Welcome to Thunderdome

I'm currently in Mackinaw City, in Michigan up near the Upper Peninsula. Spent the day on Mackinac Island... accessible only by ferry or plane, cars are banned, only horse carriages or bicycles. Beautiful place, beautiful day. TONS of white people, obviously. And crowded as fuck. We rented bikes and rode around the entire island... 8.2 miles... and it was constant bike jams. The town itself, lots of restaurants, bike rental stores, gift shops, candy stores, and bars.... all packed. I couldn't even get up to a bar to get a beer after the bike ride. We said fuckit and left the island.

Went to N and SC last month. Left Myrtle Beach to come home on a Sunday morning, and there's no big interstate to get from there to where we were going, so the first 50ish miles is all 2 lane state routes. It was a 50 mile traffic jam, backed up from the ocean all the way to the interstate on ramp. Then we finally got on I-77N through the Appalachians, a lot of it is still only 4-lanes even when uphill, and 2 semis going side-by side up a hill at 40mph would cause a 10 mile traffic jam of peeps hitting brakes. Over and over, for hundreds of miles. We expected to do the 12 hour drive in one day, but when we hit hour 10 and were still 6 hours from home, we had to say FUCKIT and stop somewhere for the night.

A couple months ago I drove to Florida, I-75 all the way. Going through Georgia was a nightmare, the traffic started 50 miles before Atlanta and lasted 50 miles after it. It took us 4 hours to drive 100 miles..

There is no longer a "slow season" at Disney world... last time we went, taking the kid out of school at the end of Septemer when it is typically dead.... it was packed as hell. The cast member said, "Yeah, now the entire country of Brazil comes in the Fall. No more slow seasons."

I've always said that we don't have an overpopulation problem in the country.... I have spent a lot of time out west and I know what it is like to drive 50 miles and not see another car. But the problem is that nobody is moving out there, they're all coming to the east fucking coast, staying, and jamming up all the roads. Fuck this, man. Christ.

I too, am surprised people flock to beaches in summertime.

You shouldn't be its all because your mom is there

Mackinaw's got 2-3 months a year people can really visit... Myrtle's been crowded for 30 years.... But yeah, infrastructure aint keeping up. Traffic in MN sucked nuts, for no reason.

A 50 mile line for a highway on ramp is not "newsflash people go to the beach."

MN traffic sucks for explainable reasons. Namely, you came in the middle of "I'm going up to my cabin on the lake," time.

I actively avoid places like that. I really don't have that problem here. At Luke's Diner on Friday evening they have a lot of people there for the catfish dinner and sometimes it's hard to get a seat.

Those springs in Florida I tried to dive on a weekend: at capacity by 9am.

Zion Natl Park in Utah: so.crowded they stopped letting cars in a decade ago, all busses now.

Yellowstone is getting so crowded they are considering the same thing.

Getting to be too many people.

Not too many people, just too many with the free time to be in the same few places you want to be.

What we need is more places people will want to be so the people being places they want to be will be spread out a bit more.

Once the dollar collapses, the back yard will look pretty inviting.

I've heard that you can take all the people on earth and set them on an area the size of the big island of Hawaii and they'd fit. They'd be pretty tight, shoulder to shoulder, but they'd fit.

I'm currently in Mackinaw City, in Michigan up near the Upper Peninsula. Spent the day on Mackinac Island... accessible only by ferry or plane, cars are banned, only horse carriages or bicycles. Beautiful place, beautiful day. TONS of white people, obviously. And crowded as fuck. We rented bikes and rode around the entire island... 8.2 miles... and it was constant bike jams. The town itself, lots of restaurants, bike rental stores, gift shops, candy stores, and bars.... all packed. I couldn't even get up to a bar to get a beer after the bike ride. We said fuckit and left the island.

We do that, but not in the summer. That's crazy. Last time we were there was the fall of 2014 and we got a great deal on the hotel, which is the only one with an indoor pool. The kids had the pool to themselves. The weather was perfect as it was still early fall. We did the bikes around the island and hit no traffic jams. Lots of other people, yes, but not insanely crowded.

