us some gas, and we got to Reno and filled up the tank, then went into an Elvis-themed diner (which had nickel slot machines inside the ladies' rest room). But west of that line, there's nothing out there but mile after mile of mile after mile.
When traveling out west, always take extra gas. I learned the hard way, in my old 94 suburban SMH
Those of us who have driven the Alaska Highway can sympathize. There are one or two areas where if you get to the gas station and it's closed for the night, everybody just sleeps in their car in the parking lot because going forward is not an option.
Sounds like your kid isn't a math major
@@dustinkymalainen8756 Dustin, you've got style.
Not getting gas was a gamble with no odds of winning.
I guess hindsight is 20/20 though.
I live in Midwest. I traveled 48 states. My favorite part is West. Love long , lonely drives, it’s safe if it comes to people. Only animals can be a problem. The time behind the wheel allows you to look into yourself. Same with Northern Canada. So gorgeous to hike ,drive.
48 states? I guess the 2 states you haven't visited are Alaska and Hawaii?
Two summers ago, my family and I took a road trip from New England across the rest of the country, going as far West as Las Vegas before turning around. After leaving Illinois, the landscapes became emptier and emptier, but also more beautiful. Driving on highways in Wyoming and Montana was breathtaking, being able to see nothing but vast spreading landscapes for miles.
I know what you mean. I was just
In awe of the beauty and grandeur.
Also in some places in Wyoming you can still see the milkyway. It's really faint from my experience though. The best place I've ever seen the milkyway was on an island the boyscouts bought in the Florida Keys. Being 3 miles out from the Keys and Miami being over 130 miles away was pretty effective. Though I could see a glare in the sky looking in that direction, the side we slept on was facing the ocean.
@@Skylancer727 Remote parts of Vermont and Maine also do well with showing the night sky.
On the road trip, we were camping near the Grand Canyon, far from town, and so we were able to see the Milky Way and thousands of stars that we don’t normally see at all.
I love upstate New York for many reasons and visited the Adirondacks a lot over several years. But I am a child of the Nebraska--the Great Plains--and am always happy to return.
@@Skylancer727 , was the Master Scout of the island happened to be named Jeffrey Epstein ?
I live in the UK, and have never visited the USA. I am stunned by the impression of the size, distances and terrain of the US given by this video. Americans who come to England must be equally stunned to realise how tiny it is by comparison. I knew, course, that America is a huge continent, but I somehow have never had the imagination to realise how this must feel. The vast emptiness. In England, everywhere is very close to everywhere else. The horizons aren't far away. Fields are small. Everywhere is small, small, small. Americans must feel claustrophobic over here. On the other hand, I would feel terrified by the endless spaces over there. England is so cosy, intimate and friendly by comparison. To an English person! We are more different than I thought!
Like the old saying, "a hundred miles is a long way in Britain but a hundred years is nothing." Pretty much the opposite in the U.S. I worked for a British company for several years, traveled to London many times and was amazed how Brits were so unaware of how large the U.S. was. I drove across England in about 2 hours once, bizarre how small it was but how crowded it is.
@@RussellFineArt I am going to use that saying, I have never heard that before
Take this line of thought, and apply it to the lower 48 States and Alaska. Alaska is comparable to 20% of the rest of the states by area yet contains 0.25% of the population. It is incredibly vast and beautiful and empty asf. Even more mind blowing is Hawaii. Alaska by area is 90x the size of Hawaii, yet Hawaii has twice as many people.
so who cares. uk and brits are an insult to the world. One of the worse things that could exist
@@zazzyzzz yah, I mean, only a true degenerate would use just two letters, the first and last one, to disguise illiteracy. How sad. Thankfully we are happy to open the door to a fulfilling life, as I will gladly share my hooked on phonics cassette. You're welcomed!
I was born in the west (Arizona) and moved east (South Florida) as a small child and nothing could have prepared me for the massive culture shock. There was so much more…everything. More gas stations, more shopping centers and schools, and especially more people. When I first flew into MIA I was shell-shocked bc I had never seen so many people in one place. Excellent video!!
I was born in AZ and I live here now! I wanna move east so bad
I am born and raised in AZ and just moved to FL and to say the least I'm shocked! The landscape and cities are a lot different than I expected.
@@emmyrose333 do you like it ? or no
LMAO that's what Muricans count as culture? No wonder you're so dumb and fat
@@shinyy160 Yes I love it. I love the ocean, the water and rivers, more people means more things to do, and everything is within walking distance or a short drive. Although one thing I already miss about AZ are the mountains and vast land of the Southwest. You can camp basically anywhere in AZ and drive for hours down old two track roads and not see a soul, you can truly get lost in the woods there.
I lived on the East Coast for a few years. I was surprised that 90% of people I met had nver traveled west of the Mississippi. Also, they had no idea of how vast the western states are. I remember meeting a German immigrant who lived in Houston. He told me that he drove north for 9 hours are was "still in Texas". He told me that in Europe you can pass through 4 countries in 9 hours!
Eastern states are "nice" but the western vistas are spectacular and unique locations. The vast and rugged beauty of states like Utah, Arizona, etc.are beautiful beyond description. Locations like Bryce Canyon only exist in the American West. Nowhere else in the world.
Utah is a state that I wish every state looked like
Thats because for people on the east coast most people have everything they need vacation-wise near them and they don't think of the west. Any kind of vacation goal in terms of beaches, mountains, lakes, cities, etc can be achieved on the east coast, so people choose closer to home. The only reason I went out west is because my dad worked on a ranch out in Montana in his youth and had deep ties to the family so we went out there for a reunion. Once you get out there you realize how incredible it is. While yeah we have mountains in the east, there's nothing quite like the west in terms of the sights you'll see. I'm planning to go back for the next reunion.
I thought the name ‘John Wesley Powell’ sounded familiar to me, turns out he taught at my alma mater! (Illinois Wesleyan University) IWU’s annual student research conference that I presented at is also named after him! Really cool to see the work that made him famous in the first place!
