My First Post From The Shotgun Seat - Crossing the Mississippi

Hey all. This post is being written in Western Wisconsin from my Macbook as my father drives along Interstate 90 at a pace that can only be described as "Midwest Brisk."

I realized that to this point, all 3 of the mid-trip blog posts have been composed (read: improvised) on the spot either in one of a couple of Starbuckses, or in Joe's brother's room. While I can only upload pictures while I'm in a WiFi hotspot (which, due to I-90's complete lack of WiFi, explains why this post is going to remain a pic-less TextEdit document until we find some magic internet sauce), I figured I could always saw away at some text while sitting shotgun (which I will be doing more often than I had originally thought, thanks to the Mazda's automatic transmission).  In doing so, I can simply cut and paste my "shotgun posts" each time I discover another WiFi connection. 

Now don't get me wrong, I will still include plenty of pictures with my posts, and the number of pictures per post will probably only increase with time (while the time spent per post decreases as I continue to figure out this whole blogging thing), and as I write this, I am realizing that as I collect pictures each day on the digital camera, I can pre-write captions, etc..the plot thickens.

So since my last post, here's what's been going on:

We left the 'bucks, and picked up our dinner at a place called Potbelly's. They have three sizes of sandwich: Regular, "Skinny" (for which they scoop out all the bread from their heros, save for the crust, and then give you less meat), and "Bigs". I'm sure you can guess what I opted for.  Here's a picture of my delicious Turkey sandwich. Food definitely tastes better at 70 mph (which, did I mention, is the actual speed limit in Indiana). 

(Potbelly's - Don't get caught dead with a "Skinny" sandwich...it's social suicide.)

(High Speed Eats are Good Eats.)

We walked up and down State Street, the main drag of the Wisconsin campus, checking out bars and shops. (For better or for worse, it's your pretty stereotypical assortment of Chipotles, Urban Outfitters, Cosi's, etc.) After a short while, we found this statue of an aggressive Badger. My father made the laughable cardinal mistake of pointing at it and saying "Hey Will, check out that ferocious-looking Wolverine." Big 10 fans, hold your applause,  as well as your hate mail.

(The Wisconsin "Wolverine", right Dad?)

Following the advice of my friend Sam Pepper, a Wisconsin alum and future SportsCenter anchor, we checked out "State Street Brats" for the namesake sausage and a taste of "Spotted Cow", a solid wheat beer (although, in my humble opinion, the Lakefront wheat beer was the best I've had on the trip). 

(State Street Brats, Spotted Cow Beer, and The University of Wisconsin: A winning combination.)

We passed a bar that had $1.50 top-shelf drinks all night, but wisely decided to make the sober choice and get back on the road. As of now, we are planning on driving across Wisconsin tonight (I am eventually going to take over driving duties once Jim gets sick of sitting behind the wheel), and see if we can actually start traversing Minnesota. Tomorrow, we'll wake up and drive the rest of the way across Minnesota and South Dakota to visit the Badlands National Park, before stopping off for the night somewhere near Rapid City. After that, it's off to Bozeman, Montana to stay with Anne Thorsten, my buddy Jerome's mother, who has assured us that there's a fun Bozemanian (sp?) Wednesday night awaiting us (Anne, not Jerome, assured us of this, to be clear). We hear she likes red wine, so we picked up a bottle of Rioja in Milwaukee and will present it to her upon arrival (that might turn out to be our first real night of roadtrip drinking, as the next couple of days will probably be spent playing catchup - and, as I mentioned in my previous post, we will be fully caught up in time for Seattle.)

Here's a nice picture of the Wisconsonian sunset...

(Whether or not this entire state smelled like cow shit - which, I might add, isn't necessarily a bad thing - the place looked beautiful at dusk.)

Late-night update:

We made it to Minnesota, and crossed the Mississippi River (which defines the MN-WI state line). Here is a picture of most of a "Mississippi River" sign (as usual, taken at high speed with very little advanced notice), as well as a shot of the river itself:

(Last-minute photography. Awesome.)

(While you may often hear the phrase, "This is the best [blank] East of the Mississippi...," there are no longer any caveats.)

We are crashing at a Super 8 in Blue Earth, Minnesota. When we got there, all they had left were suites, which go for the price of about 3 cocktails at a New York City hotel bar, so we took it. Yeah, that's right, it's got a fireplace...

(I feel welcome. I really do.)

(Jim and his fireplace.)