Episode 13 – Travel observations in the Pacific Northwest
well hello everyone welcomes back to another episode of the explore traveler show your host john gentry here i hope everybody has been enjoying their fall so so far and now that October is behind us and we’re moving into November towards the end of fall going towards the beginning of winter i figured i’d just tell people some of my observations i’ve been traveling around the pacific northwest, for the most part, Oregon and Washington state and there have been differences between the two and it’s obvious it depends on where you go withinside each state but i think i mentioned in my last podcast how i came up through nevada into oregon and there was a very noticeable change and by the time i got to Klamath falls oregon i noticed that people were
using i think the mask in an unusual fashion right so it’s one thing you see people in a large group standing in line for walmart or whatever wearing a mask you know they’re concerned about catching a communal disease there’s some logic to that right however i started seeing people just walking out in the countryside in different state parks and they were wearing a mask but they were they were by themselves and they were outside they weren’t even walking their dog so i and i just saw one or two of those you know and once i got into the klamath fall areas but it sort of kind of um it caught me off guard um because coming up even you know new mexico has been pretty heavy-handed on some of their um regulations and you see that but it you know is rare right even in the albuquerque area it
wasn’t like super common to see stuff like that but you know as soon as i’m drive across the border into a new state all of a sudden i i see the changes there in oregon so i thought well maybe it’s not you know maybe it’s not too common right so i know i continue on i go in through medford i go over to the coast and i drive all the way up and untraveled all the way you know into the portland area and the suburbs and towns around portland but then i noticed you know the closer you get to portland the more likely you are to see people um just walking around outside by themselves um wearing masks and so i started asking questions and they were like well there is technically a rule with inside organ it’s a state it’s not a law it’s like um a regulation or like some form of uh they call it mandates but that’s what they say publicly but if you actually look deeper the way their legal language is it’s basically like a departmental rule right and so basically i guess if you are outside in an area where you are possible to be maybe i think they’re they’re they’re basically saying crowded type possibilities um they’re asking you to wear you know the mask so i think that’s how it started but there is a percentage of the population in oregon that appears to just wear it all the time i see people um wearing it by themselves as they drive in their car i see that quite often and i think some people are just forgetting that they have it on but it’s much more common in oregon than i saw it in colorado or utah or nevada or new mexico or texas you know so it’s the worst i’ve seen so far and i think the reason why i bring it up is you know we’re all about traveling and exploring and having a healthy lifestyle and you cannot have an effective healthy lifestyle if you are in the mental state where you feel you need to wear a mask by yourself in the middle of nowhere probably not a healthy
a healthy thing to have going on in your life so if that is you you know just think about it um i’m not really criticizing per se but i do worry about people’s mental health with everything that’s going on and i want people to be healthy and happy and i i think getting outdoors and enjoying the fresh air that nature gives us and using trails and you know we’re not abusing nature we’re just interacting with it in a way that um you know doesn’t leave trash doesn’t leave pollution and we’re enjoying it right and we’re going around we’re observing you know humanity’s past through his history and anthropology and you know just going on you know nice walks with our family and friends or sometimes even by ourselves so that’s kind of you know that’s what we’re about here explore traveler and explore traveler.com and we want that to be something that we encourage people to do and you know you can’t let over exaggerations and propaganda to the point and i don’t care where it’s coming from you know people say oh you know it’s for the right oh it’s for the left propaganda comes from everywhere and it comes from advertisements comes from companies it comes from governments so it’s everywhere but we have to pay enough of an attention that we know when we’re you know starting to consume propaganda right we probably should assume that it’s propaganda first check it out and then you know verify right and oregon and washington state