I got my BS in geology at ISU. Turns out that he kicked off his expedition to the Grand Canyon from the building most of my courses were in. Really cool dude!
He was a badass...
He must have been an interesting teacher.
I’m from the Grand Canyon and John Wesley Powell is an icon there. First to navigate through it. Powell point on the west rim and Lake Powell on the east.
I first heard of him watching this video. He was brilliant and his advice should have been followed. State lines should have been drawn based on the availability of water instead of doing something as stupid as drawing straight lines through the landscape.
Hmm... It could be random coincidence, but could the university (Illinois ...WESLEYan... University) be named for him and/ or family of John Wesley Powell?
The western United States is one of the most absolutely gorgeous regions in the world.
If you grew up with lush vegetation, wetlands, and the bio-diversity of Eastern forests, you might have a different opinion. The sheer dryness of most of the West is off putting to me.
@@ryanjacobson2508 I am currently living in the foothills of the Appalachians right now. It's very beautiful but I feel it lacks the enormous raw and wild feel that the west has.
@@ryanjacobson2508 I moved from Eastern Pennsylvania to South West Idaho. I must say I appreciate the dry because it’s not as suffocating as the humidity I’m used to. I feel as if I can breathe and sit in awe of the marvelous landscapes. It isn’t for everyone .. . I’ll say that. But I much appreciate the low population.. feels safer somehow
As a British person who visited Washington State, I was shocked when we rode from the forested west to the Great Plains in the east. I did not know there was literally a desert sitting as far north as Canada!
Guests from Ireland were shocked s well. We went from coastal Oregon to the SE corner of the state where it is a very dry desert. One remarked that it was hard to believe that it was the same country.
As someone who has lived in Washington State my whole life I can confirm you are not alone in your discovery. Even people who live in the middle and eastern part of the US are shocked to find that we have a desert in Washington State. But like most areas- the most populated are the areas that the media covers. I didn't know that New York state has some very rural and scenic backcountry in the middle of it. Same with Pennsylvania. On the west coast almost all we hear about regarding the northeastern US is New York City, Boston, Washington DC.
@@paulsmith5611 You make a good point. When I was 18 and moved to south-central Pennsylvania - I was expecting suburbs. Instead what I got was the Appalachians and country music!
WA has ocean, rivers, lakes, mountains, volcano, forests swamps, and desert. It's pretty diverse, but the state too is split in two vertical halves.
I was born in upstate New York and moved to Washington state lol. I lived in Canada too. Enormous empty countries
Fascinating analysis, thank you. May I mention that distances between locations should be spoken of as being farther, not further. You have given us a further understanding of this phenomenon.
I grew up near Boise Idaho. The area has grown a lot. I say the main issue with the west coast is that the cities are surrounded by mountains. At some point you run out of flat land to expand the city. It's really as simple as that and when you drive around the west, you're amazed at how huge the mountains are. I'm still impressed how we even managed to make some of these roads and bridges.
Come to Great Falls MT. Tons of flat prairie that’ll never run out. Plus you have huge mountain view’s like Denver CO. Tons of water
@@montanaman2439 the best area is flathead valley.
People hate walking uphill. Most need level spaces to function.
Wow.. ok i know idaho.. can you explain lombard street in sanfrancisco? It just doesn make much sense. Also as far as stop signs hills do not seem to matter there.
Yes, I agree 😀
I live in eastern Washington. Driving to seattle from here is a trip. The scenery changes from dry dead grass and tumble weeds to lush green ultra dense forest. It's crazy to watch the transition as you drive and it happens very fast. Also crazy you choose Mattawa as a reference point lol. That place is TINY.
As an E. WA native myself, I love the insane variety of our state. The only place I found to be about as geographically diverse was Afghanistan. Where you have the vast deserts of Kandahar, and then high peaks surrounding Kabul. There were days where it would be 90-100 degrees in Kandahar and just 200 miles NE in Kabul it would be snowing. Such an incredible planet we have.
I was shocked to see Mattawa on one of these videos. Lived there for a few years. Now I’m on the wet side.
I'm from Minnesota and we took a road trip to Seattle. South Dakota and Montana were pretty much the same throughout each state. Washington was different. Spokane and Seattle seemed like they were in two totally different states it was pretty unbelievable.
Dude I do the drive from Spokane to Gig Harbor and back once a month. It is literally mind boggling how the environment changes. We once took a friend from Japan on the road with us and she was completely astonished to see how it changed from one part of the state to another
Washington has pretty much every type of land form. From desert to rain forest. Washington also has the most glaciers of any state besides Alaska and has the largest ferry system in the U.S. The drive between Spokane and Seattle is pretty varied.
There's something important here that wasn't mentioned. There is a reason why the rainfall drops sharply across the 100th meridian. It's not just that the Atlantic winds don't make it in... they do but they dump their water as they rise and cool. The North American continent is tilted and across this whole region, there is a steady elevation gain going westwards.
Great info!
Does it rain less at higher altitudes or something? That wouldn't make sense to me because any mountains I've been to are always 10x greener than the land next to them
Also the eastern pacific ( west coast of us) is cooler and brings in much less moisture than the warm Atlantic does in the east. Why we don’t have hurricanes out west.
@@negativenarwhals mountain ranges force air up where it cools. Cold air holds much less water so it rains and leaves the area after the mountain range very dry
Pacific moisture is what waters the West. The Gulf of Mexico provides moisture for the Midwest. The Atlantic only affects the East Coast.
This big empty dry area is an awesome place to go on a motorcycle tour. If you stay off the Interstates, the windy roads to nowhere are awesome. Scenery is beautiful - weather is beautiful - traffic is non-existent.
I visited family in Los Angeles in September this year. Drove the length and breadth of California. It is so unimaginably large and empty, it really hits you when you’re driving and getting out of LA/SFO. And I’m from India, which is a pretty big country but this was unbelievable
California is bigger than Japan.
