Tales of a vagrant ant

Well, I certainly fell off the caboose, when it came to writing about this roadtrip… hahaha
Is that even a proper term? (katie, as my personal word-sage, please correct my idioms, thanks!)
Anyways, like i wrote in the last post, i’m determined to finish blogging about this trip before a year is up, even if it kills me.
For a recap, since it’s far in the minds of mortal men, please refer to Days 1+2: (Arrival and Departure), and Day 3 - Wisconsin Dells and reaching the Mississippi.
So here we go, with day 4, a day of wondrous things

July 17 A day of wondrous things

We woke up in the town of La Crosse, and hit the road before the day was getting hot. We crossed the Mississippi River this morning, into the state of Minnesota, and vowed to have Mississippi Mud Pie (well, I did, anyways, not sure about Katie), a vow which unfortunately did not end up being fulfilled. I would have loved to actually go to the missisippi river and dip my toes in our something, but we didn’t have the luxury to stop and watch the river flow, so this picture of mainly a highway divider is the best we’ve got to show for it. Besides, aren’t there like crazy mosquitoes, and alligators there, or something?!?!

Minnesota is a land of strange of wondrous objects. Maybe it’s simply the way that people in general sometimes find ways to put meaning in their lives. Some pray. Some write. Some create crazy things, like the world’s biggest twine ball (which I unfortunately, did not see. Here is a picture of somebody else with it though)

As much as I would have loved to see such a wonder, we were on a pretty tight schedule, and didn’t have time to make the detour to visit but we did get to see the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota, a 50ft Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, MN, and the world’s only corn palace.

In some instances, it seemed like some of these places were sustained really, only by these tourist traps.

Not much else in Austin, besides the 16,500 square-foot Spam Museum, and its adjacent factory. Of Spam. The birthplace of Spam. The museum was actually free, and was actually rather fascinatingly ridiculous. One could take a picture of the official mascot Spammy, like so.

The history of spam was also available, as was an interactive display that showed how many cans of spam you might produce, by putting you in the shoes of a spam factory worker. Oh, the glory…

Below is a photo of the wall of spam, with over 200o cans of spam lined an overhead display.

The gift shop was dedicated to all things spam, including all types of Spam flavour varieties, and included Spam Singles, a thin slice of spam (like Kraft cheese singles, but spam), that could be sent in the mail. Imagine that, getting Spam Mail!! Simply brilliant. I couldn’t resist having a mascot for our trip, so we hired(purchased) Spammy for our adventures to come. Behold:

Our next stop was in Blue Earth, Minnesota. Despite fertile soils, and the 50 ft tall jolly green giant, there didn’t appear to be much going on in Blue Earth. It was hard to say what people actually did there. In some ways, it felt bit like time had simply frozen in the 1950s in many of these small towns.

This is a photo of THE jolly green giant. yes, that dude on your cans of whole kernal corn!

We found luncb in a small cafe, serving iced coffee and microwaved burritos that i wouldn’t have eaten had I know they would be the nuke-em-ready type. After the unglorious lunch, we grabbed some food at the dairy queen down the road, and then hit the road again. It was getting pretty hot, especially midday, when we were doing most of our travellinng. It made for all sorts of cool things… like this neato mirage. Ah, what the crazed people crossing the deserts must have felt like.

We careened through the heat of day, until we hit the town of Mitchell, South Dakota, home of the World’s largest corn palace. Slightly ridiculous, even though it was only the exterior that had a thin layer of corn. This was still some ridiculous number of ears of corn.

After an enlightening time at the corn palace, I wanted to get some corn on the cob. strangely enough, there wasn’t a nearby vendor selling them! and the locals didn’t really know either. A travesty! oh well. we needed to hit the road, as we still had a long way to go though, until we would arrive at the City of Wall, our next checkpoint.

We were driving past golden fields now stretching as far as the eye could see, while the harvested hay was rolled into huge bundles, seemingly systematically abandoned. We were following the paths of the pioneers now, who must have looked on the land in wonder, this expanse of land that seemed to stretch on forever, broken only by a river that snaked across the landscape. We took a stop at the rest stop on the bluffs overlooking the river to watch the sunset and to strech our cramped legs. Katie and our other mascot Elessar especially appreciated the short break.

As darkness fell, we were still on the road, determined to get to our hotel as fast as possible. Right before the highway fell into darkness, there was a small bastion of civilization, and there in Big Al’s restaurant, in the town of Reliance, I decided to eat bioregionally, and tried not pemmican as Native Americans may have done, but buffalo burgers, its modern American counterpart. It did get the job done at satiating my belly, and so we continued bulleting down the highway.

Despite it all, we arrived at our hotel far after nightfall, so late that motel left our room key in the lock, insisting that it would be just fine, and to check in in the morning. And we did arrive eventually, and it was fine, for the most part. And all in one piece, at that.