the vikings know

wall drug lies right outside the badlands.

it was at the badlands that i realized that i really like geology. how goddamn cool is it that the earth makes these gigantic art sculptures? of course, my interest was piqued at yellowstone, with all its otherworldly glory and steaming, bubbling bits, but the badlands is psychedelic. it's as if sol lewitt dropped a bunch of acid and someone gave him tons of multicolored dirt and a shovel. the badlands are pretty badass, you might say. or not.

my next stop after south dakota was a friendly face. it was the first friendly face on this trip and well into the midwest. by this time i was just about ready to have a pleasant conversation with a pal over a pitcher of beer and thankfully, becky's house was right there. jason tells me that if he was travelling cross country, he would just hang out in the bars and talk to the locals to see what was happening in the area, but since jason is a) male and b) a bar owner, that's not really the way i would go about things. at least a nice visit to a friend would give me a chance to unwind and download the local scene with minimal stress and confusion.

that's where becky comes in. becky is one of the many friends that scattered to the winds when the bubble burst in san francisco. as much as it saddened me to see so many friends leave the bay area, it's nice to be able to visit them in their new locations. becky's house is super-cute, by the way. it's in a neighborhood of other similarly cute houses with lawns (she apologized for not having mowed the lawn before my arrival) and happy little coffee shops run by tiny little french women (and if i'm saying someone is tiny, you better believe they're tiny) who serve very good chai. this particular neighborhood has a healthy amount of pro-choice and 'impeach bush' bumper stickers, which was a welcome relief after so many, many miles of 'support our troops' and 'save the child' billboards.

i'm surprised to report that i really enjoyed my first foray into the midwest. hanging out in the thrift shops was the only time in the entire trip where i wished i had a larger car. oh, the things i could have brought home. in retrospect, it's probably a good thing. i have too many vintage suitcases as it is. ten or twenty more might be a little overkill.

the thing i found most humorous about visiting the midwest was their incredulity that i would actually visit minneapolis voluntarily. with some amount of wonder in their voice, they would ask me what brought my san francisco self over to their town. i'd explain that i was visiting becky and they still seemed boggled. this warranted a longer conversation than i would have expected with the cashier at the french coffeehouse that becky took me to. i told him that i was heading east.

"i used to live in new york for awhile before returning here," he told me as he finished ringing up my nicoise sandwich. "the thing that struck me about how different the people are between here and new york is how they'd greet you on the street."

"and that interaction is like...?" i asked.

"well, over here in the midwest, people will greet you on the street with a huge 'hello!' and a smile - but in the back of their mind, they're thinking 'fuck you.' he made horn-like gestures with his fingers over his head as he said that.

"in new york," he continued "when people greet you on the street, they'll say 'fuck you!' but in the back of their mind, they're thinking a big 'hello!' he waved merrily.

that completely cracked my shit up. the cashier went on to recommend a couple places for me to visit in philadelphia and then sent our order to the kitchen.

on the day that i left minneapolis, home of mary tyler moore, i dragged becky down to the spam museum. located in austin, minnesota, the spam museum is situated right outside the hormel headquarters. it's probably the most extensive and well done corporate product museum i've ever visited. the somewhat amusing bit is that the employees of the spam museum take spam very, very seriously. austin, minnesota is, above all, a hormel town. one of the employees of the museum told me about how she had been with hormel for around twenty years. her father was a meatpacker before her and her grandfather also worked at the factory. her uncle was involved in the grand old strike back in the 80's and hormel is the only life she knows. after talking with them and learning how much they genuinely love spam, i didn't have the heart to tell them that i'm a vegetarian.

becky and i wandered through the video exhibits, the presentations about the world war ii 'hormel girls' (former wacs who were hired personally by james hormel himself so that they could sing and dance about meat), watched spam commercials, listened to spam radio, walked through a supermarket exhibit that consisted entirely of hormel products and last, but not least, the room dedicated to monty python's spam sketch.

to be honest, spam isn't just the wacky thing for me. during wwii, it was sent to the soldiers out in the philippines because it was easy to transport and provided easy protein. because of this, most pacific islanders are crazy about spam. growing up to poor immigrant filipino parents, i was raised on the stuff. spam, spam, spam, spam, bacon, eggs and spam were probably one of the reasons why i don't eat meat now.

after the spam museum, i drove becky back to minneapolis and headed eastward to madison, wisconsin. i couldn't pass up the midwest without going into a frank lloyd wright feeding frenzy.

madison seemed like a good place to start.

<05.15.04>

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