I wonder if they subconsciously want to live as fast as possible from Russia….. and North Korea?
Ontario, Canada has left the chat.
True, I droved from Chicago > Texas, LF/SFO, the U.S is so huge i can't barely find houses outside city
I once had to drive from San Diego to north of Sacramento to pick up my sister. I thought I'd never get there.
As a teen, our family traveled across from New Mexico to Toronto. It amazed me that you could go through 3 to 4 states in a day.
Try driving across Texas. It can be more than one day in some cases.
From San Diego to Oregon border is a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG drive.
Fun Fact: If you travel from El Paso to the Eastern border of Texas on I-10 it will take more than 12 hours (approx 866 miles)
I'm Canadian and drove across from Ontario to B.C in 3 days.... most of the country
@@treetopjones737 yeah fr man even sleeping through it dont work
@@dnholmestyle3772 don't sound like fun to me
I live in Western South Dakota, and although there's so much so-called "Empty Space" here, it's an amazing place. I wouldn't trade it for anything. I've traveled all over the country as a truck driver, and I always breathe easier when I come home. You can keep the highly populated areas to yourself, thank you!
you must love cold weather
I'm a trucker as well but I reside outside of Albuquerque. It's too cold in the dakotas for me. I like 70- 80 degrees I can't stand freezing temps
@@eagle25311 me too
I also live in the Black Hills
This is so informative & interesting! Thank you for a well put together educational video! Even the speaker is clear & consice. 👍
Driving from interior Alaska to the southeast portion of the Lower 48’s was the hardest trip I ever made. You don’t realize how in tune with the wilderness you are until it is no longer a part of your life.
I’ve been to every “Western” state, anything West of the Dakota’s and i’ve been there by road and some people don’t realize how EMPTY these states can really be. I drove north across Nevada and didn’t see ANY civilization for roughly 5hrs, I drove 300 miles before seeing another gas station… boy was I glad I had pumped ahead of time when I still had 200 miles in my tank.
I cant imagine driving 5 hours straight, thats such a waste of time
@@williamwoolf8072 I had no choice, I was moving up north. I have to drive a Uhaul 14hrs with all my belongings
What kind of vehicle did you drive i'm curious not many can go past 300 miles without needing to refuel
I'm not in the US, but driving from Baja California to Baja California Sur is basically a 7hr long drive full of nothing after Ensenada.
Maybe a very small town every now and then but its basically empty desert until you get to the state border with BCS, after that thats another 6-8 hours of nothingness until Mulege and even a few more hours until Cabo.
People say Nevada is empty, but heck, they have never seen this old empty peninsula below California.
Nevada is so strange. I'm on the coats and it's only about a 6 hrs drive, ye such a massive change
The Colorado river is moreso an example of politically motivated water mismanagement than of climate change.
To cut a long story short: The states along the river measured how much water was flowing through the river (during an unusually rainy year), and then apportioned that water to themselves based on that.
There will come a time when water wars will happen due to people choosing sunshine over local water availability!
Long term geological studies of the area confirm this. The 25 year "drought" of the Colorado is closer to normal than people want to believe.
@@miinyoo North America really Catfished Americans into believing their land was more valuable than it is.
even better, is that the rainy year + 20% is what they based the allocation at. So they very, very grossly overestimated the capacity. It's never been sustainable. This isn't a "drought" it's a return to normal.
@@CRneu where did you get that plus 20 percent? I also beleave they had several years measure that 15 million acre feet flowed past lees ferry. The fact that FDR gave Mexico 1.5 may in 43 to not join the axis powers was done with the states having a say. The average flow since 1922 has been about 13.2. Is that where you got 20 % being 13.2 + 2.64 comes close to the 15 maf figer
The big island of Hawaii is quite unique weather wise as well. Land in Hilo on the east side, drive to the south and the around to the west side where Kona is located. I think Hilo gets over 100 inches of rain per year and area just north of Kona basically desert, or around 10 inches a year. All in less than 100 miles of driving.
I saw a map of rainfall in the U.S. overlayed on reports of bigfoot sightings. The line was respected.
Big feet require big water.
They like rivers, and BIG fish. Just ask 'em.
It is hard for Bigfoot to hide behind a cactus or tumbleweed.
He needs water to fuel his spaceship so it makes sense he'd be where there's water.
bigfoot can be explained by "people are skittish and gullible. OMG DID YOU HEAR THAT!? BIGFOOT!"
Love the Western United States. It has some of the most beautiful and diverse scenery in the world. Incredible how Powell so accurately predicted what the limiting factors of the area would be. Unfortunately, even today, leadership is mostly failing to take appropriate action to remedy the water related challenges that are now becoming so glaringly obvious.
I love it, too. I'll take hearing coyotes in the evening over traffic noise,any day!
@@bertanelson8062 I did love the sounds of coyotes in the evenings, the short 4 months I spent out there this spring/summer.
Sadly, I love water more and while like the feeling of being "water responsible" by using and reusing water all the time, I hate only taking a shower once a week and wiping down the other days.
San Bernardino valley is a rough place, but beautiful never the less.
@@bertanelson8062 Coyotes are doing quite well, in spite of the traffic! What can we do about the traffic? People try to discover nature near their homes, and not just have a knee-jerk and go out for a drive?
@@blackbway Does your home have gutters that direct the occasional rain into gutters, to become waste water? Have you looked at water catchment? It doesn't have to be big.
@@sonjalewis3047 it wasn't necessary my home, I was just staying there. There was a well on the property that we got water from but it takes gas to pump it and gas prices in CALIFORNIA was the highest it has ever been.
I am back in New York again.
