We Always Hear about the beautiful, What About the Ugly?

I've been to a lotta cities and towns around this great big world of ours that would qualify to some people as sucking (places in the Philippines, Mexico, China, the Middle East, etc.), but for some reason the ability to get hold of copious quantities of beer just rendered the various funky smells and gnarly infrastructure deficiencies into delightfully adventurous regional charm.

One often longs for the days of staggering into fly-infested back rooms to pee in a hole in the dirt floor next to some strange woman squatting to take care of her daily constitutional.

Nothing like travel to expand one's world view.

Small town division: Cairo, Illinois. It's pretty much a town that's already seen its zombie apocalypse, complete with creepy-arse floodwall system where you're always expecting the floodgate to come down any minute and block your car and your escape from the lone road that goes northward out of town.

Philadelphia has great architecture, but I've never seen so much litter everywhere as I did there.

Perry, Florida. It's a strip of old Florida road that time forgot.

Perry, Florida. It's a strip of old Florida road that time forgot.

Is that the place that smelled so bad I was gagging?

Gary, Indiana and Naples, Italy are my 2 worst.

I tend to err on the side of nature and beauty when traveling, but the unplanned overnight in the (closed) Naples train station w/ the stray dogs and homeless was quite the urban experience.

Gary a cop saw me and just told me how to get back to the interstate w/o me saying a word.

Yep. Naples was second on my list and also qualifies for the worst pizza I've ever had in my life.

Perry, Florida. It's a strip of old Florida road that time forgot.

Perry Florida is the French Riveira compared to Keaton Beach.

The place is a hell-hole.

US 19 in general has that freaky apocalypse feel to it between Tallahassee and about Chiefland- so many old school 'motor courts' still standing and crumbling even though they'd been abandoned long ago when the big car traffic shifted to I-75. The thing with Perry isn't just that it's an ugly small town; the people who live there have a reputation for ugly personalities as well.

We'd never leave the interstate when we drove through Gary, but the smell of that town always managed to permeate the entire car.

US 19 in general has that freaky apocalypse feel to it between Tallahassee and about Chiefland- so many old school 'motor courts' still standing and crumbling even though they'd been abandoned long ago when the big car traffic shifted to I-75. The thing with Perry isn't just that it's an ugly small town; the people who live there have a reputation for ugly personalities as well.

We'd never leave the interstate when we drove through Gary, but the smell of that town always managed to permeate the entire car.

And the really sad thing is that my parents have a home for sale in between Perry and Chiefland, in Old Town. Been on the market a year now and I have a feeling it is going to be on the market for a long time to come. Not too many folks looking to move to that part of Florida!

Venice in the summer. Too many tacky tourists and too many pigeons pooping on you in the Piazza San Marco. The parking is terrible. You arrive in Venice for parking, and they don't allow you to lock your vehicle (they say it's a fire department law). So you either have to take all of your stuff with you or leave it in your vehicle and hope it doesn't get stolen. But once you think you've beaten the system by taking all of your stuff with you, you get on a boat (vaporetto or whatever), your stuff goes in another boat, and then you just hope to God that when you arrive at your hotel, your stuff is there.

:roll: :bang:

Cleveland Ohio... never again!

Cleveland Ohio... never again!

I won't tell our daughter. She is the lead photographer for an Indian wedding there at the end of the month. There will be a 500-person processional with the wedding party on elephants, a symbol of royalty. They are paying all of her expenses, plus her fees for an event of this magnitude. She is so excited!

Why is Cleveland bad? She will be there with the videographer. Should her husband or I escort her? We have Delta miles.

I won't tell our daughter. She is the lead photographer for an Indian wedding there at the end of the month. There will be a 500-person processional with the wedding party on elephants, a symbol of royalty. They are paying all of her expenses, plus her fees for an event of this magnitude. She is so excited!

Why is Cleveland bad? She will be there with the videographer. Should her husband or I escort her? We have Delta miles.

I went in 2002 for a conference and stayed down near the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame. I just didn't like the experience, the restaurants, the location... I never felt unsafe and she will be in much better areas so I wouldn't worry about that. Just not a fan of that part of the Great Lakes. On the other hand, Chicago is one of my favs!

Gatlinburg :idontno:

Gatlinburg :idontno:

Gatlinburg has always sucked. Except that there was one restaurant and one hotel that were really nice back when we went. I'd have to do some research to find the names. Was it the Grayton Hotel? :idontno:

It was pretty much souvenir city.

Was that "French Riviera" or "STENCH Riviera"?

Heard about this today on NPR...beauty in tragic ugliness....

Book:
The Day After Tomorrow: Images of Our Earth in Crisis
The Day After Tomorrow takes readers on a journey to bear witness to the environmental destruction that is currently plaguing our planet; from a forest in West Virginia devastated by mountaintop removal mining, to a region in Florida left in ruins by the phosphate mining industry, J. Henry Fair presents hard evidence that our unchecked consumerism is leading the way in the destruction of our planet, one natural resource at a time.

Primarily through the use of aerial photography, Fair captures spellbinding vistas of pools of toxic hog waste, streams of paper mill runoff, and the remains of hollowed-out mountains. These environmental abstractions lure the viewer in with unique asymmetrical shapes and striking colors; however, fascination quickly turns to horror, as the viewer realizes what lurks beneath the surface of the image.
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Day-After-Tomorrow-Images-Crisis/dp/1576875601"]Amazon.com: The Day After Tomorrow: Images of Our Earth in Crisis (9781576875605): J Henry Fair, James Hansen, Allen Hershkowitz, Jack Hitt, Roger Hodge, Frances Mayes, John Rockwell, Tensie Whelan: Books@@AMEPARAM@@http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ES10S7nYL.@@AMEPARAM@@51ES10S7nYL[/ame]

Gatlinburg :idontno:

Yup. And Myrtle Beach (although Pawley's and Litchfield to the south is nicer).

Yup. And Myrtle Beach (although Pawley's and Litchfield to the south is nicer).

After living in South Carolina, I learned to not like Myrtle Beach. However hubby loved trying out all of the golf courses there. That being said, we'd never go back. Redneck Riviera part deux.

We preferred my best friends's brother's home S.O.B., Ravenel's condo on the bay in Charleston, our friends' condos in Isle of Palms and Kiawah, and renting at HHI for sailing.

But we prefer SoWal (except for the great parties S.O.B. in Charleston).