The Open Road

Tommorow I'm going to drive down to Mankato, MN, to visit a friend. We will drink good loose leaf tea and talk about this and that.

Mankato is about ten minutes from my hometown of Lake Crystal, via U.S. 60. I take Highway 169 South to Mankato, and after Mankato 169 shortly becomes U.S. 60 without much fanfare. I grew up thinking I lived right off of 169 (you could see the four lane from my bedroom, which was about as big as my apartment is now) until I was well into college. All that time, I had been looking at U.S. 60...

My parents divorced when I was about eight years old and my goofy Dad moved to the cities. He lived in strange suburban places like Chaska and Burnsville, before he finally settled down for good in Maple Grove (this was back when Maple Grove was mostly still just farm fields). He'd drive down almost every weekend and pick my sister and I up and take us back to the burbs for a whirlwind two days. Most of these weekends were spent at Taco Johns, Hardees, and Burger King. I liked these weekend roadtrips until I realised 169 was boring as hell, and then I read for almost the entire duration of every trip. But now I look forward to traveling down 169 South, even if there is more traffic and I mostly drive alone now.