We recently took a driving trip through Middle America and toured the Lincoln Museum in Springfield, Illinois and the Eisenhower Library in Abilene Kansas. We spent an enjoyable day visiting the boyhood home of, my hero, Mark Twain. We also spent several days in Wisconsin and visited Taliesin, the home of Frank Lloyd Wright. I was amazed at how rural Southwest Wisconsin appears. The country is filled with dairy farms and acres and acres of corn. We visited apple orchards and cheese factories and consumed too much food.

We always take far too many clothes. We were prepared for an expedition to the North Pole but instead had unseasonably warm weather. I guess global warming is a fact. Since we were staying in a facility that had a kitchen we had enough food supplies for the entire winter. A challenging feat was to pack and unpack the car each day along the way. There wasn’t enough space left in the car for even an additional roadmap.

We really didn’t need a roadmap for the trip because we were completely dependent on the GPS. This device lead us on some pretty exciting routes. As we maneuvered through Des Moines, Iowa we were directed through an incredibly circuitous route to our motel. It was like Tom Sawyer’s elaborate scheme to free Jim in the last part of Huckleberry Finn. A much more direct and simpler route was possible but the GPS took us through much of Des Moines. Still, the GPS saved us over and over on the rural roads of Southwest Wisconsin and around the large cities.

Our trip was an adventure in exploring history and the countryside. We also explored our motel rooms for bedbugs. The media has been filled with stories about bedbugs taking over New York and how these resistant little pests can be spread from place to place through our clothing. We inspected everything but found none of the creatures. At least, I hope we didn’t find any. On one occasion my spouse thought she had spotted on under the sheets but it turned out to be a tiny piece of thread. The media can sure make you paranoid.

Well. I’m back on the porch filled with a greater appreciation for a couple of our Presidents, Mark Twain, Frank Lloyd Wright and the state of Wisconsin. Sure hope I didn’t bring any bed bugs to Texas.