• gigastasio@sh.itjust.works
      123·
      9 days ago

      To the extent that a portion of the mountain chain that formed the Appalachian Mountains is in Europe. The Appalachians were a part of the Central Pangean mountain system, which makes them older than the Atlantic Ocean.

      They’ve seen some shit.

      • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
        40·
        9 days ago

        That’s kind of awesome to think about.

        I’m picturing myself on Pangea. The mountains in front of me are taller than the Himalayas today. These are the Appalachians. Oh no, a dinosaur! Look out, duck! Huh, that’s not a duck that’s a QUETZALCOATLUS! Everybody run! How can we outrun a QUETZALCOATLUS?!?!?! AAAHHHHHH.

        Isn’t it beautiful?

        • DoubleDongle@lemmy.world
          24·
          9 days ago

          Wikipedia says they date back 480 million years, during the Ordovician period. I think the atmosphere would have been pretty breathable, but plants wouldn’t conquer the land in a serious way for at least another 60 million years or so, with bugs following them. Nothing saw those mountains. If you time-traveled to the Pangean mountains, you would be the only being to ever observe them in their formative years. Eons would pass before the first plant set root at their feet. The sterile and desolate emptiness would be beyond human experience.

          • Zwiebel@feddit.orgEnglish
            7·
            8 days ago

            The couple of people who’ve been on the moon have seen that kind of emptiness

          • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
            6·
            9 days ago

            but plants wouldn’t conquer the land in a serious way for at least another 60 million years or so
            …
            Eons would pass before the first plant set root at their feet.

            Pretty sure the mountains will still be there. Spoiler alert. I started at the end of the book.

            you would be the only being to ever observe them in their formative years.
            …
            The sterile and desolate emptiness would be beyond human experience.

            That’s badass though. Except that we might be returning to that sterile and desolate emptiness here shortly.

            Also, don’t forget that fungi, algae, and lichen colonized dry land before the plants arrived, paving the way for them by eating rocks and pooping dirt.

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
        26·
        9 days ago

        And through it all, the mountains can all agree…trump is the biggest piece of shit they’ve ever heard of.

        • rockerface🇺🇦@lemmy.cafeEnglish
          21·
          9 days ago

          Sharks are older than the North Star. Not as in Polaris wasn’t pointing north yet when the sharks evolved, but as in it hadn’t formed yet.

        • sudoshakes@reddthat.com
          34·
          8 days ago

          Older than trees.

          Older than bones.

          Drones from land masses that don’t exist anymore.

          There is rock in the Appalachian mountains without coal seams, because many formed in places before the land biomass that made coal and oil existed.

          They contain layers of fossils from ancient whales back to small crustaceans.

          480 million years ago trilobites were being heft out of the sea by the Appalachians.

          The Appalachians existed for 20 million years before bearing witness to a million year long meteor shower from the L-chondrite debris that gave the earth temporary rings.

          • Tja@programming.dev
            9·
            8 days ago

            This is th e best comment I’ve read on lemmy for a long time. Fascinating info and well written. Thanks for taking the time.

    • Fmstrat@lemmy.world
      3·
      7 days ago

      And prominence of many is still impressive. And there’s Mount Washington, where it’s so crazy you can’t predict the weather 15 minutes out.

  • amniotic druid@lemmy.worldEnglish
    74·
    9 days ago

    Its not the height, it’s the age. Thar be eldritch monsters in the Appalachians. Rockies is just aliens and (Gay) Bigfoot

  • garth@sh.itjust.works
    65·
    9 days ago

    Western trails: Ascend on nicely-graded switchbacks.

    Eastern trails: Ascend straight up a seasonal creek bed.

  • Techno-rat@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    45·
    8 days ago

    Thats cute.

    Look at the danish mountains and despair!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himmelbjerget

    Sky Mountain! a whopping peak height of 140m elevation. A hike so deadly that it is a time honored tradition to let our kindergarten aged children ‘climb’ it. Takes an afternoon (barely) and theres a small giftshop selling icecream and knick knacks on top of it.

    Try and best that yanks! 😎

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
    44·
    8 days ago

    I love my Cascades and the Rockies are majestic and impressive, but the Appalachians are basically the wizened old crones of mountains. They’re weird and mysterious. They’re full of forests and traditions and stories. They demand respect.

