Ride, Maude-y, Ride

Hi!! Guess how many states Lizzie and I peed in today?  FOUR!  FOUR STATES! (MA, MN, IA, SD)  My journey this morning began on the bus, because I am an old lady, and love that I can get to the airport for under $4.00.  On the bus, I saw people wearing scrunchies, a young man looking at porn on his iphone (it was only 8:30--isn't that a little early for porn?  I guess not.) and an old time-y prospector!  Old time-y prospector looked like he had boarded the bus in his floppy hat and galoshes thinking it was a time machine back to 1849.  Once, when the door opened to let on passengers, he hocked a loogie straight through the door onto the side walk.  I think he had a pick axe in his pack, and was going to pan for gold in the Charles River.  Good luck, Prospector Pete!  Anyway, everyone was creepily polite on the bus and on the subway, until I got to the Silver line, where it was like Lord of the Flies and you had to yell "YOU NEED TO LET PEOPLE OFF BEFORE YOU GET ON" and order was restored.

Note--on the bus, this woman asked a rando stranger if she could use his phone, and he said yes (I would not have) and she was apparently late to work, and lied that our bus was broken down.  DON'T JINX US, WOMAN.  Also, I found it odd that she didn't feel awk lying in front of a bunch of people.  I digress.

So due to a wacky mix up, Lizzie had to fly first class or not at all, so she paid for the upgrade, and I sat back with the riff raff, next to this stuffy couple that scoffed in my general direction.  At one point, however, a flight attendant came back with a cookie (and a fork) and said "Shannon?" and I assumed Lizzie'd been arrested, so I looked up and said "Yes?" and she gave me the cookie!  AWW YEAH!  Lizzie hadn't wanted it, and sent it back from first class.  THIS IS HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES!  My neighbors were like "HUH?  SHE MUST HAVE A FRIEND IN FIRST CLASS!" which clearly baffled them, but then I ate my cookie with the fork to show them how classy I actually am.

We flew into Minneapolis, grabbed our rental car, which happens to be that lovely, subtle red mustang (Mustang Maude) you see with the equally fabulous Lizzie, and headed toward Iowa.  And of course, there were killer storms.  Because that's how we roll.  We passed Butternut, MN, Butterfield, MN, and Butterface, MN, before stopping for gas, where I was extra chatty and had a fun convo with a guy at the adjacent pump and learned about his sweet 1990 Caddy which he was going to restore for shows (it has air ride and whatnot.  I prefer our mustang, but I respect the Caddy.)  Lizzie implied that something bad was probably going to happen to him for interacting with us, since bad things often befall the friends we make on our trips, so I hope Mr. Caddy doesn't get trapped in the leather seats of his car and suffocate, because he was friendly and I liked him.  Anyway, on the trip we discussed how so much of America looks the same (lots of farms and cows) and how different that experience is from ours, even though we grew up near cows.  The remoteness terrifies us a little--I feel safer in a big city than I do in a tiny town, which leads us to---Rock Rapids, IA!