I'm a nomad who travels and lives across the country. This line is pretty visible when driving. In some places it happens quickly and drastically, in some it's a little more gradually but one thing is for sure, YOU KNOW when you "crossed into the west" the vegetation changes, the humidity changes, everything. The most dramatic change I've personally driven though is leaving Portland Oregon heading east. Once you past mt hood it goes from a literal rainforest to dry desert in almost an instant. Same when leaving reno and crossing into California. In texas where I am from 87 percent of texans lives east of this line. Once you go west of San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, it becomes no man's land compared to the eastern part of the state. One of the emptiest I've driven is the loneliest hwy across Nevada. I remember seeing a sign that said "128 miles to next gas station". The western US and the eastern US are like 2 different countries. Even the states on the line are like two different states. Go to far east Oklahoma then go to west Oklahoma, it's a whole other world.
@Buck Rothschild why did you respond to my comment with a whole story about how you hate Wyoming?
@@nomaderic I kind of enjoyed his story
@Buck Rothschild That took a lot of effort to read wall of text and I disagree, if you look anywhere in the nation, cities have generally democrat politics and the surrounding countryside have generally republican politics.
The assumptions you make are based on your familiarity and political bias.
In reality, it's a cultural thing. Cities are generally more homogeneous and necessarily dependent but are commerce nexuses with the rest of the world while the countryside just wants to be left alone for the most part.
@Buck Rothschild your family must be part of the 1%
@@miinyoo exactly thank you! what a wasted monologue and long ass boring diatribe and espoused garbage that buck rothchild typed up. keep crying Buck! its ok! stay where your at! wyoming doesn't need you! stay in your little metropolitan tik tok colorful culture "open-minded, diverse secular, athiest, marxist" bullshit bubble. the big cities are usually the ones to go first in a war anyways. nuked, bio-hazard crisis, marshall law instituted etc. while the small grassroot outskirt towns will still be around and able to fend for themselves and come together as a small tribal community. whereas in a big ass city... its every man and family for themselves and everyone devolves into animals... absolute total break down of society in a big city. freeways exiting the city would be totally shut down jam packed due to everyone wanting to leave the city all at once. hahahahah. no thank you! ill stay in my little mountainous town high up in elevation surrounded by mountains on all four sides. keep your big city unelected beaucratic policies out of my life! As the Great Tommy Lee Jones once said as Kay in Men in Black 1:
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.
Living in austin, travelling west is such bliss. The hill country opening up to desert is so humbling
I live in northwest Iowa, kind of sandwiched between Omaha and Sioux Falls, and you can really tell a difference when you start to go west. This summer I drove to Colorado and you can go hours without seeing another human driving through Nebraska or Kansas for that matter.
My brother lives in Sibley
One of the awesome benefits of living in the West is being able to get to an area unpolluted by city lights, glowing satellites and twinkling airplanes to enjoy the star filled Night Sky. When you can drive 1 hour or less out of town and see the Milky Way it is indescribably beautiful and inspiring. Also every American should get to visit the Grand Canyon, if only on the South Rim for a few hours at least once in their life. Also the Petrified Forest and Meteor Crater are unique feats of Nature. Yet, even in the West there are people who live their entire lives in the cities and never have these uplifting experiences.
Most of the land in the dry Western states is federally owned, next is state owned and a lot of sparcely populated tribal land. So very little can be privately developed, ranched or farmed. Its beauty is likely to be preserved for a long time.
Also the mighty Colorado controls the future for many states. For example, since the 1930's Los Angeles takes 40% of the Colorado River water to make possible its metropolis in the Southern California semi-desert. The federal government has reduced the 60% remainder that is divided among NV, CO, AZ, and NM due to the drought for 2022 by 5% and expects to reduce it another 5% in 2023. Since 80% of that water is used for crop irrigation, lots of land that produces food is being taken out of production in those states.
Under a Water Treaty of 1944, the US must deliver a given amount to Mexico, which cannot be reduced. The state of Sonora, Mexico has felt the effects of the reduction however for decades. So much water has been diverted to supply farms and cities that the Colorado River has seldom met the Gulf of California. Its once 9,650 square miles has shrunk to less than 1 percent of its original size, the river reduced to a dry riverbed, with only small remnants of its once-vast wetlands surviving. Fortunately this year water is released from an irrigation canal as part of an agreement between the Mexican and U.S. governments to restore the ecosystem, and not reduced for the drought like the deliveries to NV, AZ and NM.
hi I want to correct you on a couple of things you may never have been made aware of because your operating on some assumptions that most people have for good reason but are just not true, There are not that many satellites not nearly as many as were told though the numbers they claim seem to change often.. more importantly if they are around 12,000 miles up as they claim our human eyes would not be able to see them, The ones we do see are the real ones but there not in Middle earth orbit there very close to us and being held up by hot air baloons (so technically advanced eh) we do see a lot of plains near cities. now you seem to indicate that the grand cannon is a natural wonder... it is not its an old abandoned quarry mine and its really really sad not wonderous.. a lot of people actually do get an ominous vibe when visiting and dont understand why its because its dead waste land. The petrified forrest was likely placed there like that for a reason though i dont quite understand it but it does serve as a clue as to what trees used to be (mesa) as for meteors there not real its more liekly that what we are told are meteor craters are actually openings to "the great deep" (the water below) you see were lied to and brainwashed about everything yet the truths and clues are right Infront of us but we have been programmed not to recognize them. These things I claim can and have been proven I have given you clues if you care to do the research. You are like the majority of the population living in a false reality. I mean no offence by saying these things I only hope that someone reading will look into these things and can learn where they are and what reality actually looks like.
I've watched grown adults look up at night and see the Milky Way for the first time ever . Its cool introducing young folks to new sights , experiences .. then watching an "adult " discover what theyve only heard about, Read about, Is equally rewarding. Maybe more
Today's fact: Strawberries can also be white or yellow, and some can even taste like pineapples.
Neat
@@cosmic1464 congratulations of being first
Fun fact: we don’t care
Ok 👍
Give me the pineapple tasting ones plz
The discussion about the scarcity of water out west is very very true, although one 😊of our homes rests upon a spring fed creek with the cleanest water in California-and it runs 12 months a year, regardless of rain or snowfall. We benefit from a $45/month water bill and no water meters!
