Land of a Million Redlights

I understand now why Minnesota has so many lakes, they have to accommodate all those roads, must be a thousand of them named “Lake Road.”  I was reading that Paul Bunyan first gained fame by digging lakes so that people in Minnesota didn’t look foolish with so many “Lake Roads.”  He got so strong digging lakes that he later moved on to chopping trees—true story, honest!

I had seven observations that struck me while driving from South Dakota to Minnesota: 1-the beef cattle became dairy cows; 2-the open nothingness and horizonless landscape turned to trees and horizonless for lack of any mound over 100 feet; 3- Every town advertises itself with a giant orb that Sven decided would make a great place to store whiskey, until Ethel found out and turned all those orbs, advertising each town, into water tanks; 4-Flies, even the cigar smoke doesn’t keep the flying critters away.  I felt like a giant turd in a junk yard with all the flies crawling over me; 5- There are more boat dealerships than car dealerships; 6- Minnesota is known as the land of a thousand lakes (see above “Lake Road” discussion) that’s because the land of a million redlights doesn’t have the pizzazz; 7-No one is curious about the bike, loaded for a trek around the world or to Maine and back.  I didn’t field a single question, a first on my journey, even when I stopped into the boat dealership for some Honda windshield spray cleaner.

Overall, a very uneventful day.  Stopped at Eagle Lake, Zabaza Pizza, to have lunch and a cigar with the flies.  It was Seattle-overcast from Watertown, SD to St. Cloud, MN where I now find myself for the night.  Tomorrow I’m off to England, or Saxon, WI, somewhere in a land of WASPs I’m sure.