Day 19 (AM): Altered States

One of the side effects of long drives on four-lane highways through flat, featureless land is that you start noticing things you would probably ignore if there was even a modicum of something interesting to capture your attention.

For all of this driving adventure, we have been passing Adopt-A-Highway signs along the interstates. Being bored, I started reading them. Typically some local business or group shells out some bucks to get their name up as helping out with the litter control for a small stretch of the highway. You see that the highway has been adopted by such groups as Hayseed County Rotary Club, Fred & Ethel's Home Cooking, or the Back of Beyond Dude Ranch.

OK, those are made up, but a real one I did see while passing through Minnesota was that the highway had been adopted by the Southeast Minnesota Gay and Lesbian Community Services. With my mind already wandering. I wondered if the conservative Christian community had opposed this. I could almost hear their arguments.

"We cannot allow gays and lesbians to adopt a highway. While these folks are free to do whatever they like in their own lives, we are looking out for the interest of the young road. By the time the road is a thoroughfare, it won't know if it's going east or west. For decades, society has acknowledged that there are rules of the road, and we do not believe these people will teach them properly and instill proper respect for those rules."

But then I remembered we were in Minnesota. This is the state that elected pro wrestler Jesse Ventura its governor and just completed the daily double by electing second-rate comedian Al Franken as its US Senator. No, I doubt if there was all that much debate about the adopt-a-highway policies.

(2 quick trivia fixes: 1. Predator is, I believe, the only movie to star two future US governors - Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger. 2. Norm Coleman must by the biggest loser in politics, having lost the governorship to a pro wrestler and his Senate seat to a comedian.)

Anyhow, we have left Minnesota and are now in Wisconsin. This state is in the news today because three lovers and the wife of a guy who obviously has way too much energy figured out he was cheating on all of them with all of them. Or something like that. So the women lured the guy to a motel (he probably had a frequent guest card good for a free room) and proceeded to tie him up and used super glue to attach his favorite organ to his belly.

The women are being charged with false imprisonment. After 24 hours, the guy is still trying desperately not to pee. And this story from the US is the top-rated news item on Australia's Brisbane Times website.

We are off to check out Madison now to see the sites (and the shops, I guess) and I will post later about that. Or perhaps LK will. For in her debut performance, she received MORE comments than I have ever received in a single post. I want to thank all of you who voted the substitute teacher the best in the whole school.

And finally, rest assured, I am not letting LK anywhere near a store that sells Crazy Glue today.