image by aernst

 Road Trip Report

 All is well in the midwest. Over five days we’ve traveled 2372 miles, driven through eight states, picked up and dropped off a friend (still on amicable terms), seen “old” friends in three states, and, best of all, Megan and I are still speaking to each other.

I’m still decompressing Scotland, and am basically on vacation, so I’m taking a wee break from any intense blog reflections. I’ll still post things, though, just maybe things a bit lighter more funner. Like…

Highs and lows, aka pows and wows, aka glorias and kyries, aka mountains and valleys, aka fillet mignon and off-brand SPAM, aka Macs and PCs. You get the picture.

Road trip…Spiffy stuff:

• Megan and I figured out we can save $3.54 at Dairy Queen by sharing a large peanut butter cup blizzard (they don’t even charge you for the extra cup)
• saw, firsthand, that Iowa City really is a cool city. Sadly, it’s quite messed up with flood damage, but the pedestrianized downtown rivals even Asheville. (Of course, we walked it in 75 degree July.)
• Campground neighbors who are really kind, sharing their can opener, giving us watermelon, and fire starter, only silently laughing at our many gaffes.
• Local brews at the Herkimer in Minneapolis
• Old friends whipping up a real tasty and healthy veggie meal
• four generations together at Megan’s farm
• fancy mpg gauge-real time average is really handy

Not so cool:

• Not having time to stop at Iowa 80, the biggest truck stop in the world (apologies, Heather)
• first bird poop on the new car
• not having time to run
• internet withdrawal, not helped by leaving my charger in Iowa City
• getting headaches from the sun due to lack of prescription sunglasses or new contacts or similar–hope to fix with those fancy grandparent-sunglasses-over-regular-glasses-sunglasses
• fast food gets old fast