When crossing into Minnesota from Wisconsin, do you see lots of dispensaries?

I can tell when I'm driving from NY into CT when suddenly there's traffic for no reason and everybody is driving like an asshat.

It’s like Mad Max out here

As soon as you get out of Pennsylvania you see a marijuana store. Regardless of which state you're going into.

Not super stark, but travelling north from Alabama to the Tennesee/Alabama/Georgia triple point you get a lot of rocky outcrops and the terrain will tell you that you're in the Cumberland Foothills.

Agreed, but indiana roads are so much louder too. Its kinda baffling.

Was that like some sort of take-a-helmet, leave-a-helmet situation? Were there bikers in the ditch who were heading westward looking for a brain bucket?

Two separate tax bills.

As soon as you set foot in Pennsylvania there's a fireworks store

I have to cross a bridge over one of the largest rivers in America.

One just for an empty backyard? It would suck if they got taxed twice on the whole property, although it's possible.

I grew up in Illinois, about an hour northwest of Chicago. As soon as you cross into Wisconsin or Indiana there are fireworks stores EVERYWHERE! And as of a few years ago, Illinois has returned the favor with dispories on its side of the border.

Also as soon as you cross into Indiana, you're bombarded with billboards for "gentlemen's" clubs and ones saying "Hell is Real" and the like.

Crossing into Wisconsin, it never took long to leave the flatness of Illinois behind to have it replaced by the state's rolling hills. You'd also stop seeing businesses with "Chicagoland" in the name once you were north of the border. You do see that in parts of northwest Indiana though

I cross a river and my first emotion is usually eww.

PA -> NJ

I think the unwritten rule is they aren't touched and they are there when people come back through. I didn't ditch mine, so I can't say for sure.

I used to live near Cincinnati. You don't go to Kentucky by accident. The largest tributary of the Mississippi was in the way and all thats waiting for you is Kentucky. Also the traffic sucked

Cincinnati?

Drove from ohio to the PNW and yeah you've got some state boundaries that are minor like ohio-indiana (but even then there's a vibe shift between bumfuck ohio and bumfuck indiana). But Illinois is very different. Once you cross the Mississippi it's a whole lot of nothing but corn in Iowa. Minnesota was a beautiful detour and a much needed respite between Iowa and south Dakota.

Ohio is weird, it's Midwestern farms, great lakes, the ohio river valley, and Appalachian foothills. So there's more difference between Columbus and Cleveland than between Cleveland and Michigan. But going south you cross the ohio and the valley opens into a more mountainous terrain rather than the flatness of ohio. Similarly west Virginia is a river then suddenly mountains. Pennsylvania just feels different (tbh the ohio-Pennsylvania border is out of the way unless you live in Cleveland or have frequent reason to drive to the east coast)

I‘ve only been once to the US but do you by any chance mean California - Arizona?

Technically 2 lots ...
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/32392931_zpid/

Sounds a lot like how all borders of Latvia felt like just five years ago or so. A lot of the maps they use for any planning work have just plain white colour outside the borders, so after the last village there's just the border, and then... nothing.

So, once you were beyond the last village inside Latvia, there was of course no point in properly maintaining the roads. You are sitting in a bus, somewhat slumbering. Suddenly the ride becomes very uneven and you look through the window to see commas over and under half of the consonants in viļļaģe ņames (plus a lot of
That only lasts for about five minutes, though.

And the same when exiting Latvia: bumpy road for five minutes, then the bumpiness ends and the villäges are pülling öff shenänigäns with double dots, or, alternatively, there's suddenly a lot of poop ųndęrnęąth lęttęrs. (Okay, in reality a Lithuanian letter only knows how to poop when in the beginning or end of a word)

It's a clever way to say "welcome to our co-o-o-ountr-r-r-r-r-y"!
Boringly, some years ago that feature was removed, but I expect things to normalize in 10 years time. Estonia and Lithuania will maintain their roads also at the borders, but Latvia only in the relevant parts of the country, not at the outer limit of existence. Until the condition of the road to nowhere gets too ridiculous and they have to – exceptionally and begrudgingly – repair even those unnecessary pieces of road.

(And yes, this did also apply to the transcontinental road used by trucks going from Finland to Poland and Germany and further to, well, anywhere.)