I’m from South Carolina and a few years back I visited Phoenix Arizona for the first time and I was immediately dumbfounded by how vastly different the landscape looked. I’m used to seeing grass, trees, and rolling hills everywhere I look so it was quite a shock for the only green thing to be cacti which previously I hadn’t seen larger than a few inches tall.
Right? I visited Phoenix and Prescott a few years back and the environment and landscape were so strange to me as someone who's lived in Indiana their entire life. It was pretty interesting, but not something I got used to.
@@MrFfuckUp Yeah I definitely felt the same way. On my trip we traveled north to Yellowstone national park and it was crazy how much the environment changed just from going in that direction. Still very dry, but less red rocks.
@@MrFfuckUp Prescott is awesome. What about the landscape was strange?
@@NVSC10 Just in general I'm not used to seeing mountains or desert.
I work at the airport in Phoenix. I get a chuckle from all the people taking pictures of the local mountains through the windows. Dull red rock without a spot of green on them. People seem almost shocked how arid the city is. Then they put their hand against the glass and their eyes widen from the heat radiating off (in the summer.)
I grew up east of reno in rural Nevada and now I live in Wisconsin. Even though it's mostly farmland around me it feels so dense and populated compared to the high desert.
welcome to the state! Born and 'raised here, so not much to compare it to, however, to go with you point, I remember the first time flying into Vegas at night and I was struck with how desolate the area is once you get outside of Vegas itself
Reno is exploding in population now, and soon enough it’s going to spill southeast to places like Dayton where I now live
LOL
Farmland feels dense
Like, whoa
@Jane i moved out of Fernley to Missouri this year!
Fallon baby 🙌
One thing you neglected to mention, a huge portion of the land in the western part of the United States is owned by the US government! Huge, huge tracks of land that are not allowed to be lived in or on. Also there are many large Native American reservations, again not allowed for average people to live on. You need to be a member of a tribe to live there. Government doesn't own nearly as much land in the eastern part of the US. Plus we have a water situation here in the West that makes it difficult to establish communities
It's so gross to me when people complain about not being able to live on a native american reservation. They are terrible places to live, hot and harsh, and still white people want to complain they can't live there?
There’s no Native rule or sovereign charter that I’m aware of that bars regular folks from living in reservations, i just don’t know why one would want to.
Absolutely not true that non natives can’t live on reservations, don’t spread misinformation. A simple google search easily refutes this, and reservations only make up a total of 2.3% of the Entire US, so no, they don’t take up large areas of the west.
Yes Good points.
Also the east coast was the beginning of America. The rest was added in sections as time went on.
This is a very good video telling us why some places are crowded with people but some are plain lands: rain fall is the main reason, I think other reasons like tornado and hurricane could make some differences as well. More and more climate disasters these days like earthquake, flood, wild fire at the west coast could make future changes, too.
Washington State is two different worlds. I lived in and graduated high school in Olympia, and then was stationed in Spokane. Weather aside it might as well be a different state. A lot of us called that part of Washington and Idaho the “south of the north” because of how conservative their politics are
You're right anything east of Yakima should be considered Idaho lol.
Haha as a spokane native I agree lmao 🤣 still love Washington state and wouldn't trade it for anything else!
unbelievable how much fuckin fast food spokane has too right?
Grew up on the westside and now live north of Spokane. I much prefer the northeast part of the state. The westside has become incredibly "peopley" since the early 90's. Rat race🐀🏎
Yakima
The Palm Springs of Washington
I grew up in rural Michigan, and always thought that I lived in the middle of nowhere.
After living in Alaska and New Mexico, I've realized that there are significantly more accurate definitions of the middle of nowhere.
When I spoke about a woman from Texas (TEX-sis) , my friend replied, "One day, they will divide Texas into two States. THEN, TEX-sis will have the honor of being the country's THIRD largest State. " Wow!
Michigan is socialist hell now , thanks die- versity .
@@Zerox_Prime r/ihadastroke
Growing up in suburban md, then living in Alamogordo, NW for a few months I agree 100%
@@Zerox_Prime Under the terms of its admission into the United States, Texas may legally divide itself into as many as 5 states, which would give Texans 10 US Senators.
I’ve drove across both lines different times on interstates 80 and 90. You can immediately notice the change. For example, once you cross the Minnesota border into South Dakota, it’s easily noticeable you are in the high plains with a completely different landscape
Driving up and down the west coast I love seeing the shift between states. Leaving Oregon and entering California the dividing line literally was the break between dark grey sky's and mountain to sunshine and open spaces
Many moons ago I drove from the Houston area to New Mexico and I had to turn on the
A/C at 07.30 am @ 76 F and turned it off in Van Horn about nine hours later at ~94 F,
humidity sucks!
Really?
been there done that
I noticed the same thing driving from east to west on Interstate 70.
Learning from school 0%
Learning from internet 100%
Great video! I have driven throughout this amazing country but have always lived in the west California, Arizona, Oregon and Washington state. You can’t drive anywhere in the West without either being in the mountains or mountain ranges in view. The first time driving East through the flat Midwest was definitely an eye opener. The western US is probably the best geological masterpiece on earth. From the beaches, rainforests, glacial mountains to the most desolate deserts. It never gets old exploring it.
The Midwest can get really flat, like in central Illinois where the glaciers scraped through, but it's still fairly wet and well populated. Once you leave the Midwest and get into the Plains west of the Mississippi River, it gets flat and unpopulated.
Live like mateo, I agree. I was born and raised in the west. I've had to move to the east coast. It is pretty and interesting in very different ways. But after only six months here , I find I'm missing the views and beauty we take so for granted in the West: the mountains, the deserts, the canyons, the forests, the wide open plains and the big skies of the west. It is like an ache inside me. The beauty of the east is different, in scope and scale. I'm missing the glory and majesty of the wide open west way more than I ever thought I would. I didn't realize how much I miss real mountains, either admiring the view from their feet or breathless at their heights looking down over the vast lands below.
