Reuters - Minneapolis
The Dundas family completed the epic drive from Connellsville, PA to Minneapolis, MN on Sunday and Monday, arriving in MPLS uneventfully after 18 hours of paying tolls. The trip was punctuated with brief spurts of driving from tollbooth to tollbooth, and tollbooth to gas station.
"Not only was the drive horrendously long, we also paid tolls equal to the GDP of Ghana!" said Laura 'Iron Weinerbutt' Dundas.
"It wasn't the tolls that got me, "said Drew 'Steel Cheeks' Dundas, "it was the tollbooth worker that tried to rip us off by hiding half a dollar bill in a carefully folded stack of change. That was malicious and intentional. Was that redundant?"
Fortunately, quick thinking coupled with a near eidetic memory saved the day (and another dollar) as the couple remembered the name of the tollbooth operator and had obtained a receipt for their toll. Accordingly, they were able to complain about this unfair treatment approximately 30 seconds later at the next Illinois toll booth, 20 feet west of the first.
"We ratted his ass out." said Iron Weinerbutt. The navigator, Fletcher 'my legs are asleep and I don't know if I'm dreaming or they are' Dundas agreed "Oi??"
When asked for comment, Second officer Henry 'you think having two numb legs is bad, you should try four' Dundas remarked "Woof! Snarl..."
The foursome traversed Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota while dragging a uHaul trailer full of assorted detritus before arriving home in St. Louis Park. For our Canadian friends, these names refer to what are called 'States' - small, (typically only a few hundred 'miles' wide) but politically independent versions of 'Provinces', where interesting differences are commonly observed. For example, in Pennsylvania, one must go to a 'beer distributor' to purchase beer, in a minimum quantity of 24x12 oz bottles. This may have led to the State motto, "Drink 'em if ya got 'em, 'cause the distributor's closed". A short drive away in Ohio, however, one can drive their car through the living room of a former house to buy a six pack or a nice bottle of Mad Dog, which in an absolute fit of convenience, is handed through your window to be safely buckled into the passenger seat, again leading to the Ohio state motto, "Birthplace of libations". or something like that.
"The uHaul trailer was a whole story in itself." remarked Steel Cheeks. "To start with, we had to drive 30 miles out to the middle of nowhere to 'Jolene's Pack and Post' to get the trailer, where the proprietress proceeded to make fun of MY name, but that was just the start of it."
Upon arriving back at the Ponderosa in Connellsville, Nina 'Grandma Hawkeye' Ivey noticed that the license plate on the trailer had expired a mere five months previously. Of course, 'customer service' was unable to provide any service besides poor service, resulting in the decision to drive the trip under threat of ticket. "we even followed their directions and reported to a uHaul location on Monday morning, where we were promised that was could have a copy of a current plate faxed. After wasting another 30 minutes trying to make this happen, we were told that was could drive 45 miles out of our way to pick one up, or we could take our chances. Finally, when we got back to Minneapolis, we tried to return the trailer, only to be told that we couldn't drop it off where we were told to. Needless to say, it stayed right where it was. I'd had enough." said Steel Cheeks.
Along the drive, the intrepid adventurers visited the Wisconsin Dells area to purchase yet another tank of foreign petroleum products. This area is well known in the upper midwest as containing the largest concentration of indoor and outdoor water parks in the world. yes, that's right, INDOOR water parks. It seems that solid water is a less than desirable setup 10 months of the year, so they just put them inside. While no actual waterparks were observed during the stop, the family stopped at the Moosejaw Pizza and Brewing Company, named after the city of Moosejaw Saskatchewan. The company was located in an enormous timberframed lodge building, and served great pizza. Amazingly enough, no comment on the quality of the beer was possible (no, seriously), but the adult couple agreed that given the opportunity, both would have selected the 7.5% ABV IPA. Fletcher loved the various stuffed moose heads on the walls and carved moose outside, commenting "Oi?"
Interestingly, several vehicles in this area were observed to have replica moose pre-mounted on their roofs. The group speculated that here in the Northwoods, these may serve as a moose deterrent, designed to signal to other moose who are looking for a ride, that "this vehicle is taken! Keep off!"
