One mistake I made on this journey is after leaving the civility and sophistication of Minneapolis I decided to take some smaller highways across the state to see where the real people live. Well, they don’t live out here—it seems no one does! I encountered a quite boring and bleak landscape with not much breaking up the drive except for a few rundown shacks and many, many cows. Moo.
Gas in Minnesota: $2.63/gallon; Burger King Cheeseburger: $1; Getting a speeding ticket in SD: NOT priceless!
Also, unfortunately for me, the speed limit was a bit slower here. Unbeknownst to me—the cars zipping along on the interstate running parallel to me about 100 miles south were allowed to go 75 miles per hour. Meanwhile, my Podunk road was 65 mph. Coming down a hill and toward another ‘one stop light town’ I hit 79 mph and he caught me. The red and blue lights flashed and I didn’t even jump. I knew he’d got me and there was nothing I could do.
I thought maybe I would get a warning in these parts. Maybe they were nicer here. Well I was right about one thing. I would’ve tried to get out of it, but he completely disarmed my with his sheer ‘niceness.’ This was THE nicest, most polite cop who’s ever pulled me over. I didn’t know how to react. He ended up giving me a ticket for going 10 miles over the speed limit—he shaved off a couple miles so the price wouldn’t go up to the next bracket. Oddly the ticket matched my speed: $79. When he returned my license and handed over the ticket, I figured I had nothing to lose so I meekishly uttered, “But it’s my birthday tomorrow.”
He replied simply, “Yeah, I noticed that.”
Nice, but a stickler for the law, I guess. Even if it was the “day before my birthday day!”
About 5/16ths Across the Country (aka this land is your land…)
