Travel is Broadening

The Crankies are taking their mid-America tour, a trip ripe with opportunities for cultural enrichment and self-exploration. However, Meta Cranky is proving the theory opined in Repo Man: "The more you drive, the less intelligent you are." She thinks that  chicken products sold along interstate highways must suck IQ points out of your gray matter and leave them in the detritus on the minivan floorboard. Even C2 has noticed something going on and asked, "Please can we not go to Wendy's any more?" She offered this devastating review of The Ultimate Chicken Grill: "Not Yummy."

In one alarming vignette in downstate Illinois, the Crankies wandered into a McDonald's full of the patrons who looked like the rotund, sedentary humanoids in WALL-E. It was perhaps the palest, plumpest, chain restaurant in the Crankies' experience, and they know every Braum's ice cream store in I-35. The U.S. President seems to be a notable exception to the Illinois' paradigm of pinkness and chub.

In Indiana, the Crankies explored the hometown of the famed Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley. Never heard of him? That's because you're not from Indiana, loser. The Crankies' Quaker ancestor recited Riley from memory, passing down certain euphonious phrases about grandpappies and punkins to his heirs. Riley's hometown of Greenfield, with its meticulously restored courthouse, appears to be auditioning for the role in a The Music Man; all it needs is Robert Preston skipping past the adorable gazebo on the courthouse lawn. Greenfield residents seem oblivious to all the ambient Victorian cuteness and are undistracted by acres of polished brass and burnished grillwork. The museum guide clearly had dealt with crankier customers than The Crankies and effortlessly reduced C2 to compliant, raised-hand docility. Don't even think about playing with those historical dollies.  All that rapt attention assured that the Crankies were ringers at their  next Indiana museum, a house on the Underground Railroad. Anybody know what this t-shaped wooden gizmo does? Yes sir, said C1 politely; it tightens the rope supports under the bed. After the guide demonstrated and replaced the gizmo on the bedspread, C2 observed that the other museum kept it on acid-free paper so the wood wouldn't stain the cloth. Just a suggestion.

C1 observes that the midwest is full of corn, and she requests stops to photograph vistas and native flora. C2 has made the acquaintance of midwestern small people, sharing her Skittles with random children of America's heartland. Meta Cranky is thrilled to find clean towels and liberal hours for motel pools, and she highly recommends the produce department at the Zanesville, Ohio, Pick-N-Pay. The Crankies expect to recover from recent infusions of Interstate Highway Dreck and subsequently report on their arrival Inside the Beltway.
--MC
*flora photo credits go to C1