@@aguest4408 I'm from Washington state and have moved to Georgia for college. I can't even tell you how depressed I've been missing my home state and all the mountains and hikes I've taken for granted. It's a major bitterness inside of me and I want to move back where my family is so badly. The west is so much better than the east, it isn't even a fair comparison.
@@ethanmietzner5218 To each their own…I live in California, born in New York, raised in Florida and partly in Puerto Rico…the west is nice and all but the “beaches” are trash and the bodies of “water” are a joke.
Of course you miss where your from lol it’s what your used to but one doesn’t make the other one less beautiful.
The West is drier. That fact makes the girls get wrinkled faces at an early age. How can you keep the country beautiful with wrinkled-up chicks?
What's interesting is that a lot of these exceptions, too, seem to be humans trying to force survival in a specific area to work. Like Salt Lake City where the Mormons settled after being kicked out of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, so they took an area they wouldn't have to fight anyone over.
And this might be the same (but I'm not 100% certain) for Los Angeles where the film industry was specifically built up there as a place that was far away, geographically, from Thomas Edison since he was trying to stop people from being able to use movie film unless they paid him.
SLC is way underrated
@@scottyflintstone let’s keep it that way.
Year Salt Lake City is one of the driest in the country, and current residence are now paying for their ancestors settling since the Salt Lake is being drained dry, over 70% gone already.
Spells disaster for their agricultural industry, as well as the city's residents itself since toxic dust clouds are forming in parts for the lake that used to have water. Don't settle in the desert.......
@@asclepius.dionysus Sounds like settling there isn't the problem, draining it dry for unsustainable farming is.
@@hurrdurrmurrgurr Which is what is required of them in order to settle there. Come on, try to keep up.
I'm not surprised my Ancestors decided to come to Wisconsin in 1843 from Norway to farm around the lakes. Wisconsin/Minnesota/Michigan really are the gems of America. Where the beauty lies in Nature and where you get all of the seasons with perfect weather for that season. This Summer it was 75 degrees everyday with low humidity and also rained at a steady pace to keep everything very green, nice for farming.
@@singingwindrider9881 No. Men don't exist north of Chicago. Duh.
I assure you your ancestors didnt go there to farm, lol
That's nice. The last time I was in Wisconsin in summer, it was about 60 and overcast. The time before that, 90+ and dry. Still better than southern California, where winters are in the 80s and summers are unbearable. Western Washington - that's what I call home. Rains and green in spring, warm days in summer, changing colors in autumn and cool -cold days in winter with a bit of snow.
You have a German last name (German and Norwegian can be similar). Jaeger meaning hunter.
My favorite vacations were Madison, Milwaukee, Green Bay and Door County. I chose those places over OBX, Myrtle Beach, Destin and Gulf Shores. I'm from CA so beaches weren't a must see at this point. I grew up in a concrete jungle. Seeing trees and green colored landscape was calming. Low humidity and tolerable heat was comforting. Fortunately, I just live a few hours away and can escape their as needed.
Someone had posted this with ads on FB without attribution and I recognised your voice.
So I posted your link in the comments.
Keep doing the good work!
As someone who lives out east in Tennessee where there is a ton of rivers and lakes I feel blessed we've never had to worry about water. I hope they can figure out the water situation out west!
I was vaguely aware of this divide, but didn't realize how drastic it was. Very educational, thank you!
My Wife and I just made a road trip from Denver to Virginia, and that line is so stark. We hit it right in the middle of Kansas. West Kansas is just empty, just absolute emptiness. Even when we drove through the deserts of California and Nevada, there were mountains, valleys and you can even see the next town in the distance, even if it were miles away. But West Kansas is truly pure nothingness.
There were settlers who lost their minds when crossing the Prarie in the 1840's. The endless sea of grass literally drove them insane.
@PremoMeztiso HAHA! I drive thru that area twice a year. If the flat lands and dust don't get you the acrid smell of cow waste will. And there's really no decent places to spend the night in that region.
Being from rural TN where I have in laws that live on 50+ acres of untouched wilderness, doing a road trip to Lake Tahoe and back was probably my biggest eye opener of how freaking massive our country is! It was that terrible 5 hour(can't exactly remember) of desert from Reno to Las Vegas that didn't settle well with me. I remember absently texting my fiance(now husband) where my friends and I were whenever we got a decent signal. The constant thought of "If we get strained here we're f***ed!" kept going through my mind. I'm claustrophobic and that was the complete opposite of that and I DID NOT LIKE IT EITHER! Regardless, I loved my time at Lake Tahoe and Reno(Vegas not so much) but will be flying the whole way next time.
It's interesting you mention Lake Tahoe as that's a special place we visited often as a family in my youth especially. Always felt like a magical escape from the city life. To take the trip all the way from TN to Tahoe would be like a moving psychedelic experience! I'm actually ready to leave the west for various reasons with TN as a primary location in mind. I'll be going the opposite direction from coast to desert to mid-continent and east of the 98th parallel. God bless you and yours.
It's crazy how ancient events can have impact on today's society. I recall seeing a post about a year or so ago where an ancient volcano erupted leading to slightly more fertile soil in a certain stretch of the state of Georgia. The fertile soil led to more farming in that area, which lead to more slave plantations, which led to a higher population of Black people, which leads to that same stretch in Georgia tending to vote vastly more Democrat than the rest of the state. It's crazy.
That's so cool
I mean knowing that
The aftermath is kind of amazing when you think about it because everything has it own path.
For example the atomic bombs that United States dropped in Japan.
Hiroshima was the first city they wanted to nuke and the second was actually Kokura (I am almost sure that is the name of the city) they were going to eliminate. Since Kokura had a lot of smoke from Hiroshima they had to bomb Nagasaki instead.
Like I said, everything has it own path...