    Also, listen, folks from the eastern Midwest are barely used to hills then having to drive through them is scary.

    • Lumelore (She/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      7·
      8 days ago

      I’m in Minnesota and I get super carsick just driving in Wisconsin. I’ve gone up the mountain on Orcas island in Washington and it was very beautiful but I actually thought I was gonna hurl. It feels just like those pirate ship carnival rides. I really don’t know how people ride those without getting sick.

      However the small mountains (more like big hills tbh) along the north shore of Lake Superior are fine and don’t make sick at all for some reason.

    • Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de
      4·
      8 days ago

      Don’t forget, they are older and LOCATED IN THE RIGHT SPOT! Fucking Rockies just decide to pop up wherever they feel like.

      Edit: spelling is hard

  • Z745812939054@lemmy.zip
    44·
    9 days ago

    if “my mountains can beat up your mountains” is some element of the conversation, i’m not talking at all, i’m walking the other direction

  • SailorFuzz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    38·
    9 days ago

    As someone from the west coast and now living on the east coast, the number one thing I can say is… the food sucks. All of it.

    East coast food culture sucks.

    Its either bland or some unholy pairing of bullshit (that also sucks). And I also think they go out of their way to make things wrong.

    Try to order a “California Burrito” (if you dont know, Google it, pretty common), so what does Virginia think goes in it? Chicken, steak and shrimp and beans… thats not “choice of meat”, that all 3 together. None of which is what is a California Burrito is…

    Here in Viriginia they just fuck up everything. Order a Philly Cheesesteak… what do they put in it? Fucking lettuce and tomatoes… what’s not in it, fucking cheese. You get more authentic subs from big chains like Subway. Like these people dont have the internet to search.

    Oh, and sit down at a Mexican restaurant, theyll bring you chips with white sauce. Everyone else is thinking “oh cool queso”. No, not queso… its mayo with some onion powder… these mf serve tortilla chips with mayonnaise…

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
      27·
      9 days ago

      California Burrito

      Carne asada, guacomole salsa, pico de gallo, french fries, a bit of cheese. A BIT like a tiny bit.

      Its not a fucking delicacy, its a drunken fools only hope at 4 AM. Its not meant for a plate. Burritos are not meant for church. Its not high fucking art. Its fucking food and its meant to be a way.

      these mf serve tortilla chips with mayonnaise…

      • SailorFuzz@lemmy.worldEnglish
        17·
        9 days ago

        My man, my fucking man, let me show you this shit.

        Restuarant 1

        WITH fries. Like, as a side. Not in the burrito, neverminding everything else wrong.

        Heres a different restaurant also nearby

        Beans and rice? Wheres the fries??

        Fucking google that shit… its like everyone out here heard that California burritos are popular and did literally NO further looking into it. Just made some shit up.

        And look at this shit… you see that white “dipping sauce” there? Thats not queso…

          • SailorFuzz@lemmy.worldEnglish
            7·
            9 days ago

            Finally, I, a white man, knows what gentrification and cultural appropriation feels like. And it feels bad man.

          • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
            5·
            9 days ago

            I mean. Somewhat.

            Like its kind of bullshit to make a claim that this isn’t appropriation/ gentrification/ whatever your proffered framing is. At the same time, Lola’s 7 up in barrio Carlsbad has been around almost a hundred years. Some place in El Cajon, Escondido, spots in LA, all over southern California… its not like the people living there stopped being Mexican when the border moved. And its truly injust to “make invisible” the people who have lived in some of these areas since it wasn’t even Mexico, but Spain, and dismiss their cooking traditions because especially on the west coast of alta and baja california, the cultural centers weren’t in modern Mexico. They were LA, Santa Barbara, San Diego, San Francisco (the mission, hello).

        • protist@retrofed.comEnglish
          9·
          9 days ago

          That second California burrito is definitely a Texas burrito. We do beans and rice in ours. I’ve literally never heard of fries going in a burrito, and the concept makes me uncomfortable lmao

          • SailorFuzz@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            9 days ago

            I got no qualms with rice and beans in a burrito. Love it, good stuff… but don’t call it a fucking california burrito.

