Exhibit A: Asphalt and Oversized Loads
I like road trips. Especially back road trips where you can poke around and eat real food instead of chain garbage, stop when you want to at anything that arouses your curiosity. Like giant fiberglass animals or what-have-you.
The past 38 hours have been interesting. Within that 38 hours, I have spent 17 of them making a permanent indentation in the driver seat of my beloved Element (a.k.a. the Brick). That leaves 21 hours, 7 or 8 of which were spent in a board meeting for the Paddlesports Industry Association. That leaves about 13. 12 of those were spent sleeping, 1 was spent getting an oil change. If variety is the spice of life, I just lived the equivalent of a bowl of egg noodles, no butter, no salt.
Exhibit B. Corn.
It would have been better if 4-5 of the hours in the Brick were not spent in Central Illinois. When PR firms are approached by chambers of commerce from CI, they usually weep, assume the fetal position and rock slowly until said c. of c. leaves the room. The one PR firm that took the job came up with slogans like “If you like boring and flat, Lacon is where it’s at.” Or “Henry: Best Town in Illinois by a Dam Site.”
Actually, that last one is actually true.
I did drive through Cheneyville, IL. Cheneyville has five streets: West Avenue, East Avenue, High Street, Grand Street, and Gay Street. It is access via Cheneyville Road. It’s nice to see Dick remembered to name a street for his daughter. Sorry, no pictures, it all happened so fast.
I managed to get off the beaten path for a bit in Indiana, which is actually quite lovely. It’s weird, but as soon as you cross the state line, it gets prettier. Never mind that the state line is fairly arbitrary, a 150-mile long chalk line snapped by some cartographer 160 or so years ago.
Next board meeting is in Panama City, Florida. I think I’m gonna fly.
Glad to be home,
Canoelover
If you’re free next week, we could get together and watch the grass grow.
Sorry, I gotta watch the paint dry.