The plains. They're pretty great.

7-9-11 - Menno, SD

It's hot. Still 95F at 9pm. Not to mention that breeze that nearly blew me off the road the whole way here has up and vanished. Probably because this lake is in a bowl of sorts. Definitely sneaks up on you. I was following the directions and thinking, "It's completely flat out here, where are they hiding a lake?" But then you drop into a little gully and there it is: a nice little lake tucked into a hilly depression. From down at the shore, south-east South Dakota boasts gently rolling hills covered with a blanket of yellow and green tall grass, with stands of evergreens speckled throughout. Not bad. But from highway-level, it's flat as paper, adorned with the same corn/soy motif as Iowa and no doubt the rest of the midwest I have yet to traverse.

I rolled into Menno about 3:30pm this afternoon (Sat.), brimming with anticipation. Realistically I knew I wasn't about to discover long-lost celebrity relatives or stumble across a family fortune, but it's still exciting knowing that my flesh & blood was and is so rooted into the character and history of this midwest "nowhere" town.

Not surprisingly, the Menno Heritage Museum was closed. There was a list of phone numbers (including a Cindy Aisenbrey) on the door, but I had no reception, and didn't feel like rousing someone from an afternoon nap so I could look at turn-of-the-century cookware. I grabbed my camera and ambled down 5th Ave (more of a 'Main St' than the actual Main St) snapping nondescript touristy images.

The Schnitz (a 5-star dining establishment, no doubt) was closed. The Open Door Cafe didn't live up to its name. I wandered into a confusingly-labeled shop, filled with vhs tapes and fridges full of home-grown produce. The couple behind the counter struck up a conversation and ended up being a repository of information as to the history of Menno, and the Aisenbrey family. We chatted for half an hour, and they gave me phone numbers for resident Aisenbreys, and directions to an old cemetery out of town they thought might feature some Aisenbrey tombstones. Apparently the fence had been moved in when the church changed locations, evicting the long-since rotted wooden crosses that marked the graves of my great-great grandfather, Christian Aisenbrey, and his father, who now lie under row after row of soybeans. Maybe they would've liked it that way.

I located a couple other family-members I'll have to look up later, but the bugs were relentless, and the South Dakota sun was starting to forego the cloud-cover it had graced me with thus far.

[and now I have to go brave the swarms of no-see-em's and shoot the sun setting over the lake. BRB. . . . Worst. Bugs. Ever. Non-stop onslaught until I made it back to the tent. Gorgeous sunset though. Probably gonna miss some of the good post-sunset light, but I wasn't about to let those bugs lay eggs in my ears.]

So back to the story. I headed back into town in hopes that the Open Door or the Bier Garden would be open, but alas, one out-of-towner must not warrant opening the whole store on a Saturday afternoon. So, having seen what there was to see in town, I headed off to the lake to scout out a campsite. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that there were so many people at the lake (which is really just a dammed river/glorified pond) given the heat, but luckily there was still one camper spot open, so I hurriedly set up my tent and retreated, once again, to its bug-proof-ness, only to sweat my ass off while trying to read.

One hour and a gallon of sweat later, I gave up and set out to find dinner in the next town over, since every door in Menno is apparently locked on Saturdays. Olivet, SD may have played big brother to Menno back in 1900, but as of July 9, 2011, its population is soaring at 63, with a grand total of zero restaurants. Back to Menno, and the sole gas station convenience store. Unfortunate.

Now I'm back in the tent, still sweating with no sign of a breeze. Guess I'm gonna try out one of the local churches tomorrow morning, then head out for Hutchinson/Wichita, KS tomorrow afternoon. Supposed to be hotter down there. Hooray.

P.S. - Lady in yellow tanktop, from air conditioned motor home just invited me to join them for fireworks in honor of her 40th birthday. Many happy returns.

I think I like picking mulberries more than I like eating them.

keep dreaming

Do you ever get a spark of an idea for a creative expression (song, painting, story, etc) but then realize that you have no idea how to implement or realize it?

Sucks, doesn't it?

I just thought of a loose plot for a story about dreaming, based on a dream that I just had. Now I just have to figure out how to write.

Can't be that hard...

Here's a picture of a cat (Preston) sitting in a Star Trek board game box on a Green Lantern flag. What a nerd.

They make it look so easy, but I wouldn't live here.

I went for a walk yesterday. Iowa is flat.

3 blocks north and I ran into a soybean field.

4 blocks east I found a route out of suburbia. In some farm towns, the houses seem to be a desolate rock being pounded upon by the endless waves of corn and soybeans, and are slowly eaten away. In Eldridge, residential is on the offensive against agricultural, annexing farmland slowly enough that you wouldn't notice if you lived there.

New homes are springing up with the same uniformity as the row after row of corn stalks across the fence. It bears an eerie resemblance to a game of Sim City (Sim Farm Town?). In Tennessee, The Land is the boss, and tells the farmer where he's allowed to grow, and roads follow the contours of hills and streams. In Iowa, The Land is indifferent. You can plant wherever you want, and roads are a geometric grid.