            • protist@retrofed.comEnglish
              3·
              9 days ago

              This post is the first time I’ve ever even heard that a California burrito is a specific thing

              • SailorFuzz@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                9 days ago

                I mean, you implied you live in Texas, right? No one in Texas is ever gonna try to present California as a good thing…

                But you owe it yourself to try it. Good California Burrito is simple. It has carne asada, french fries, pico de gallo, guacamole and sour cream in a flour tortila. That’s the minimum.

                But, bump it up, substitute salsa cremosa for the sour cream and just slather it on. Or, fuck it, do both, I won’t judge if you like your burritos dripping wet. Put some cheese in there if you want, stick to cheddar/colby/jack.

                • protist@retrofed.comEnglish
                  2·
                  9 days ago

                  No one in Texas is ever gonna try to present California as a good thing……

                  Why would you say that?! California is amazing in many ways. I just think french fries on a burrito sounds very strange…

                  Most of the time when I get a burrito here, it includes chopped smoked chicken, chorizo, or al pastor as the protein, with mexican rice, refried beans, avocado, lettuce, pico, and jack cheese. Sometimes I’ll include sour cream or salsa, usually a roja for me but tomatillo is super popular. Cholula also

        • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
          8·
          9 days ago

          Not sure what’s going on here, but we had a different name for eating cum off a bland tortilla chip when I was a youth. We also didn’t typically do it in restaurants.

          • SailorFuzz@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            8 days ago

            yea okay sure, but imagine this. You order al pastor and they put the pineapples on the side… Like, they almost understood the assignment, they know pineapples are related to it… but, if they’re not together, you don’t call that shit al pastor

      • SailorFuzz@lemmy.worldEnglish
        9·
        9 days ago

        Listen, I know Philly is more east than west… but Ive had a Philly cheesesteak on the west coast. It was awesome… now… explain this shit being served here in Virginia, on the east coast…

        Is that a Philly? Do you wanna claim that?

        • halcyoncmdr@piefed.socialEnglish
          11·
          9 days ago

          To be fair… It says it is a Philly Steak Sub… Not a Cheesesteak. As a steak sub that’s not a horrible combination.

          But it is still clear what they’re trying to sell and is an abomination.

        • VoteNixon2016@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          10·
          9 days ago

          That sandwich is a crime no matter what they’re trying to call it

          If you can’t make it up to Philadelphia, DC has some good places for cheesesteaks. It’s been a few years, but I’ll see if I can find the name of the place I liked

        • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          2·
          8 days ago

          The best cheesesteaks I’ve had were on the east coast, not west coast. I’ve also had shitty versions of food everywhere by places that have no idea what they’re doing, you can’t just use some garbage a specific place offers and define regional food quality. For you next fun experiment try ordering a Cuban sandwich essentially anywhere outside of FL and you’re likely to get some embarrassing mutated ham sandwich bullshit.

        • Dozzi92@lemmy.world
          1·
          8 days ago

          Dude, come north. Jersey has it all. I get cheesesteaks. I get California cheesesteaks. We benefit from proximity to New York and Philadelphia without living in either one. And great beaches.

          But when I read your first post that east coast food culture sucks, it only made sense when I realized where you lived, or where you didn’t live is probably more accurate. Diversity makes for great eats and Jersey is diverse af. And diverse diverse, people from everywhere just end up here being like “This isn’t new York. Ehh, fuck it, good enough.”

    • valar@lemmy.ca
      15·
      9 days ago

      As someone from the southeast I had the opposite reaction when visiting Cali. I felt like there was no soul in that food at all. More healthy tho.

      Edit: Rethinking it, I’m actually sure there’s good and bad in both places.

      • SailorFuzz@lemmy.worldEnglish
        14·
        9 days ago

        If youre visiting, get away from the tourist shops. This is true when you’re visiting anywhere. Don’t eat the food made for tourists.

        Ask a local, find some place that has a dude selling burritos out of an unmarked doorway counter. If you see an old mexican lady wandering around with a ice chest behind her, shes selling homemade tamales, get that shit.

        Food near tourist areas is made bland af to appeal the widest visiting audience.