@@Lallunalapruna123 Little known fact, but Europeans did not, in fact, build America. It was there for at least a few years before they got here.
@@lieutenantdan8541 Sorry, I wrote that while watching the video and because real life lore usually talks about social subjects, I thought this comment was about some historical thing that happened during the american colonizstion. I deleted the comment
Wouldn’t be surprised living in Georgia it’s weird knowing there are volcanoes here lol
It is beautiful in the Midwest!
My husband and I went across the country in the 70's
What a wonderful time to travel!! The air quality was so good, and the sky was so blue 💙!! There was such a remarkable difference in people also! The people were friendly!!
@Opponent May CryBro respectfuly
SHUT UP
Let me guess you’re your family is white, the Midwest is perceived as super friendly because of the low record of non white immigration there, so in turn it’s “safe” “ and “friendly” but good luck driving in Wisconsin while being black
Midwest nice is gone. Lived their most of my life and it’s no where near the same. The south is still the only true and real friendly society left in this country. Makes sense as most of those states are red. The democrats and liberals ruin everything with their hate for each other and this country.
@Opponent May Cry cope
I think it is worth mentioning another reason people grow wheat across that line is because wheat does well in clay and they have more of that across the line, especially in Kansas.
Yes. And Missouri. Clay nearly everywhere you dig a hole
Really interesting video and informative. Thanks
This video should be shown in all schools in US. Wow - so packed with information! Details and maps and more maps! Simply amazing piece of work you produced here! 5 stars ⭐Bravo!! (OH and the comments 9,824 add so much more to the main story - so many people lived this story!)
Just got done with my 2nd cross country trip back to the East & I honestly love the vast emptiness of the west, it feels so serene and spiritual to explore and I'm glad there are vast areas in this country that get u away from the dense hussle n bustle of the east
I used to live in Flagstaff, AZ and there was a road I always drove on called JW Powell, named after this guy. I find that super interesting because Flagstaff does not use the Colorado for water and I believe is actually known for having great water management, as there is a huge lake nearby that barely needs any treatment to be potable.
Flagstaff’s San Francisco Peaks give us two advantages. We have a slight rain shadow that creates a little more precipitation to the west. Also, the SFP are ‘circular’ creating a caldera that catches water in an aquifer for our use.
In addition, the volcanic rock that surrounds this unique range (not caused by tectonic plate shifting, but extinct volcanoes) is a wonderful filter for this water.
@@pjjaskowski999 plus the hotel Monte Cristo bar is dope
@@IIAlphaQII Monte Cristo😂😂 It’s the Monte Vista, I moved out of Flagstaff a month ago and it was the last bar I went to. Miss it so much 🥲
Flagstaff is about a mile above the Colorado, that would take a lot of pumping.
For the past few summers I've been veey fortunate to be able totake a yearly drive from Denver up to just south of Lake athabasca in sakatchewan for fishing. 3 day all day drive through this stretch of ranch land, farmland and wilderness. And the culture really doesn't change, even moving over borders. I moved from the east to Denver as a teenager and absolutely love it. Land and exploration as far as the eye can see. Real wilderness in the mountains. And the distance between people breeds a very special culture of nice and mild-mannered folks.
Something you forgot to mention is this is the reason there's so many more tornadoes in America on this line than anywhere else in the world. It's very unique to severe supercell thunderstorms because drylines happen here all the time
It's pretty wild to me that with few exceptions, tornadoes don't exist anywhere in the world outside of the USA
@@User31129 Not Entirely true. However the United States does make up about 75% of All the World's Tornadoes. In fact, there was a tornado in another country. In Asia somewhere recently, if I'm remembering correctly.
@@User31129 Tornados regularly form in all of Europe, South Africa, Philippines, Bangladesh, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Japan, and far eastern China. They normally refer to them as Cyclones - but they are, alas, what Americans call Tornados.
@@AmyC28713 Cyclones most often refers to hurricanes not tornados. The rest of the world get 200-300 tornados a year. The US averages over 1000 a year. The tornados are often (but not always) bigger and stronger in the US than in other countries as well.
Interesting!
As someone who moved from Yokohama Japan and lived in Seattle Washington for 12 years and Salt Lake City for 4 years then moving east to Mississippi for 5 months and now currently just moving to Dallas the south and east feel weird, it’s nice but it’s completely different from the west it’s like I’m away from home. I miss the west coast I hope to move back as an adult.
i'm a floridian, but my parents are national park nerds so i've been out of the state plenty of times. all the places we've been are so different; it's quite impressive honestly. as of writing this our next trips planned are utah's parks (as well as the grand canyon) in march, a few cali parks in april (we've hit up some before), and some of alaska's over the summer
Just curious. If possible, find some videos of many of national parks Rangers and US forest Rangers, and even some who have been around for decades , have hard to believe stories.
The phenomenal creature's have grown in population and remain mostly unknown to the public because parks and forest Rangers are told to keep quiet about scary creatures that many know exist but visitors will not visit if many people realize truths that really happen more often than people realize.
The encounters are only from the few people that survived or bothered to report things that happened. 🤔
Native Indians culture traditionally pass down information about the protector of the forest "Bigfoot Sasquatch" to avoid going to far into the woods and respect territory of nature's unknown creatures..
....
That was probably the most repeated sensible fact for centuries as various "nations" (tribal territories) of various Native Indians will confirm true 👍
The encounters are from credible people who are military, ex military, forest Rangers and police officers and people from all over the country.
The UA-cam channels like these describe various ongoing events,
Lilith dread,
Donavan dread
What learks below,
Buckeye Bigfoot
And many UA-cam channels that recently have grown awareness of cryptic creature evidence and encounters.
Just saying to check with options of information about the related topics.
Good luck to everyone 👍🙏
Scouting three states over next ten summers.
