The pizza bandito

this is where they raise pizza. iowa. on the pizza ranch. it's home of the pizza lover's pizza aparenly. just one lover. and the home of his or her pizza.

Southern(illinois)belle

i don't think many would disagree that this bed topper was kind of creepy. luckily the owners weren't. brighton, illinois' vi and wayne graciously opened up their home to three of us, fed us like kings, told us some stories and sent us on our way.

Missouri loves company

quick, find something that says where we're at on it. oh, yeah!!! the lottery!!!

Quality inn!

yeah, we were all really excited about the swimming pool and eighties video games until we discovered that the
q-inn had a sizeable moisture/mold problem. and when something keeps james outta the pool you KNOW it's got to be bad.

I saw the sign

almost there!!!

Purrfect

Kentuckat. otherwise known as ken or kenny. "borrowed" off the Christmas tree at our hotel. friend for life.

Its good 2b staff

well, dessert translates a little better than real food, which is the primary reason that i make it the majority of my diet. and by "diet" i don't mean restriction of fat and calories, thank goodness.

Mmmmm

food never translates in photographs, which is why they use elmer's glue on cheerios in commercials. but let me tell you, the staff dinner was incredibly edible. and i don't ever eat real food.

Good mornin

i thought it was going to be a good morning until i discovered that this was not a REAL dunkin' donuts, rather a little corner of a gas station that sold a few of their donuts and some coffee. furthermore they had changed the design of their cups, which had previously been making me happy since childhood. i'm hoping it was just a seasonal design and soon they'll be back to their 60's looking pink cuteness.

Rael in arabic

rach and lacey got free henna tattoos at a eurasia booth. as mentioned in the title, this one says rael in arabic. pretty sweet.

H.n.y.

what else is there to say?

Twig and leaf cafe

the pride of louisville...or should be. run by one johnny-rotten-esque punk waiter and and one indian-as-in-from-india cook whom no one could understand but he didn't care and just talked to you as if you could. delicious vanilla malts.

Fon definitely do

as much as you can tell from this crappy camera phone picture, yes, that is a fountain of chocolate behind krysty. and let me tell you, she was not upset about it. the city of louisville graciously paid for us to have chocolate fondue on new year's. what a town.

In-n-out-wannabes

ahhh, white castle. renamed by lacey to be off-white shack. or the armpit of mcdonald's. it really was quite atrocious. and certainly no replacement for the sonic we so heartfully searched for and never found west of des moines.

Look who we found

on our way home we stayed with marco in des moines, ia. he took us to this quaint little chinese restaurant where the food is cheap and the guy behind him calls you "buddy." hilarious. the fortunes left something to be desired but who can complain when you're surrounded by pink? we all took a pretty good liking to mark's grandpa, too, who wore a little blue hat, loved coconut macaroons, and slipped us twenty five bucks for breakfast.

Corn palace

here it is!!! the most famous palace in the world...made of corn, that is. i just don't know how mitchell, sd can sustain such a landmark. we were there about 4 in the afternoon, and i'm telling you nothing! was open. nothing except the pizza hut where we ended up eating. i really hate to go to chain stores or restaurants on the road if i can help it. with so many good ma and pa joints to be experienced, why would you? james was really feeling sorry for leann rymes, who will be playing the corn palace soon. as she said, "probably three people will show up." as a side note, cuchillo thought the corn palace was "a-maize-ing."

Our lady of mitchell sd

you might think that the corn palace is the destination in mitchell, sd. but you would be wrong. no matter what happened on this trip, what the disappointments, what the let-downs, we could (and did) always say that we saw Mary, the mother of Jesus, in a bath tub. and that made it all all right.

Closed drug

yes, we were mighty disappointed to find that the most advertised place on earth closes sometime before 7:30 in the evening. we conjectured that it was, perhaps, never open. and all that was inside was free icewater and the gaudy (albethem awesome) cowboyandgirl boots in the window. but i suppose it was worth pulling off the freeway just to say we'd been there.

Home sweet home

hey, i guess i'll work backward since the way a blog works is by putting the most recent posts at top. since i am a big fan of the chronological order i think i'll start here. wednesday morning at about 9:45 we returned home after driving just over 23 hours from des moines the previous morning. the montagnes have scarcely looked better to me.

not tedious at t.d.s.

and so i'll start the record of our journey to "the dirty south" with the night before when four of us girls and lancelot-link ate some pre-trip grub at taco del sol. we were celebrating because natalushka was in town all the way from korea for Christmas and since filling up the geo with junk food from costco makes a girl hungry, we had to stop and have "the lance." otherwise known as a taco wrapped in a burrito shell so as to keep the taco price, but to sneak in the burrito size. yeah, "it's because it's less messy that way."