farms and flowers, two lane driving

Today we drove from Madison, WI to St.Paul, Minnosota --- which I always like to pronounce as:  Mee-ne-so-ta, with the emphasis on the MEE.  JD and I realized that, while we lived in Madison for a number of years, we never traveled that far afield in Wisconsin. He did a bit of touring with his band, The Tayles, but I barely ventured outside of a square mile or two from the campus.  You know how it is when you are an impoverished college student or musician . . . not much mobility. So today we got to travel through Wisconsin as much as, or in fact much more then we ever did all those years ago.

Before I move on from Madison, though . . . it was pretty mind-blowing to return to that place where so much happened for us. After 42 years.  And it looked so different, yet at once so much the same. A veritable mountain of memories were clicking off in my brain . . . starting with the names of the streets and culminating in the stirring up of old feelings. It might have been too much to bear, but it was tempered, as much of this trip has been, by the searing heat.  We both feel slightly drugged all the time. Between the road numbness and the discomfort of the sweltering atmosphere, our reactions are a bit dumbed down. In this case --- revisiting that time in my life ---- dumbing down had an upside. It softened the recall of youthful angst that characterized much of the college years.

The Wisconsin farmland was lovely. The profusion of wild flowers was downright amazing. It is hard to capture the blanket-like floral expanses that we saw by the roadside. The farms were so different from the beleaguered establishments we passed by in upstate New York.  People had nice-looking spreads that were well maintained. We tried to drop in on the Frank Lloyd Wright stuff that is set in this countryside around Taliesin near Spring Green, Wisconsin, but we didn't have time for a minimum of two hours of touring, so that was a bit unsatisfying. We continued on, following Wisconsin's Great River Road, first along  the course of the Wisconsin River and then north. following the Mississippi, up to the Twin Cities. We did all two-lane driving today. The roads were wonderful, winding through hilly countryside with spectacular views of the river, once from a bluff high over the water, in Alma (thanks to JD's sister Susan!) We had a couple of bald eagle sightings and found out later that there is a preserve for them near where we were driving. I did miss our R32 a few times, since the passing power of the Versa is not too impressive and its road stability is somewhat lacking, but considering its other virtues ---  economy and a quiet ride ---- it held its own. It requires a bit more thinking ahead (read: time to accelerate) and a bit more muscle on the wheel to hold it steady at high speeds, but one could say that is all part of the challenge of driving.

Andrea