To paraphrase a famous quote from The Wind and the Willows:
Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply taking a road trip.
Even though the weather was abysmal, as you can see from this one-handed phone photo, my spirits were high as I took to the road towards my first night’s stop in South Dakota. Illinois had its usual wonderful combination of lots of traffic and toll roads with the rain and construction thrown in just for spice. I whiled the miles away listening to a book on CD and wishing I could use cruise control.
I make two stops during the ten hour drive. The first is always a combination cheese and fuel (and bathroom) stop in Mauston, Wisconsin where I stock up on cheese and a bag of fresh, squeaky cheese curds. It amuses me each year that I buy cheese in a town whose first part of its name, Maus, means “mouse” in German, although the city’s website gives this as the origin of the name:
Mauston’s unique name originally was “Maughs Town,” named after its founder Milton Maugh.
This, that and the other thing 