You’re finally going to make that cross-country trip this summer that you have been thinking about for years! You’ll travel with a good friend, he or she. There are three things you must agree on before you start: the music, the food and the route. Classical or heavy metal? …

When I grew up kids used to talk about ‘digging a hole to China.’ I imagine that comes from China being in the Northern Hemisphere on the opposite side of the globe from the United States. Maybe kids still say that. (More on that at the end of this post.) …

This series of posts looks at Texas presidential voting and its impact on presidential elections. Texas is considered a reliably red (Republican) state. But what if Texas left the Union? How would that have affected the outcome of recent Presidential elections? Let My Texas People Go The Impact of Texas Electoral Votes on Presidential Elections Since 1972jimwfonseca.medium.com 2) Now we think of Texas as a reliably…

You’ve heard that someone in California won a billion-dollar Powerball jackpot on July 19, 2023. Was it you? I didn’t think so. Wasn’t me either. A year ago in July 2022, Mega Millions had a billion-dollar jackpot. I have previously proposed (story below) that we ‘spread the wealth’ of these…

Atlantic City is New Jersey’s gambling capital. Before casinos were legalized in Connecticut , Pennsylvania and other eastern states, it was the only ‘Las Vegas’ east of the Mississippi. But Atlantic City had a long history as a resort before casinos were legalized in 1976. Its long stretch of beach…

I was a geography professor (retired now) and I guess because of that, I’m one of those strange people who love to drive through New Jersey on I-95 and see the action. Having spent most of my life on the east coast I’ve driven through the Garden State maybe a…

One hundred percent of New Jersey’s population is metropolitan. As you can see on the map below, every county in the state is in a Census-defined metropolitan area. (I say Census as shorthand because metropolitan areas and other such divisions are defined by the Office of Management and Budget.) Still…

Forget the refineries and what you see along the I-95 corridor as you approach New York. Sure, New Jersey has gritty towns and congested freeways lined with oil refineries and their acrid plumes of burning gas. But New Jersey has quaint towns and some of the most elite suburbs in…

Connecticut is a tourist paradise. Ok, were not talking Rome or Tahiti, but if we had some measure of density of attractions, such as art museums, environmental sites, quaint historic villages and historic homes per square mile, Connecticut would rank among the top three states. These attractions are crammed into…