Day 2

As promised, here's a photo of the front of our hotel from last night (right). Not a great image of it, but i hope the idea is there. The picture on the left is of the door down the hall from us. Not only did those people neglect just using the 'do not disturb' signs provided by the hotel, but that visor is actually made of leather. I know, fancy, right? i thought it was a belt at first... which i must admit i think would be just a tad more classy than the hat, but you can't win 'em all.
So moving on. Minnesota didn't provide much excitement for the remainder of our time there. Little bit of traffic congestion around Minneapolis/St. Paul, but that's about it. General statement i would like to make about Minnesotan drivers: there are a lot of assholes among them. They tailgate like nobody's business and have a pretty clear disregard for other drivers on the road. I remember the first time driving though MN, there were two beater vans that came flying past us on the Interstate. Not kidding either, the speed limit is 65, we must have been pushing 80, and these two POS vans just flew by going 90 or so. A little ways down the road we passed them again, as one of them was pulling off of the highway because they popped a flat and the other was tearing off after them to help. Probably doesn't sound all that irksome or bad-mannered explained via blog, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Bear it in mind until you find yourself driving across the 10,000 lakes state and when that car behind you starts to bob and weave and ride your ass, then you'll get it.
Next, we found ourselves in Wisconsin, the Cheese (and beer) state. It's actually a fairly pretty state. The landscape is a little rough and overgrown, green all over (kind of can tell from the picture to the right, but that's obviously a well-kept field on a farm, so it's not exactly filling the rough part of my description). Wisconsin's a pretty classy state, sports a lot of billboards and one giant resort attraction called The Wisconsin Dells. You can stay at a Giant Lincoln Log style hotel, complete with water park. Things were not boding well for the Dells and their water parks though. Next we drove into a crazy storm, crazy defined by stormwatch coloring it bright red, as though to say, "there's a shit ton of rain in this part". Not so much fun, but after that we made a stopover to visit the scary mouse (left) and a cemetary in Windsor, WI where my maternal grandfather's family is originally from. The green field picture is actually taken across the street from the cemetary. My great grandfather, Cassius "Cash" Byron Chamberlain is buried there among many other members of my Chamberlain side. He died when my grandfather was young in a test flight outside of Miles City, MT, attempting to turn the plane around after it started to fail. Charles Lindberg was quoted to have learned to wing-walk from my great grandfather and he was a recognizable figure in the early days of popular and commercial aviation.
Illinois on the other hand, is not particularly green or wildly foliaged, it's flat, wide open plains... oh, and it has wind power farms. Huge ones. Not sure if some of you have not seen the pieces of one of those windmill-things, but they're ginormous. of course some pieces were parked at the rest stop on the opposite side of the highway, so i have this lovely photo shot through my windshield. Admire the corner of my GPS and the edge of the windshield before you appreciate the huge pieces being carried via semi. Impressive? i think so.
Tonight we're staying in Bloomington, IL, Tomorrow is a more impressive push to West Virginia. We'll see what the road has in store then...