Tress beans, monsewer! I’m in Indiana.
Actually, we’re in Terre Haute , where the pool is so brackish and befouled that
even Shrek would be grossed out by it. The WIFI connection is so poor that the
only way to get online is to sit in the laundry room with the smell of hot lint
and the door wide open so all the bugs attracted by wafting funk from the
pool/swamp can come in and have a good munch on your bare legs. (Note to self:
sweat pants.) This soothing ambience is only enhanced by the crashing din from
the game room next door, where every clank of a billiard ball sounds like
bowling balls hurled in a scrap metal yard (I am typing very fast.)
The drive out of South Dakota was briefly pretty with rocky forests giving way
to sidelines of forget-me-nots, but all through the Midwest it’s a nonstop
carpet of corn on either side of the highway. All of those “I” states are heavy
on the corn (what do we do with all that corn???). There was one main highway
out of Nebraska through Iowa (yes, ONE) and traffic was stopped for an hour
because a tractor trailer had overturned, feet and underbelly pointing bug-like
and helpless into the roadway, and whatever it had spilled from its cargo
blasted away from the road surface by fireman’s foam.
A couple of times, the “main” highway was a divided highway of one lane each,
and a whole lotta nothin’ for miles. No signs, no McDonalds, nothing. Just,
NUTHIN'.
Then, suddenly – a sign indicating that the next turn off would be interesting
if you wanted to check out the sets from the movie Dances With Wolves, or that
Exit 350 was the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder, or up ahead there would be the
Bridges of Madison County. We’ve been getting our thrills doing things like
running through the sprinklers watering the grass at McDonalds (how are we going
to get across this divider? Let’s go for it).
Americana Sign Watch:
Kum-N-Go Restaurant (even scarier than the name is that fact that it’s a
*chain!* restaurant in several Midwestern states)
Par-a-Dice - More Holler for your Dollar
The last campground was in Rock Island , IL , and we coincidentally landed on
Johnny Cash’s song “Rock Island Line” just as we reached the exit. The place was
previously called The Camelot Campground, and their motto was “We Treat You Like
Royalty.” What kind of royalty? I asked Wes. Present day, adored British Queen
Mum royalty? Or Anne Boleyn before they chopped off her head?
Driving across Illinois to Indiana , I had enough T-Mobile signal to listen to
French radio on the internet (http://www.rfi.fr/) as we drove through Peoria .
(How *does* it play in Peoria ? Not bad!) It’s the same news as here, except
painted with a broader world brush:
The-Israeli-Wall-John-Kerry-Help-Is-On-The-Way-Gheorghzhe-Booosh-Bagdad-Police-Station-Explosions.
There was also a sports program that had to be soccer because the score remained
zero-zero throughout the broadcast.
There’s tons of Bad French all over the Midwest, and ironically, most of them
are just east of what used to make up the Louisiana Purchase: towns called Creve
Coeur, and Terre Haute (high ground) – pronounced like Terra (Miss Scarlett’s
House) Hote (like you started to say “Hotel” and kicked off the “L” at the end).
And just look at what we did to Des Moines . I guess we’re lucky the Indianans
didn’t get it, or it really *would* be Dess Moyneys. We drove through Paris ,
Illinois (no relationship to the *other* Paris ). This Paris was lined with
shops like Lori’s Pins-n-Needles, the Twin Lakes Roller Rink, Illiana Tire Co.,
purple Mustangs in someone's front yard, and other bits of classic Shitkicker ,
USA .
All this blandness and blahness makes me look forward to getting back to
Bawtimore, Hon. And there’s this sudden craving for corn….