C'mon feel the Illinois

ahoy all ye creatures from ye lands of the hills. im writing now from the car (wednesday) in the middle of Minnesota and "whoa and go" is it flat. before i get into that let's fill ya'll in since our last post.

so we had planned on spending at least a few hours in Chicago but by the time we got there and started walking around we realized we still had to tend to our errands, the more major chore being finding an HSBC and depositing wads of cash so we can have something to put down as a deposit by the time we get to SF. little did we know there was only one office in the entire city and it had already closed. So we decided aw what the heck let's just open new bank accounts now, instead of when we get to California. our bank of choice was WaMu, and almost TWO HOURS later, after Angel, our extremely personable and long winded customer helper finished setting up our accounts, we were finally able to get out and see some sites.

we gorged ourselves at the earwax cafe with a delicious vegan reuben and seitan rancheros and soy shakes and spicy fries and and and...then we went back across town and walked around millennium park which had the (surprisingly not ridiculous) Gehry outdoor auditorium and the awesomely shiny bean of infinity.

then we powerhoused it to our campsite right outside Madison, WI, setting up our tent at 2am and passing out like thanksgiving porkers. but we still managed to get up early (mom camping voice?) and spent a few hours in Madison, eating at the cutest little independent cafe with tofu scrambler and whole potatoes and serve yourself homemade jam.

that's when our 8? 10? hour journey began across the flattest, greenest, least populated john deere country. the road is so level and straight you'd think that we'd be able to drive while sleeping, or at least with our feet, but there's been 40 mph winds keeping us struggling to walk the line. one time we blew into the a little town called bangor,wi where we filled up for gas and got a free slice of pizza cause it cost more than 15 dollars! no just kidding it was sausage pizza, so we left it to rotate on the counter for some other big spender.

crossing the Mississippi was fun! of course it started to rain as soon as we got out of the car to hug huck finn but we could still smell its mightiness. we thought Bangor was small, but then we pulled into Granada, MN to fill up again and were met with one of the 317 people that lived there. Donald has never been happier. he is ready to retire. other than that we've just been yawning at the corn and waving to the wind turbines.

hopefully soon we'll be coming up to Mitchell, SD, where the jackpot of all roadside america lies. we've been pretty much sucking at stopping for all the other ones, like bessie the huge cow or the jolly green giant, so we are ready to cash in on south dakota.

chicago!

the bean. it was awesome, you could travel to any dimension

a view from slightly under it

the gehry park thing. we just missed yo yo ma too!

distance traveled: 1482 miles

ps. the speed limit is 75 in south dakota! don't tell george bush.

pps. wow this is incredible to look at. the differences between some families is jaw dropping.