Besides the obvious “welcome to [state name]” sign. Is there a significant change in architecture, infrastructure, agriculture, store brands, maybe even culture?
My state has piss poor roads.
Every time I leave my state the roads are noticeably smoother and less noisy.
It’s very distinct and almost comical.
I’m up in Canada and we have provinces here … I live in Ontario and in the year 2000 me and a friend took a motorcycle ride across Canada to the west coast. Great trip.
But for motorcycle riders in Ontario, especially northern Ontario, its famous for rain during the summer, especially when you want to go riding. Sure enough in the first week of July that we started our trip, trying to make sure to catch the best weather for riding, we rode through rain for about three days as we drove through northern Ontario.
The funniest thing was … as soon as we crossed the Ontario/Manitoba border, the skies parted and I could literally see dark clouds over Ontario and bright clear summer skies to the west … right at the border of the two provinces.
We had great weather the rest of the trip! … and sure enough when we did the return trip, we were rained on again in northern Ontario!
I pray for my suspension every time I go from Ontario to Quebec.
I had that driving into a new county by the coastline. Right at the county line it was like a sheet of rain pulled across the road.
michigan?
I plead the 5th.
Let me guess, South Carolina? Been through there twice, and the change was jarring and immediately noticeable crossing into Georgia or NC.
Lmao I was driving about 16 hours solo to get back to Michigan. Legitimately immediately after crossing the Ohio to Michigan border, the road contrast was so incredibly stark lol. Immediate potholes everywhere.
My state disallows billboard advertising, which I forget until I cross into another state and have to suffer through Jesus and injury lawyer ads.
One of the many great things about Vermont
Never been, but I’ve heard it’s lovely.
Not the easiest place to get to, but it sure is beautiful
Why is it always lawyers?
I saw one that was just a photo of an eye and a phone number. I wasn’t from the area, so it was driving me nuts wondering what it meant. Didn’t take long driving through the area to learn that this lawyer has so many different billboards up, that his eye alone has become recognizable.
That’s crazy! Hope he never gets a retina biometric lock on his door.
There must be a lot of money in injury law, but no nationally-known firms, so your choice is either a referral or their name bobbing out of your subconscious from driving past it every day.
In CA there’s this injury lawyer who has billboards all over highway 101 from San Francisco to San Diego. Hundreds of billboards. His name on the billboards is Sweet James and he has a pony tail. Sweet James. I don’t know how a lawyer could become so seemingly popular while using that name.
What about, “Something wrong? Call Ann Phong!”
Vermont? I remember that that’s a thing there.
I couldn’t believe driving through Missouri. What a shit hole.
I never saw these personally, but ten years ago in Matt Gaetz’s district a shelter ran billboards with “She’s your daughter, not your date”. Yikes.
Ah yes, CO to NM
It’s Nebraska.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Or, image reversed, west/east Washington
you know, most roads will tell you. The change in asphalt for sure will tell you exactly
plus for me at least, Idaho is different than Washington
the roadside advertisements is instantly different
the highways are laid out in much different ways
the people are absolutely different almost to an extreme
Where I come from the asphalt change was how I knew I was in the next County
oh yeah, that happens here too, just not as much because our counties usually have the same funding and contractors
Nope.
The main thing you’ll notice is a shit ton of stores for anything that’s not legal in one state, or taxed higher in one state.
The rest of the stuff mixes together along state lines and there’s no clear divide except for the legal/tax stuff.
Crossing into Wyoming from Utah is hilarious for this. Suddenly there’s porn, cigarettes, beer, fireworks, and more porn!
Crossing into Wisconsin from Minnesota, I will start seeing lots of fireworks stores.
Been a few years since I lived in Minnesota, do you still see signs for Spotted Cow beer as you cross into WI? I had friends bringing trunks of sixers back and while I would always accept a free craft beer, I didn’t understand the hubbub.
The limited distribution makes people think it’s a mind-blowing beer. It’s pretty good.
I never noticed them! I don’t tend to pay attention to adverts though.
Major roads have a “welcome to wherever” sign but minor ones won’t. They’re always a clear delineation in the pavement, though, because neither state is going to pave one single molecule of distance further than they have to. And they never seem to be able to arrange it so that there isn’t a noticeable bump at the junction.
One of my neighboring states also has some kind of pathological aversion to putting complete and legible signs for the names of roads at intersections, too. So the disappearance of all useful street signs is therefore usually also a clue.
North Carolina paves its roads. South Carolina air drops its roads.
You know you have crossed into South Carolina when the suspension of your vehicle is torn out from under you.
I love that the Dutch talk the same way about the Belgian roads
Are the Belgian bricks uneven?
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Even Asheville roads, post hurricane, are at this point way better then SC roads. Not saying we’re spending wisely, though. I sure wish DOT wasn’t just a highway/stroad development department.
It still kills me we got a hurricane in the mountains.
I don’t live near there anymore, but when I did you could legitimately tell when you crossed to NJ because there was trash absolutely everywhere along the sides of highway.
A lot of states in the south will also have a precipitous road quality drop at the state line.
Ah yes, the Garden State. What do they garden? Apparently strip malls and trash.
