I leave the church after the beautiful funeral ceremony for my friend Bill Janklow and head home to put on jeans and hit the road.   As I turn the car on Sinatra is singing ‘Chicago’ on the radio.    Know it is nothing but  coincidence but the romantic in me puts it down to Bill saying goodbye for the last time as he gently reminds of that wonderful city where we had so many wonderful times.  Go Bears!

After the past few weeks I am looking forward to some time alone in the car.   I have loved seeing all my old friends and sharing the stories of our time with this incredible man, however, I am drained and need some time by myself.  

I had loaded some good old fashioned 'traveling music' in my I-Pod to get me started on this trek…….Simon and Garfunkel's…. ditty about how we've "All gone to look for America"……Willie’s Nelson's "On the Road Again" and so on.   This gets old before I reach the Beresford Interchange and I slip in a books on tape my 'Little Brother' Drake was kind enough to get me for Christmas.  I like books on tape and this murder mystery will suspense fully take me 7 hours down the road before I find out 'whodunit'.

As I drive down the highway I am reminded that, over the years I have gained an appreciation for the wide open spaces of this land I call home.   Especially in the fall when I load up the double-barrell and head out to Gregory County for the opening weekend of Pheasant season with my good friends the Meierhenry's.    Beautiful, colorful time of year.   However, in the dead of winter it begins to lose a little of its stark charm and I long for Palm trees and No. 1 tee boxes.   However, this road headed south out of Sioux Falls is nowhere near as bad as I-90 headed east from Sioux Falls to Rochester, MN.   That has to be the bleakest stretch of road on the planet.

I pass a hitchhiker on the road, and even though I could make room for him in the front seat of car I don't stop.   Kind of sad that today's society has ended that great tradition.   I hitch hiked a lot in my youth and never waited very long to get a ride.   Also, unless they looked like Charles Manson, I picked up hikers.    Once when hitching out in western South Dakota I was picked up by a rancher and his wife.   As I climbed into the cab of their pick-up I noticed that the wife had a mustache.   Kid you not; she had a mustache.   I am not talking about Burt Reynolds type stache but a mustache nonetheless.   I spent the next two hours studiously trying not to look at it.   Given the very unglamourous work this rock hard lady of the prairie was expected to do I suppose a little female facial hair, between mates was no big thing.   Anyway, they were good people and I enjoyed their company, mustache and all.   I do not envy the poor guy back on this road with his thumb in the air.

As I go past St. Jo, Missouri I am getting into Jesse James' country.    The James' - Younger gang were successful outlaws in their day.   However, that ended when they left the friendly confines of Missouri and headed north into the bland land of Minnesota and traveled into the area where, much later in history, that bleak I-90 ribbon of highway would cut across the state.   Their intend was to rob a bank in Northfield, MN, however, they soon discovered that the hard headed Norwegians, Danes and Swedes townspeople, most of them Civil War vets, had other ideas.   Those members of the gang that were not killed were captured and only Jesse and his brother Frank escaped to the west and into Dakota.    A couple of states south of this area they boast that,  " You don't mess with Texas".   It would seem to me that you don’t mess with Northfield, Minnesota.

As I close in on Kansas City I have decided to break one of my 'rules of the road' and get off and stay the night in that city.   My brother Craig, he was the 'moody, morose' sibling of my childhood road trips, has convinced me that I have to stop at a rib place called Arthur Bryants and eat their specialty, Burnt Ends, which according to him are to die for.   Also, he has me staying in a historic hotel called the Phillips.   He knows I have a weakness for both and has assured me that they are close together and easy to find, even for someone as directionally challenged as I am.    If I come out in the morning and find my car on blocks and stripped to the chassis ‘moody and morose’ won’t begin to describe my state of mind.

The hotel will cost more than my father probably spent on the entire trip to DC, however, I do not have his Great Depression background.   More importantly I am not raising five boys and a wife on a car salesman salary.   Because I can afford it I have adopted the philosophy of my friend Vikki who says:   “My idea of roughing it is a hotel without room service.”

Hope to make Nashville tomorrow and spent some time with great old friends from my days as Treasurer.    Weather was beautiful today but I am still firmly in Midwest.