Minnesota, it turns out, is a lovely (if not very warm) place. I'm certainly not shivering now, being back in the Florida Panhandle and aglow with the thought that some upstart college professor could unseat our chicken-farmer representative from Chumuckla. You know, the one who asked why the dinosaurs went extinct if there weren't any cars around at the time.
So after a visit with my Mom and Pop in Columbus, I pointed my rental car (a stripped down Celica, with no cruise control) north towards the Gopher State. I-65 to CHI, then I-94 through Milwaukee and up towards Minnesota. (Chicago wasn't an issue at all midday, just a little slowdown on 'Da Ryan', but I was enjoying gawking at the skyline so no loss). The wind farms became more frequent, the drivers more courteous, and I started feeling a curious sense of 'belonging', a thought quickly supplanted by a recollection from Geology 101 that this area was glaciated as recently as 10,000 years ago, and was still inhumanly cold 9 or 10 months a year.