We have great corn, tomatoes, blueberries, strawberries, and cranberries. It’s not all sprawl
Totally agree. It’s just sad to see the extent of the sprawl with seemingly no regard for anything except “development.”
You sure you don’t mean Staten Island? It’s a literal island of garbage, with garbage people living on it. Like one of the wonders of the world, but the opposite, whateve that would be.
Besides that, whether you’re on 295, or 202 or 78, or 80, when you cross the river into PA, the road goes to absolute shit. But for the most part, the cities along the river aren’t bad. You got Easton okay, but Phillipsburg sucks. New Hope and Lambertville, lovely. Trenton sucks. And yeah, I don’t really go south of 195 except at the shore.
All my years in NYC and I never did go to Staten Island, and god willing I never will. Unless taking my tourist friends/family on the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty and immediately turning around and going back on the next ferry without even leaving the transportation center counts. But the Staten Island ferry is actually free, unlike the Ellis Island ferry, so screw that.
And yeah, PA roads are… special. Worst I’ve seen outside the south for sure. Trenton area was mostly where I was going to and from, so that might be why the NJ/trash association is so strong for me.
What part of Jersey? Just curious. I will say, I’ve been happy with the NJ plastic bag ban because it’s helped some. Still wayyy too many people around here that don’t give a shit and litter.
Trenton area mostly. The bag ban wasn’t in effect last time I visited, so if it’s improved the situation that’s great.
The butthurt that I witnessed in Wawas and Grocery stores in the wake of the ban was glorious
When you pass into Indiana, you’re immediately overcome with this opressive sense of forboding and despair. Also the roads immediately turn to shit.
Also, the ad signs will alternate between adult toy stores and anti-abortion messages every few hundred feet.
Everytime I cross into Ohio I feel like I’m losing the will to live.
I feel that too, and i live here :(
My friend visits chicago to Dayton Ohio often, he says the roads turn to shit the moment he crosses over to Ohio lol
field on one side, field on the other. if I am on the interstate, the surface gets really shitty on our side because brownback and the republicans in topeka drained the highway fund to give the koch bros and fat corpo-farmers a tax break.
Connecticut is making a bold claim here to anyone leaving NY
Yeah I would hardly call Ned Lamont a governor.
Mayor of the town of Connecticut.
He legalized weed at least
What’s the point of putting the governor name on the road sign? How is that information useful to drivers?
Ya know. I don’t know. Every state does this as far as I can tell and so I’ve never questioned it.
If I had to guess, its how the DOT or Highway department shills to Tue new governor
“Hey look boss, we put ya name on da side of Interstate 69 from Illinois!,”
It’s totally legit highway info. Completely not grifting public money for the governors election campaign. /s
In Wisconsin, Walker straight up put a campaign slogan (“Open for business”) on those signs. Fortunately, those got taken down for a simple “Tony Evers, Governor”.
You have to go across the biggest river around.
Delaware makes you pay to leave New Jersey
“If youre good at something, dont do it for free.”
But it’s a solid investment.
You gotta pay to leave NJ regardless of which way you go which I think is funny. Makes me think of a Bronx tale; “now youse can’t leave”
I’ll never forget driving home from college with some friends for the holidays one year. I was from PA, he was from Ohio and had never been more east. We were headed to NY with another friend and our route took us briefly through Jersey.
“How will we know we’re there?” he asked as the car suddenly lurched and felt like we hit a gravel road despite ostensibly being a paved highway …
That’s strange, I grew up in NJ and our roads tend to be well maintained. It was kinda shocking when I moved to PA and the roads had way more potholes and skinny useless shoulders!
I do concede, I am … old. Things may well have changed and it depends on the part of Jersey. States around Jersey just like ripping on them to feel better about themselves, but PA is no treat either which is why I got the hell out of there =P
Something that surprised me in my travels (which are primarily West of the Mississippi) is how often the states actually line up with a significant geologic shift. Arizona is endless orange desert. New Mexico immediately becomes rainbow painted cliffs. Utah is somehow entirely vertical. California is a contradiction of green desert. Nevada is like a chemical mine puked on a bunch of bumpy ridges. Northern New Mexico falls off a cliff and the bottom is Texas.
If you watch closely, usually something fairly dramatic happens in the landscape within a few miles of the border.
Drove from ohio to the PNW and yeah you’ve got some state boundaries that are minor like ohio-indiana (but even then there’s a vibe shift between bumfuck ohio and bumfuck indiana). But Illinois is very different. Once you cross the Mississippi it’s a whole lot of nothing but corn in Iowa. Minnesota was a beautiful detour and a much needed respite between Iowa and south Dakota.
Ohio is weird, it’s Midwestern farms, great lakes, the ohio river valley, and Appalachian foothills. So there’s more difference between Columbus and Cleveland than between Cleveland and Michigan. But going south you cross the ohio and the valley opens into a more mountainous terrain rather than the flatness of ohio. Similarly west Virginia is a river then suddenly mountains. Pennsylvania just feels different (tbh the ohio-Pennsylvania border is out of the way unless you live in Cleveland or have frequent reason to drive to the east coast)