        • ChrysanthemumIndica@discuss.tchncs.de
          7·
          9 days ago

          As another person from the southeast, similar is true down here and most places: a locally known and mildly sketchy situation is the best! (Usually…)

          Gas station places with a packed parking lot, open church bbqs, the smoky old dark wood panel places serving the best burger you ever had.

          That said, the first time I had a proper tamale when I moved to Texas, omgosh! Magic.

    • Lucky_777@lemmy.world
      13·
      9 days ago

      You need to hit up the south. Amazing food. Sure the weather is hot af, the politics are fucking terrible, and you’ll probably get some odd looks of you’re not white.

      But boy…that food. Put some pounds on you quick but you’ll leave fat and sassy

      • Einskjaldi@lemmy.world
        8·
        9 days ago

        Correct, barbeque from the south, dessert from the Amish, Italian from New York and nearby Italian grandmother’s. If you get a burrito from some place that’s bad that doesn’t mean there isn’t top tier food there.

    • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
      7·
      9 days ago

      how do they fuck that up lol the main thing that separates a cali burrito and a burrito is the french fries being IN the burrito. thats like one of the lowest hanging fruits to fuck up.

      • SailorFuzz@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        9 days ago

        Right? And it would be one thing if just one restaurant fucked it up. You’d be like “well that restaurant is just dumb”… but its like…ALL of them. All of them fuck it up in different ways.

        Its baffling…

    • starik@lemmy.today
      4·
      8 days ago

      Yeah, only the West Coast knows how to make a Philly cheesesteak, made famous by the West Coast city of Phil Francisco.

    • almost1337@lemmy.zip
      4·
      9 days ago

      What part of Virginia? Hampton Roads is basically only good for seafood, but they are good at it. Northern Virginia has diverse and interesting ethnic food options, but you have to look for them. Richmond I assume is the same. Western Virginia is kind of rural sprawl but the southern food is great.

    • mbp@slrpnk.net
      4·
      9 days ago

      People are clowning on ya but I get it.

      I grew up in Florida and moved to Oregon, the food culture was shit back home. People here will like watch you take that first bite and gauge your reaction; it kinda freaked me out at first lol. People are passionate as fuck about food here.

      That being said, New Orleans still had some of the best food I’ve ever had in my life and it is on the East. Consider it the exception that proves the rule.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
      3·
      8 days ago

      I think Virginia food just sucks dude. Clam chowder, Maryland crab cakes, Old bay on anything, Philadelphia and their pretzels and cheesesteaks, DC’s international food, Maine’s lobster, New York’s bagels, New Jersey’s wafer thin crispy pizza (yeah I think it’s better than an NYC slice), sub sandwiches in the northeast, atlantic lox, atlantic cod, new england aged cheddar… Also are we counting bourbon country to be east? Because internationally renowned whiskeys.

      Also a California burrito just looks like it’s basically a Pittsburgh sandwich but in burrito form, and I’ll tell California what I told Pittsburgh, the fries are better on the side.

      Tbh the food of the west coast has failed to impress me. Is it better than the Midwest? Of course (except for fried dairy), that’s not a high bar. There’s plenty good, especially in Asian and Latin cuisines, but there’s not even much weird local foods like Cincinnati chili, it’s just “ah yeah this is grown/caught nearby and so it’s fresh and popular”. It is much better as a pescatarian though.

    • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
      2·
      9 days ago

      Counterpoint: fresh lobster. Ordering lobster in a restaurant is crazy expensive for no reason. Cheap and delicious during peak season (nb it may not be cheap anymore since I left the area 10 years ago)

    • VoxBunn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      1·
      9 days ago

      Oh I feel this so much, grew up primarily on the west coast (with some time on the east coast and in the south) and now that I’m living on the east coast again the general quality of food here is abysmal compared to average places I could find anywhere in places like Arizona, California, or Washington.

    • VoxBunn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      1·
      9 days ago

      Oh I feel this so much, grew up primarily on the west coast (with some time on the east coast and in the south) and now that I’m living on the east coast again the general quality of food here is abysmal compared to average places I could find anywhere in places like Arizona, California, or Washington.

    • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
      19·
      9 days ago

      Hey, while you might not win on education, healthcare, quality of life or cultural attitudes towards racism, you can always come at the west coast over this BS:

      “It’S tHe IcE tHaTs ThE pRoBlEm” sure, and the fact there’s eight whole plows in the entire state and nobody even understands the concept of winter tires is just totally unrelated…

      (/j ❤️)

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        7·
        8 days ago

        Seattle, just the city limits of Seattle, has hills taller than things I’ve heard people in the midwest call mountains.

