Hello Hello, I'm broadcasting from Mitchell, South Dakota today! I'm feeling a lot better than I was yesterday, I got more sleep last night, and I was sure to stock up on some sandwich meat, crackers, and some other light eats this morning, and haven't eaten a single burger, I feel a thousand times better, fast food really gets to you after a while.
Anyway, I was thinking this morning about something Maria had joked around about, not seeing Mount Rushmore - and I figured, what the hell, I'm not on any kind of a definite schedule, why not? So I rerouted my trip from North Dakota to South Dakota and put Mount Rushmore on the path, I'll be seeing it tomorrow.
After I left the hotel this morning, I headed towards the capitol building of Madison. I've got to say - Madison is quite a neat city - geographically its quite spread out, but the downtown area is somewhat smaller and not too heavily populated at first glance, its got a really nice feel to it, I woudn't mind coming back some day.
I left the city and started driving west towards Minnesota. On the way I saw a billboard for "Robot World" which sounded pretty cool (Who doesn't love ROBOTS!?), so I got off at the exit, but couldn't find it anywhere. Instead, I found quite possibly one of the greatest things ever - a store dedicated strictly to cheese and sausage, apparently they're all over Wisconsin.
I stopped in and bought a "snack pack" that has a whole array of various types of cheeses, and I also got a bag of cheese curds after a suggestion from Cassie and Ender. The curds were... interesting. They were okay, I'm not sure if I could handle them in large doses, but not bad a few at a time!
I got back on the road, and I saw something really disturbing. A truck was up ahead of me, and I couldn't quite make out when it was carrying, but there were feathers flying everywhere from it. When I got closer, I realized it was transporting live chickens, hundreds of them, all in incredibly small and confined cages. Obviously they're involved someway in farming, either to be eaten or bred or whatever. Now - I have no moral problems with eating animals, I place plant life and animal life at the same importance, if I eat one I eat the other. But the conditions a lot of the animals have to live in before they're killed - well, it hits closer to home when you actually see it happen right in front of your eyes (and I mean this is probably nothing compared to what happens later). Anyway, they were all jammed in tiny cages, out in the open as wind hit them at 85mph for hours and hours. Made me sad to see.
At this point - I have to say, if I never see another corn field or dairy farm it will be too soon, that's ALL it is out here. Farms for hundreds of miles in every direction, with small towns spread 50 miles apart. Seriously - its just pure farmland, there is NOTHING else. I'm glad I didn't break down.
Anyway - eventually I crossed over from Wisconsin to Minnesota, and without realizing ahead of time, I was crossing the Mississippi! Pretty far north of Mississippi, but the same water nevertheless. I'll be sure to get more pictures when I'm actually going through the south.
Immediately following the river everything changed, the area was very hilly and green, lots of trees everywhere. It was amazingly beautiful, and I thought all of Minnesota was going to be like that (I had no preconceived notions of the state). I was extremely wrong. After a few miles it turned back into thousands of acres of flat farmland. Yeah. BUT - I saw some cool wind-power stations. I've never seen them in person before.
Eventually I hit South Dakota, the sun was starting to set. The cool thing about the flatland of the midwest is you can see the entire sky, and the clouds are really amazing. Since you can see all around you, you get a much better estimate of the height of the clouds, its really surreal. I got a really cool shot of one cloud as the sun was hitting it.
I found a Holiday Inn (that only has dial-up, which is insanely slow, but at least I have a connection), and settled in. A couple of things I was thinking about today (you get a LOT of time to think while you're crossing the US). Someone had told me once that the north-east had more vanity plates than anyone else - I realize how right they are today. I've seen a total of _1_ vanity plate since I left New York, unlike a pretty much even 50/50 spread in New Hampshire. I wonder if its a ton more expensive (or not possible) to get them out here. Also - I really liked Wisconsin in general, everyone I talked to in stores and whatnot seemed really friendly, the whole state just had a really friendly, laid back kind of atmosphere to it, plus they all had funny Wisconsin accents. ;) I met a guy from Poland at the cheese house and I spoke what little Polish I knew to him, he got a kick out of it.
Ooh! Also, saw 75MPH speed limit signs today for the first time! Those are absolutely _no where_ to be found anywhere in New England (that I'm aware of). Out here though, its all flat, there aren't any animals running out in the road or even any people living around, so its not that big of a deal. Everyone was pretty much doing 85-90.
Anyway, tomorrow is Mount Rushmore and beyond! I'm not sure how far I'll get, but the day after tomorrow I should be in Washington!