Montana, Wyoming and my fall back is West Virginia if I don’t make what I need. I plan to retire to part time handyman or some other trade at 55. I’d just retire fully but I’m realistic I make good money but unfortunately my other half became disabled early in the relationship and right when the kids are most expensive. 7 more years and they will all be over 20 so on your own kids our time to live how we want… or I at least😂😂😂
i’m a floridian too :)
You could spend a lifetime in southern Utah alone-- and never get tired of it.
A fellow Homestuck :)
When I was 20 I drove a Volkswagen from North of Detroit to Anaheim CA to visit a friend. I remember a sign that said "No gas for the next 100 miles". It was shocking how big this country actually is.
as a californian who loooovvvvess nature, i consider myself blessed to live in the west. the nature here is just magnificent. in just my state alone, the diversity is insane! beaches, mountains, desert, cities, we got it all. love it so much.
Your state has been utterly destroyed by Leftist radicals and their policies. If you vote Democrat, stay there.
@Timothy Pickard lol dude tries to hate and then brings up ohio 😂
@Timothy Pickard try beating a days drive to the beach, try beating a days drive to the desert like death valley, try beating a days drive to the cali coast to drive on highway 1, one of the most scenic drives ever; try beating a days drive to the mountains: sierra nevadas; home to the last remaining sequoia trees in the world and yosemite national park.
dude listen to yourself. you're flexing gas prices as if that's the absolute best thing ever. sad.
@Timothy Pickard Try beating 17$ for a pack of cigarettes in Norway.
@Timothy Pickard I've lived in SoCal my whole life. If you apply yourself and have the right qualifications, you can find really good paying jobs in just about any industry or run your own business to afford the cost of living here. We have the largest economy than any other state for a reason.
This is crazy to me. I have lived in metropolitan Denver my whole life and I have never thought it weird that it takes at least 45 minutes to get to another major town.
Dude Boulder is like 30 min depending on traffic what you mean lol
Shit Brighton is 10 minutes from east Denver, Longmont 20 minutes from west Denver
I live in St. Louis it’s 5 hours to chicago 3 hours to Kansas City , 3 hours to Indianapolis …leave st louis and it takes no more than 15 minutes to find another smaller city..Everything is close around here
They may have meant to get from the Denver metropolitan area with smaller nearby cities, to the next metropolitan area. That would be like quibbling about whether Pasadena or Fairfax/La Brea are part of Los Angeles. All are part of the Los Angeles metropolitan statistical area, but Pasadena is its own city whereas Fairfax/La Brea is actually just a neighborhood or region of the city of Los Angeles. So no doubt the cities you mention like Longmont are independent from Denver proper in terms of separate city governments etc., but they are considered part of the same overall metropolitan statistical area (and maybe in the same county too, I’m not sure).
I grew up in Denver 40+ years ago. The closest MLB team was 600 miles away in KC. Compare that to the east coast. Crazy!
This is the first video of his I noticed the intonation in his voice, and once you hear it, you can’t unhear it
hes a lib
I am moving back to Colorado in 18 days and I'm so excited to be able to see the stars again
This was VASTLY interesting. Thank you.
Lmao
IncRRRREDIBLY interesting
I have been across the 98 degree west line. Once you pass San Antonio going west, it suddenly becomes a lot more desolate, arid, and rural. Around 98 to 100 degrees west is also where the Koppen Climate types shift from SubTropical or Continental to Semi-arid. The 25 inches a year is generally the dividing line for what is semi arid.
101
You’re 100% correct. The change that takes place is pretty drastic considering you don’t have to travel very far to notice it. Same when in Austin traveling on 290w. It turns from relatively lush thickets with grass lands to a a very distinct drier terrain. This is all within 20 miles or so…
Yes I live in Eagle Pass and going west passing Del Río there is nothing for miles.
You are right as far as Texas and NM concerned. But, here in CO, we have fairly moderate weather year round with plenty of snow in winter and torrential rain in summer, of course we have cold deserts too and the evapotranspiration is quite low even though precipitation amounts are high, the soil stays dry. The cold semi arid transitions to an alpine subarctic climate in higher elevations resulting in more snow. In general the boundary for subarctic is pushed further south in the west compared to the east. For example, Calgary, Alberta has a subarctic climate sitting at 50N, but Tundra is pushed much further south in the eastern seaboard, in fact the southernmost boundary for tree line is in NL at only 55N one the cold shallow waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
@@Primitive_Code Well, yeah, mountains have orographic lifting that increases precipitation there on the mountains. But, in valleys /basins, where most people live, it is quite dry. Look at cities above 100,000 people west of 100 degrees west. Amarillo, Lubbock, Denver, Colorado Springs, Albuquerque, El Paso, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, Spokane, Billings, Boise, Salt Lake City, Reno, Fresno, etc... These places all have fairly dry climates (roughly 20 inches of precipitation or less) unless you stay on the Pacific coast north of San Francisco, where you have places like Forks Washington getting 100 inches a year and Portland Oregon and Seattle getting around 40 inches a year. As for the subarctic getting pushed south, yes, it's primarily the elevation. Even valleys/basins/great plains in western states are still quite high in elevation (2000+ feet for most).
Being from the East but living out West you realize how vast the country is. The West feels oddly isolated even in the major areas, everything is just much further apart and the mountains and valleys make you feel very separated from one another.
As an easterner myself the sparseness of the west blew me away the first time I traveled out there.
I could never imagine living in the eastern part of the US I love the western side much more diverse in terrain.
As a westerner what amazes me is how old the East’s architecture is and less diverse in terrain and people.
ive lived in Arizona my whole life and when i visited the east i LOVED it, it was so green and i was shocked how everything was close together, and the subway.
I live in Sacramento CA and love it. It’s just enough and not too much lol. I travel frequently between Las Vegas (by car and plane), So Cal, Bay area and Idaho and I have my likes/dislikes all the same. I can’t wait to visit Europe and South Korea. I appreciate this video/information and reading everyone’s comments. I’d rather watch this vs the other stuff. Thank you peace out ✌🏾