By the way, the UPS truck blew my mind the first time we were there. It was a horse drawn wagon with boxes on it and a guy driving and another guy running into the stores delivering stuff. Very cool.

Anyway, we're doing the same with Put-In-Bay this year. Once Ohio kids go back to school, Michigan kids still have a week of vacation, so we're heading to that island during the week. It'll be dead. No lines.

There is no longer a "slow season" at Disney world... last time we went, taking the kid out of school at the end of Septemer when it is typically dead.... it was packed as hell. The cast member said, "Yeah, now the entire country of Brazil comes in the Fall. No more slow seasons."

Legit. Disney got smart and started marketing their slow seasons to foreign countries. If you think you're avoiding Americans, you are, but you're going to run into Asians, South Americans, and Euros. We went last year at the end of September and it was our worst trip to Disney. Way too packed. We got to do everything, but the sea of humanity was brutal. There's a point that Disney should know, and I'm not sure they do, where the amount of people eliminates the fun. We still got everything done as we planned the trip a year in advance, but it wasn't as magical and leisurely as previous trips. (The dance studio is still somehow a secret.) Oh, and the thing that really pissed us off was Disney's overselling of their "after hours" Halloween event. I've never been anywhere that was so tightly packed. They claim they only sell a limited number of tickets, but that was bullshit. That single night was the least enjoyable vacation night we've ever had, and we spent one night on a previous trip in a hospital.

By the way, if you want a nice adult vacation, I recommend the Hocking Hills or the Appalachians in the fall. Kids are back in school, so it's no longer their busy season. That means rates are down too. Take Friday off to get there and leave Sunday. Don't stay at a park, rent a cabin. I know the Hocking Hills area has a website that will list out all the cabins still available and you can get some last minute deals. Last year when the wife and I went we got a 10 man cabin for $100 a night or something. Pool table, two TVs, 8 person hot tub, three story cabin, full kitchen, etc.

TPRJones wrote:Not too many people, just too many with the free time to be in the same few places you want to be.

What we need is more places people will want to be so the people being places they want to be will be spread out a bit more.

I.agree with that, and like I said... People aren't spreading out enough, and there are getting to be too many of them.

I stopped.flying because of the TSA, but now the highways are becoming undrivable when every flat tire becomes a 30 minute delay because of gawkers. There are too many people on the roads.

Let's run this down:
1) Michigan, one of the less shitty parts
2) Carolinas
3) Georgia
4) Florida

Perhaps you should visit way less crowded places during their most popular times of year.

Once the dollar collapses, the back yard will look pretty inviting.

So, when's that happening and what replaces it as the preeminent currency?

What we need is more places people will want to be so the people being places they want to be will be spread out a bit more.

That'd require the de-crapification of large swaths of the Midwest, which are home to the largest reserves of pure boredom known to man.

Malcolm wrote:MN traffic sucks for explainable reasons. Namely, you came in the middle of "I'm going up to my cabin on the lake," time.

Michigan, North Dakota, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin did not have that problem.

People generally try to flee those places during the summer months. Come back after Labor Day.

The only good thing about Minnesota is that Google Maps' navigation algorithms are awesome. the major interstate was all clogged, and Google took the back roads right around it.

I'd ask "which one" but the answer this time of year is always "all of them."

National and state parks are getting overrun.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/as-national ... or-abounds

Record visitor numbers at the nation’s first national park have transformed its annual summer rush into a sometimes dangerous frenzy, with selfie-taking tourists routinely breaking park rules and getting too close to Yellowstone’s storied elk herds, grizzly bears, wolves and bison.

Law enforcement records obtained by The Associated Press suggest such problems are on the rise at the park, offering a stark illustration of the pressures facing some of America’s most treasured lands as the National Park Service marks its 100th anniversary.

From Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains to the Grand Canyon of Arizona, major parks are grappling with illegal camping, vandalism, theft of resources, wildlife harassment and other visitor misbehavior, according to the records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Time to raise prices. I was reading something in the WSJ that says prices used to be like $400/person almost 1 hundred years ago. Now they're closer to $10 or 15 / person / day?

Someone would call that racist.