        That being said, yeah, you are absolutely correct that almost fucking nobody in the PNW knows jack shit about driving in the snow.

        They also know jack shit about driving in the rain, which is… baffling for hopefully obvious reasons.

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
          3·
          8 days ago

          Yeah the elevation makes driving in snow scary. People in the PNW also can’t fucking drive on flat snow, but I get it, I learned to drive under the lake effect. But yeah this is easy mode rain driving. The wind isn’t pushing you, there’s no surprise rivers, it’s just wet ground with your wipers on and it’s like that for half the year. You don’t bother using an umbrella, why can’t you drive in this rain

          • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            2·
            8 days ago

            I learned how to drive in the snow because I grew up in the foothills, the boonies. Snow and inclines, flash floods, windstorms take down so many trees that all the routes to … fucking anywhere are blocked for days to a week, along with the power grid.

            I, foolishly, expected that that was normal, that everybody learned how treacherous weather can be on driving.

            All these damn city slickers just be fucking playing bumper cars, watchin their tiktoks, gorramit!

            Ptooie!

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
        2·
        8 days ago

        Oh yeah folks out here can barely handle snow unless it’s on a mountain, even up north where it snows. Meanwhile my Ohioan ass can’t deal with ice + elevation, but I kinda love driving on ice about once or twice a year. Give me a blizzard that cuts the power out over a heat wave with no AC.

        I also miss windstorms, thunderstorms, and tornadoes. The sky should try to kill you from time to time. It keeps you sharp. Fuck noreasters and hurricanes though, that’s too much.

    • Feathercrown@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      9 days ago

      You’d think if it were true they wouldn’t spend so much time trying to prove it. They doth protest too much

      • content_educator_94@thelemmy.club
        7·
        9 days ago

        Right?

        It legitimately just leaves a bad taste in my mouth regarding the west coast and particularly California

        And I don’t want to feel like that! Like I know those places are cool and have beautiful natural settings and intelligent people and awesome culture.

        You don’t have to trash talk the entire other half of the country to convince me that you guys have merit.

        It’s low-key what someone with incredibly low self esteem does.

        • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
          4·
          8 days ago

          I think it’s similar to how the US as a whole is. We’re a young country so we felt we had to prove ourselves for a long time, but eventually everyone got the message and we held prestige, but we were still insecure and bragging which wound up making us look worse.

          Within the country, the west coast had a similar experience. California had to prove it’s worth against established and respected places like Philadelphia and New York. But we all get it now. Everyone knows it’s awesome out here, and the Eastern prestige largely just remains in the coastal cities, and it’s not like people are moving to Hartford to make it big anymore. And it feels like rubbing it in when you’ve got places like the Rust Belt that continue to struggle.

    • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
      4·
      8 days ago

      A decent number of the Appalachians have roads that go near the top.

      • Speltrong@feddit.org
        2·
        8 days ago

        That just means they have better engineers and braver drivers, or the mountains are older and they had more time

        • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
          8·
          8 days ago

          braver drivers,

          I used to joke that there were no bad drivers in WV, you either learned how to drive or you fell twenty feet off the road and got impaled by a tree. Unfortunately, since I was a kid we’ve put guard rails on a lot of those places.

  • Zink@programming.dev
    19·
    9 days ago

    Sometimes it’s not the moutains that get you, it’s the smaller hills and valleys surrounding them because there are actually people and roads there.

    Sometimes if you make a wrong turn in Pittsburgh, you are not just going the wrong direction but are also at the wrong elevation or on the wrong layer, and there’s no looping around the block to get back to where you started.

    Disclaimer: This thread led me to read the Wikipedia article about Appalachia. Some definitions of the region do not include Pittsburgh or even parts of Pennsylvania, but at the same time there’s a photo of downtown Pittsburgh at the top of the article, so I went with it.

  • Fluffy_Ruffs@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    9 days ago

    The highest wind speed ever recorded on Earth until 1996 was on Mt. Washington, NH. That’s gotta count for some cool points.