On the Road: Iowa and South Dakota

Well, it's official, loyal followers, I'm on my way. I'm currently sitting in Amy Buechler's kitchen in Rapid City, South Dakota, contemplating whether to take a nap when I'm done posting. I just might.

I began by visiting two friends from college, who are now engaged (congrats, guys!) and living in Iowa City, where we discussed the practicality of me using a catheter on my bike tri

p. I enjoyed sleeping on their leather (pleather?) couch, and then discovered that I'd received my first ever parking ticket from the City of Iowa City (you can take my 15 dollars and use it to hire a consultant to tell you to just refer to your city as Iowa City). After weeping uncontrollably for several seconds, I got in my car and drove to Rapid City, where I am now sitting. Along the way, I laughed quite hard at a billboard advertising a local mechanic's shop. The billboard proudly said: "24 Hour Toe Service." There were two of these billboards. Maybe he was one of America's few remaining licensed toe mechanics.

Then, I entered an impenetrable fog cloud, and drove more or less blindly for the remaining three hundred miles. It got worse as I went on, and soon I couldn't see billboards, mileage signs, the other lanes of the interstate, nor more than forty feet in front of me. Luckily, I was born with a rare condition known as echolocationitis, so I used my bat like powers to navigate the pea soup.

I discovered that my bike had been ensconced in a layer of ice.

Well, South Dakota's Black Hills are pretty beautiful, and I think I'll go stand on Amy's deck and look at them. (Thanks for letting me crash at your casa, Amy! and for taking me to the poop covered soccer field of your youth where we threw a poop covered frisbee at one another).

Behave yourselves.