big-hugginess

You’ll have to forgive these lengthy posts: we aren’t often in a position to find a wi-fi connection, and are more interested in experiencing the goods of where we ARE than in seeking out internet cafes, so there you have it: long posts.

As I write this, it’s Saturday. We’re headed east on the 90, passing the town of Beloit, Wisconsin. This morning we’re driving into Chicago, with plans to walk around downtown along the lake, keep our eyes open for Oprah Winfrey, and get some lunch before busting out the rest of the trip eastward. (Amanda and I have both seen our share of Indiana/Ohio/New York highways, and we’re ready to get off the road for awhile.)

We woke up on Thursday in Mitchell, South Dakota, home of the Corn Palace! The pamphlet we found in the motel lobby promised that the Corn Palace would be "A-Maize-ing!" Indeed, it’s true. I love that place. The corn murals change every year, and this year happens to be a tribute to rodeo. Everyone knows the rodeo is my favorite guilty pleasure, so I was pretty stoked on the a-maize-ing coincidence. The palace, on the morning we were there, was still a work-in-progress, so we got to watch men in cowboy hats and cowboy boots stapling bundles of wheat on the sides of the building. I got a bumper sticker and some postcards in the gifte shoppe, and sampled some popcorn from the vendor lady. (The sign next to the popcorn was a stern "Only take one sample," so I needed to choose wisely. When I asked her why one particular sample was a shade of aqua green, she replied, "it has a marshmallow base." Oh.)

After taking in all the a-maizement we could handle, we walked around the town of Mitchell, got some coffee at the local java place, and did some window shopping along the main street. Storefronts included KQRN (very cute), the local radio station, a taxidermist shop, a costume rental place, and various other necessities. Beautiful old signs on the jewelry shop and drug store. While we were walking there, I got a wild hair and for the first time in a long while, felt the itch to do something real impractical, like move to Mitchell and work at the popcorn stand. (I have had these ideas once in a while, ever since childhood. The same inner wiring that had me proclaim, when I was six, that when I grew up I wanted to be a migrant worker.)

Anyway, suffice it to say that we loved Mitchell, Amanda and I both.

The rest of Thursday we spent driving across what little was left of South Dakota, and Minnesota, stopping for lunch in a cutie-pie town called Luverne. We talked a lot about the friendliness of the people, and how we really like the midwest and also, how we don’t quite understand it. The family values, the big-hug generosity and warmth, the tolerant churchiness of the people we encountered, the landscape and architecture and pace of living are just different from anyplace else either of us has lived. Which, between the two of us, is pretty much every other part of this country. What I do understand is that I love the big-hugginess of the midwest, and I want more of that in my life, wherever that life takes me. I want to bring the big-hugginess with me, and I want to find it in places I didn’t notice it before. If that’s what I take from the midwest, that’s worth this whole trip.

We camped that night at a fully gorgeous state park called Big River Bluffs, on the far eastern side of Minnesota, up on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. The weather had cooled off plenty, and that felt great after our hades-beginnings. We drank wine and played scrabble and met some folks with some very loud little dachshunds whose yappiness Vesta found rather dull. They recognized me as an Oregonian-influenced person via my Beavers sweatshirt (thank you, Grant! It’s the only warm thing I brought on this trip.)

On Friday morning, a little hike along a ridge for some views, and then back into the car for the day’s journey. We crossed into Wisconsin and took a small road along the river from La Crosse to Prairie le Chien (pronounced "sheen," like Charlie), and then across a county road into Madison. This was a lovely jaunt and got us thinking up questions about the history of the settlement/ exploration of the US that made us wish we’d paid better attention in grammar school, instead of passing notes to each other and making fun of our French teacher (that poor woman, Amanda and I were terrible!)

Another thought struck me as we went over the great Mississippi: I am not an easterner anymore. When I was young, out on my first big westward adventure, I crossed the Mississippi in St. Louis and felt very much that the river was the gateway to the west. And this trip, I felt a sort of opposite orientation for the first time. And that thought led to other thoughts that are still percolating, and that I’m sure I’ll explore later on during this month, thoughts that have to do with place, and time, and the question of what it means to feel settled somewhere, or in oneself

I met a rancher while we were pulled off at a roadside farmstand, and he was so proud of this beautiful place he lives. "Long way from home," he said, and grinned wide when I told him how beautiful we found his land. "Yup, most people call this land ‘fly-over’ land, nobody much wants to drive through it." He was clearly tickled that we weren’t most people, and made some friendly chatter before sending us on our way.

In Madison we found a big street sidewalk sale going on, and wandered from the capital down into the University area, people watching and getting some sun. Vesta got a lot of attention: "Winn-Dixie!" people were calling out. Or, "Mom, look! That doggie looks like the doggie in the movie!" After deciding that Madison is probably pretty cool, but we hadn’t found the real cool stuff, and deciding that it would be an okay place to go to grad school, we hit the road again and found a motel for the night (all the campgrounds filled up, unfortunately, for the weekend.)

Now we’re in Chicago, so I’m signing off. Stay tuned for the next installment, I'll include a saga of Vesta's brush with the law in the windy city. Much love, folks.