Enough cheese and beer to choke a horse.
The weekend before last, Hunter and I drove to Madison, where he is moving in January. It was a weekend filled with the fun of seeing old friends who’ve moved up there, meeting cool new folks - and getting to know Hunter’s family better and liking them a whole, whole lot.

It was also my second trip ever to Madison. After the first trip, I left thinking it was nice and kind of utopian, but kind of annoying in an Too-Lefty, Too-White, Entirely-Too-Possible-to-Lose-Touch with the Realities of the World way. Not for me.

This time, I was knocked upside the head with the awesomeness of the place. The bike trails! The community gardens! My friends! The lakes! The yummy ice-cream made by the dairy school! The arboretum! My friends! The bike trails! My friends!

By the time the last afternoon there rolled around, I was filled to the gills with the superiority of this place and just wanted to shut my damn eyes, just wanted to leave - because at that point I was no longer thinking about how much I’ll miss Hunter once he’s gone, but how lucky the shmuck is to be going to live in such a ridiculously perfect place.

Yes, I know: The snow. The cold. The six-month winter. But a winter filled with camaraderie somehow beats the lukewarm business we’ll have down here.

I should explain: It’s not that I am a pathetic loser with no friends in Atlanta.

It’s that I’m a pathetic loser whose friends have all moved to different cities. And I rather dislike Atlanta. Rather a lot.

So. That was Madison.

Someday I'll sell everything and live in my car and here's why.
To go home, we drove first from Madison to Lexington, where Hunter’s parents live, by driving around Chicago, down the length of Illinois. It’s the furthest west I’ve ever been in a continuous car trip. A few years ago, I flew to San Francisco, but that doesn’t really count, because it was far from the action that is the landscape.
On this drive, the highway cut through miles and miles of cornfields. Four hours of cornfields that felt like one vast expanse. Instead of being monotonous – which it could have been - it was ridiculously beautiful.

It was a bright day and we didn’t turn on any music; just talked and looked out our windows. When the sun set, it cast everything in a lavender glow. Tri-armed windmills perched like giant insects casting enormous shadows, and I followed a line of power-lines for miles in the pink/purple light.

When we passed a sign for an intersecting east-west highway whose cited western destination city was in Iowa, I felt a pang. Exotic Iowa! And we could keep going! Nebraska! Well, maybe not so much Nebraska. But Montana! Colorado! ChristJesus; screw it all, let’s go!

Instead, we drove on south, and stopped at a local fast food place to eat. And enjoyed the Midwest accents. And were glad that everything is not yet the same everywhere. And there’s still time to go.