The States

This website is about exploring many different wonders of the United States, especially the natural physical wonders. It's a journey I have been on for most of my life and, now that I'm raising grandkids, I expect the journey will continue unabated until I pass from this world. My grandson got on this bus when he was 5, my granddaughter has never been off the bus.

I began this website following the lines of my own interests. Since then my grandkids have been growing and as they get older, they've gotten more involved in how this website data flows. I doubt the site will ever be "finished" but there is sure to be plenty of stimulation and support along the way...

More than 13% of the households in America are classed as "multi-generational." That includes adult householders living with their parents, children living with householder grandparents or other relatives and adults (with their own kids) who live in their householder parents' home. "Multi-generational households" does not include the "nuclear" family of parents raising their own kids.

More than 60% of these multi-generational households count on Social Security income for their basic needs... and we have a national political party set on destroying Social Security payouts so they can divert those funds to wage un-winnable wars in other countries. The situation wasn't so obvious before the Great Recession of 2007 looted America's middle class but that event pushed the number of multi-generational families living at the same address into the stratosphere. And what's happened since on the national stage has served to push that number yet higher.

As of 2010, the US Census estimated that more than 10% of all children in the United States were being raised by relatives other than their birth parents. More than 8% of all children were being raised by their grandparents, more than 5% with neither parent in the home (I'm in this class). This situation is worst in those states that have the highest per capita prescription drug problems, the worst human services records and the lowest rated public school systems.

More than half of these grandparent-in-charge families are white. 67% of the grandparents involved are under the age of 60 and 20% of them somehow live below the poverty level. That roughly translates to more than 2.6 million children being raised by grandparents, about 2 million of these children virtually never see or get to know either of their parents and more than a million of these kids grow up in poverty.

My now oldest has gone off to college. My youngest is now 9 and she's been exploring with us almost since birth...

One more comment: I just came across an interesting chart that may mean something to a few people. The chart was a rendering of "political persuasion" graphed against "educational achievement" for all the 50 states. Massachusetts was classed as "the most liberal state" with a high educational index while Mississippi was classed as "the most conservative state" with the lowest educational index. The economy of Massachusetts is booming while the economy of Mississippi has been stagnant and losing ground for decades... Mississippi also has one of the highest rates of poverty, deaths from prescription drugs and children being raised by someone other than their parents, coupled with the lowest levels of state support for the families and educational systems involved. Louisiana, West Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas and New Mexico are in similar positions to Mississippi: politically more conservative and at the bottom of the list for their economies, educational indexes and human services.

West Spanish Peak, Colorado

Note: In the list below "*" indicates "not a lot of data" on the other side.