As it turns out, Minnesota is between South Dakota and Wisconsin — who knew? Other than those friendly Minnesotans, of course.
Glad to be out of the lower Dakota, I was pleasently surprised to find stellar state parks in the land of Lake Wobegon. Just over the boarder, I found Blue Mounds, a nice park with a heard of Bison — though they never showed themselves. The park was well maintained and offered free showers, one of my favorite finds.
Before settling in to camp, I went into Luverne, the nearest town, for some veggies and the sort. I've come to conclude there are officially two types of state. Those which are friendly, with friendly people, and those which care not for outsiders other than at tourist traps and other draws of state tax revenue. Minnesota is the former. On my way to the store alone, three different passing drivers waived. These weren't even VW folks, just ordinary types. At the store, everyone I passed said hello. I like the friendly states.
My night at Blue Mounds was fairly uneventful, as I made my way through most of the life of Doc Holliday. It was nice to get back into Pam after so many night in hotels. Camping is good for the soul, I've decided.
The only adventure came late at night when I was shaken from sleep by explosions of thunder and flashing lights outside. A massive storm was right overhead. Rain pounded down on Pam, bursts of lightning would momentarily light up everything inside. It took about forty-five minutes to fall back asleep, waiting for the storm to pass.
The next day, Thursday, I zigzagged rural highways well across the state, settling at Sakatah Lake State Park for the night. Another nice night of reading by the campfire was prematurely ended by rain, which again turned into a massive thunder storm. This one lasted much longer than the previous nights' storm, flashing and exploding for a few good hours. It was quite a sight. The kind of storm you imagine or see in the movies. I captured some great footage on my cell phone, but for some reason the little videos are rather tough to convert to something I could share here. Suffice to say, it was a show.
Watching the whole thing, I couldn't help but wonder — also taking into account all the other extreme weather I've encountered so far, not to mention all the recent earthquakes, tornadoes, cyclones and such — if the earth was fed up with the lot of us and is now taking steps to knock as many of us out as possible, even if it is one at a time with a tornado here and there. Simply, when watching nature put on a show, you can't help but assign some meaning to it all. It's all too massive and beautiful not to. I fell asleep sometime in the middle of all that, not to wake the rest of the night.
Minnesota was a short trip, and I made my way across the Mississippi for the first time into Wisconsin. While not the number one tourist state in the union, I had Wisconsin on my map due to Madison, where the University of Wisconsin and its School of Communication offers one of two graduate level rhetoric programs I'm looking at for the future. (Payback for Ellyn bringing about a New York move for me, she will someday be subjected to a life in Madison or Nashville. Silently, I think we both hope or Nashville. It's a Johnny Cash thing.)
I made it to Madison this afternoon, and the city, with its lakes, is quite pretty, if not a little poorly planned. But the downtown area is classic and its campus-meets-state-capitol feel is perfect for fostering a good rhetoric school. (If not also mentions on every "top party school" list in existence — can't really figure that one out.)
Tomorrow I'm going to take a stroll around campus to find out what a school with a funded rhetoric department actually looks like. OSU never was able to show me that.
Top Party School?
I’m stocking up on Mad Dog and changing my preference. Sorry, Johnny.