Chargin' through the countryside..

..well, not charging all that hard, really. I sort of poked along most of the time on this little driving vacation.

After a tour of the Spam Museum (highly educational in a creepy sort of way - I mean, it makes you picture all that gelatin surrounding the meat..) in Austin on Saturday, Sunday was spent going from Albert Lea to St. Cloud, after an all-you-can-eat Sunday breakfast buffet with all the locals up there at the Happy Chef in Owatonna. You know the place. Marva Jean had my table, and eventually brought the obligatory thermos of coffee, and a bowl full of them little creamers. A-yuh. Sweet! (um.. the buffet, I mean, not Marva Jean. She was a little cranky.)

The farmers were out in the fields en masse chopping corn this weekend. Lovely mid 50's weather for it, too. And the size of those harvesting rigs! Hokey Pete! Every 50 miles or so, I'd come upon one tooling down the mostly double-yellow-center-line asphalt, taking up 1 and a half of the available 2 lanes. Putt, putt, putt.. can you go any slower? Soon as I got the dotted yellow, though (or maybe even a little before then), I'm out on the opposite shoulder, kickin' up a little gravel, varooommm! Ah, the open road..

Got quite a few looks this weekend while pumping gas into the black Charger out in rural America. I'm pretty sure it was the car. I doubt it was anything else. Although the new $17 jeans I got from Farm & Fleet do have a certain country-fresh cachet about them. That, plus a fresh haircut and a tight olive t-shirt..... naaaahh. It was definitely the car. :)

Although slow as can be, it a was nice weekend. I had plenty of things to think about. Parts of the weekend have been absolutely lovely. Parts have been awfully hard. But on balance.. definitely time well spent. :) And I find myself both looking back.. and looking forward.

It is a lot like driving, I guess. You're always checking the mirrors (where you've been) and remembering who's behind you, but you're always looking out the windshield (where you're going) and thinking about what's up ahead.

I expect that after about 24 hours of quiet at St. John's Abbey (retreat center) I'll come home from this weekend drained, but refreshed, and maybe.. a little different man. That would be nice, too.