I neglected to remember that a "country block" is usually about a square mile, so by the time I turned onto 255th Avenue, I had locked myself into a 4-mile stroll. Not a bad thing, I just had to dodge the occasional dust cloud stirred up by men in pickup trucks.

Oddly enough, I saw almost no gardens. In a land where plants are trying to grow everywhere, you'd think people would jump on the chance, but maybe a life consumed with farming is still too present in the collective memory. (I would've snacked on some of these day-lily buds, but the proximity to the inexplicably-placed port-a-pottys kinda scared me off)

Here's a picture from Grandma's wall. It's my parents' wedding (they were kinda hippies, dunno what happened).

never blog when you're hungry

Oklahoma's official state meal:

Barbeque pork

Chicken fried steak

Cornbread

Fried okra

Squash

Biscuits

Sausage and gravy

Grits

Corn

Black-eyed peas

Strawberries

Pecan Pie

I might have to indulge on my way through.

Roadtrip update #2: Kentucky-Iowa

Eldridge, IA - 7/4/11

My windshield serves gruesome testament to the carnage I have wrought upon the insectoid populations of Indiana and Illinois this past weekend. Back in red-winged blackbird territory.

Packed up camp at Mammoth Cave National Park Saturday morning and headed off to wait for the ferry, after completing my first ever successful snot-rocket. It was pretty awesome. The route to Indianapolis took me through some great little Kentucky towns before feeding into the all-powerful Interstate.

Met the family in a suburb outside of Indy. Happy times. Some missionary friends graciously loaned us their house while we were in town for an old friend's wedding. That subdivision was something else though... Definitely apropos for the holiday, but frighteningly Pleasantville-esque. I certainly didn't feel American enough to be frequenting its manicured streets.

The wedding was on Sunday, and I tell you what, Cameroonians know how to get down at a wedding reception. It was great to see a bunch of familiar faces from the good old days back in Dakar.

The Aisenbrey caravan left this morning, making stop #1 in Freeport, IL to see my dad's mom, who entertained us with tales of nursing home shenanigans. Then it was on the road again, through beautiful northern Illinois and across the grand Mississippi to stop #2 at my mom's mom's place here in Eldridge, where I'm currently typing to the sounds of her wheezing cat, Belle, and the lonely popping of leftover fireworks.

We'll head up to Cedar Rapids tomorrow, completing phase 1 of the roadtrip, so I may not have another update for you till Saturday when I head off to South Dakota. You'll just have to get over it.

Roadtrip log 7-1-11

7-1-11 - Mammoth Cave, KY

Got to the park at 10:30am, already a decent-sized crowd. Turns out it was the park's 70th birthday, hence the self-guided tour was free. I had plenty of time before the 11:15 tour I had booked, so I went ahead and took the 3/4 mile sneak-peek.

Kinda weird being here alone. Not bad, just odd. Half the park rangers are old men, and the other half are (for the most part) attractive young women. Bus loaded up at 11:25 after a brief "White nose syndrome will kill you and your grandma" talk. Note to self: don't go on a tour with 79 other people again. It was pretty awesome down there, but waiting on everybody else kinda sucked, and all the kids started to get whiny and annoying after about the first 12 stairs.

Tour got done around 3:15. One of the non-old man park rangers got me a backcountry permit even though the desk was closed. At 3:30 in the afternoon. On a Friday. I picked a site at random and headed off in the direction of Brownsville, KY, a small town on the fringe of the park. I wasted some time driving around, then pulled into Laura's Hilltop "Home Cookin" Restaurant for some "real" food before setting up camp. It was a charming little place, full of senior citizens and antiques. A girl with a thick accent (even by Tennessee standards) brought me what turned out to be way too much food, and I tried to eat it slowly while reading and writing this log, since I had a significant chunk of daylight to kill. Got a handful of quizzical looks from the other patrons, whom Laura herself all knew by name, but it was a pretty friendly place, overall.

Headed off to the campsite trailhead at about 6pm, passing through sleepy downtown Brownsville again. Luckily I made it to the ferry (over the river I had neglected to notice) with 15 mins to spare before it anchored for the night, and found the trailhead parking lot without a problem.

Strike that, with two problems: BUGS. HEAT.

After four hours of the constant 54 degrees of subterranean Kentucky, the stagnant and muggy 90 degrees of the surface, combined with every swarming insect known to man (why do they love the face?? And where are all these species of bats I heard about in the caves?) proved nearly unbearable. Yet I survived a deceptively mile-marked march to Three Springs campsite, where I set up my tent in solitude and swiftly retreated to its bug-proof-ness, from where I'm currently finishing this log while being serenaded by cicadas, toads, and who knows what else.

No cell phone service out here, so I don't know what time it is (great thinking, LG). Probably 8ish. Ferry doesn't run till 10:15 in the morning, so I can sleep in before heading up to Indianapolis. Hope it doesn't rain tonight.