Sleeping off the grid; awakening to mass murders
Your plane lands in South Dakota. You turn on your phone and it says No Service. For the next week, you'll be traveling through Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. You'll be depending on Wi-Fi. When you travel through towns whose city signs say Population 45, you know it will be spotty, at best.
You're off the grid.
It's Saturday at Yellowstone, one of America's treasures. Wildlife and spectacular scenery. You don't care about your internet connection because you're caught up in what you are seeing.
You get back to your hotel. Turn on the television. There's been a mass shooting. This time it's El Paso. Twenty are dead. Dozens more are injured. It seems like this occurs every day. It kind of does. Only in America. Mass shootings are as American as Yellowstone.
I wake up at 3am. Can't get back to sleep. I don't want to wake up my partner, so I head to the bathroom. The spotty Wi-Fi is working. There's been another mass shooting while I slept. This time it's Dayton. Nine more are dead.
Twitter at 3am is alive with comments. Lots of thoughts and prayers. Fuck that! We're well past that. Something needs to be done. NOW!
We're hitting the road again today. More small towns. More living off the grid. By the time we get to tonight's hotel, will there be another mass shooting, with more dead Americans?
On this trip, we've seen Mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone. Two legendary landmarks that are truly American. We've now seen two more mass shootings...something that also truly belongs to America.
We can change that. We have to change that. Enough!