Surprises Galore!

               The greatest thing about vacations is they are full of surprises.

               Like this one: SURPRISE!  KNOCK!KNOCK!KNOCK! EVACUATE THE BUILDING.

               Some idiot on the 3^rd floor smoked in a Non-Smoking facility and set off the smoke alarm.

Firemen in big suits and hats, with trucks, and the two of us throwing on clothes at 4:30 AM. Now, that’s a surprise.

               No Fire. Early breakfast. On the road! From outside Madison, WI, northwestward, Ho! (The Cheese House with the Mouse was right across the street from the hotel.)

              

Wisconsin Cheese is deliciously creamy. Nobody moved anybody’s Cheese – it’s everywhere in Wisconsin – and worth the dollars I paid for a circle of 4 different cheeses.

               Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, famous American poet, never set foot in Minnesota but set his famous Song of Hiawatha at the Falls near the Mississippi River at Minneapolis. Minnehaha Falls, Nokomis Lake, Hiawatha Avenue.  

By the shore of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,
In the pleasant Summer morning,

  A Mall is a Mall is a Mall, though Mall of America is beyond large and has a theme park inside plus every store imaginable. American Girl! – Brighton – Pandora – Kate Spade, etc. Glad I got to see it!

              

  Corn is grown in abundance throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota, and into North Dakota. The fields are expansive and the hills roll on and on, until they don’t roll at all: North Dakota is flat as a pancake. Fargo passed in a blink and “You Betcha” we drove on past to Jamestown, ND.