The Great Ganesha

Breakfast Not At Tiffany’s

We started the day with a hearty breakfast at the Baker Hill Pancake House Restaurant in Elgin, IL. A local Greek diner, we started chatting with the owner about the abysmal state of coffee that one gets in most local places. The owner was sincerely empathetic, and sometime after the conversation a frappe miraculously appears on our table. And it was good! I’m thinking that this somewhat redeems the midwesterners of the pervasive problem of weak coffee.

After a quick oil change and tyre rotation at the mechanic across the street from the diner, we head on towards Sioux Falls, SD. On the way, we spot this Walmart nestled cozily amongst the corn fields of Illinois.

And it happens to be right across from, hold your breaths now, an authentic Illinois farm! Three words: Golly, gee and wowee!

Going Mad In Madison
Well, the plan was to get to Sioux Falls, SD. But at around 11am or so, we’re passing Madison, WI and we decide to stop for a coffee somewhere. So, we head off I-90, get in to town, just to grab a quick coffee. On the way we take some snaps of the capitol.

Then we circle around looking for a good place for around forty minutes! Finally, we find something near the Capitol building, park illegally (unintentionally) and head over to the coffee shop. Once more, my pre-conceived notions of midwesterners and coffee are challenged. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name, otherwise, I’d put it up here.

Getting out of town turns out to be a little problematic since we get stuck on the wrong side of the railway tracks while a s-s-l-l-o-o-w-w freight train ambles by. Nobody else seems even slightly perturbed that it’s taking around an hour (or so it felt) to pass by. To compound things, we go up the road, overtake the train since the road runs parallel to the tracks, and guess what? We’re stuck while it crosses the road, which also happens to be the entrance ramp to the freeway, yet again! Somebody wasn’t thinking straight when they designed that part of the town.

The Mississippi
So after all those shenanigans, it seems unlikely that we’re going to make it all the way to Sioux Falls. But, after a quick (but late) lunch in LaCrosse, WI, we cross the Mississipi. This makes it official that we are now on the west of the country. So we, of course, have to stop off to take some pics.

Here’s one with my car in the river. Well, almost in the river, at any rate. We westerners are quite prone to exaggerate, you know! It’s a cultural thing. Ahem!

Next, we head in to Minnesota, and we start gunning the accelerator. We did around 85 mph pretty much all the way through. We didn’t get to Sioux Falls, but we’re less than an hour away from there in Worthington, MN, where I am just about ready to pass out…

And I Would Drive A Thousand Miles
Oh yeah, I should also mention that we covered the first thousand miles today. It was somewhere in Wisconsin.

The number on top is the total mileage of the car. Yep, she’s been around for a while. The number below was reset when we started the trip. It just crossed mile 999.9.

Tomorrow, we’ll have to see what happens. Just trying to be realistic, here. Will explain later.

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