Oregon Trail - Part Five - Out on the Edge of the Prairie

Visiting the Mall of America was perhaps an ill-advised idea. The best reason I had was a Star Trek exhibition, which was under-lit, and expensive for what it was. The Minnesota Public Radio store (I looked) was years since closed. The two places claiming to serve tea (and I'm not even counting Teavana on that list), on further inspection, do not. Even the Star Trek exhibition is an overpriced disappointment.

I just miss the shuttle back to the hotel, so I walk it; it's less than a mile. I nearly step on what looks to be a used condom. I shuffle my feet in the grass as I pass by a LabCorp building, wondering if they could test my shoes for AIDS.

I make it to another tea place. It's maybe not exactly what I would've envisioned, but it's pretty close. I steep and set up camp to get some work in. My tea leaves are enormous and taste faintly of salmon. Someone comes in hopping on one foot, and keeps it up for the entire transaction. Evidently she is supposed to be wearing a cast but lacks the patience for donning and removing it. The staff insist on helping her exit, or at least carrying her hot tea. Whether someone could carry hot tea without spilling it while hopping will remain a mystery. I step next door to AAA for an emergency (paper) map and order some more tea. The selection really was remarkable, and it was a redeeming end to my misadventures in Minnesota.

I burn rubber down state roads, cutting a diagonal slice and trying to make up time for my detour. I drive like I'm on the run from the law, having killed my Past Self and left him in a ditch by the side of the road, wondering if they'll make the connection between my face and the one on the slab at the morgue—the insanity in my eyes and the glaze on his. If there's any advice I can give; don't be beholden to the person you were yesterday. Sure, you may owe where you are now, for better or for worse, to them, but that's no reason to carry their torch.

Sometimes you've got to use the torch to burn a bridge under your ass. Though in a place as fart-smelling as this state, I'd be careful lighting anything on fire. Even once I'm out of the sulfurous state, South Dakota smells like skunks, which I reflect is not much of an improvement.

The jackass behind me seems adamant on illuminating my back bumper—I can see no other clear reason for his gratuitous use of high-beams unless to daze me in preparation for him to pass me, which he mercifully does.

I decide to skip out on the Kool-Aid of the fancy hotel chain and go for a Days Inn to salve my budget. The hotel room is cheap but clean, in spite of its appearance. The only actual dirty thing in the room is booklet of menus and the porno DVD in the front cover. Fastest wi-fi on the trip so far which bodes well because it is going to be a long night. But first I need food. Somehow I've gotten hungry again, and I see within walking distance: an IHOP, a 24-hour family restaurant, and a dive bar/casino. If you have to ask which one I chose, you need to start reading this blog from the beginning, friend.

When I get in, the kitchen is closing, so I'm told my only options are fried foods or a pizza. This doesn't bother me as much as I wish it would. I get some fried mushrooms and they are actually darn good. Casinos are terrible, at least in concept; this one appears populated by multi-game video gambling machines from the Atari era. The staff are diligently cleaning and dusting everything despite the dim lighting, including the Captain Morgan statue.

I go back to my room and drink my New Glarus Spotted Cow and try to get some work done. The beer is a normal brown ale, and good, the same way a Lammsbräu is.

I think back about the casino staff then as people instead of concepts, and wonder whether they are doing what they really want to be doing; wonder what their dreams were when they were young. What they may be now. Wondering whether when they articulate these dreams, do they preface with, "when I grow up," do they consider themselves grown-up already?

Do I?