Yes, believe it or not, we are back in Goodhue once more. It’s just one of those little places on the map like Denver, Colorado and Mojave, California that seem to keep sucking us back toward it for one reason or another.

As you all know, we got the starter motor replaced in the van in Hawley, Minnesota, but it seems that it was not the problem at all. US$200 down the drain, it would appear.

A few days later, we had to replace the alternator in the van because it drained the battery overnight. There’s another US$300 - really hurt to pay that, knowing we wasted money at Hawley.

We went to get it, and it would not start. Turned out the starter solenoid was in need of replacement - just what did the people at Hawley do? Another US$20 which was not too bad, but not good either.

Finally, the van was fixed. We got in it, drove a few hundred feet and found there was no power in it any more. Took it back and it turns out the computer in the van had gone kaput. You’ve got to be kidding! So, over the last few days, they replaced the computer at a cost of US$215.

We are now back on the road (we hope!), having just spent US$750 in the past week or so on the van. Not what we wanted to spend money on, especially since we are only going to own it for a few more weeks. Still, without spending the money on it, we were not able to go anywhere…*sigh*

Fortunately, we were staying with Chuck and Carol - friends of ours who came to visit Australia on a dairy tour about five years ago and they very generously loaned us a spare car so we could do something for a few days.

It was an old rusted Pontiac that they are about to donate to a church because it’s life expectancy is over. Their instructions to us about it were that if it broke down, it was not a big deal, they would come and get us, and just donate it to the nearest church to where it broke down.

With a mixture of trepidation and a desperate desire to keep going, we took the car and it turned out to be a very zoomy, fuel-efficient vehicle indeed. Never had a problem with it during the four days we borrowed it, and we were surprised by it’s good performance.

As for where we went, it was another case of us planning to be somewhere and then winding up about 600 miles away due to a little meandering.

We left Goodhue, with the intention of going via Iowa to Chicago, then back through the lower part of Wisconsin to Goodhue.

We actually went to Iowa, then up through Wisconsin to northern Minnesota then back down to Goodhue. A very different route. So what did we see?

Our stop in Iowa was one of a somewhat spiritual nature. As the saying goes “If you build it, they will come.”

They built it.

We came.

Yes, we went to the Field of Dreams movie site which is still a large baseball diamond cut out of a cornfield in the middle of nowhere. It was interesting to see because I had read of the dispute going on between neighbours in the area.

Basically, when the field was built, the centre and right field parts of the diamond were built on the Lansing property, and the left field was built on the neighbouring property. As soon as the movie was over, the neighbours ripped up the baseball field they owned and then replanted it with corn. The Lansing’s kept their part intact and built up a little tourist thing out of it.

An investment group saw the potential in it, bought the neighbour’s part of the field back, fixed it up and set up a rival souvenir stand in left field. So now, the two neighbours are at odds, since the Lansing’s feel they built the business up and the others came in and stole part of the business from them. Do they have a right to feel slighted? We think “yes and no”. Clearly, they built up the business, but the other part of the field is on the neighbour’s farm and they have the right to do what they want with it.

From the Field of Dreams, we headed to the Effigy Mounds National Park where the native Americans built large mounds of earth in the shape of bears and eagles by the banks of the Mississippi from 800-1200AD. Very interesting to see, but there was a guide book we did not get told about so we missed a little. Found a ranger on the way down though, so got a 1-on-1 lesson which was better probably.

When we got to Wisconsin (unofficial state motto : “Man, Do We Love Cheese!”), we went up the centre to Barron for the night where we introduced ourselves to the local mosquito population. It went something along the lines of…

Us: “Hello mosquitoes, we are Australian.”

Mosquitoes: “We do not care. You are our dinner.”

Us: “That is not manners!”

Mosquitoes: “We do not care. You are our dinner.”

Us: “Bugger.”

And so, we got eaten alive until Di locked herself in the tent and demanded I drive to the nearest supermarket to buy repellent. Neither of us had seen mozzies that bad - ever!

At Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, we stood at the source of the Mississippi River the next day. There was a little line of rocks there which you could walk over and we sat for a while, watching people slip off them and suddenly end up shin-deep in water, filling their socks and shoes. Rather amusing.

Yesterday, as we came southward once more to the 9th Annual Minnesota Alfalfa and Forage Expo, we stopped in Minneapolis to check out the Museum Of Questionable Medical Devices.

This museum has very weird hours, open mainly in the evenings, but is worth checking out if you are in the area. It’s free to go to and basically chronicles all the quackery that’s been sold in the last century or so. What’s somewhat worrying is that as recently as 1995, the FDA banned a device that apparently cured AIDS but was really just a metal box with black plastic knobs that did nothing.

We were impressed also by the RectoRotor which apparently relieved constipation but people were a little reluctant to use it, since it was inserted exactly where you’re thinking.

One of the best machines there was a great little device. Say you wanted a person to get better. You just popped a photo of the person in a cylinder on the machine and turned it on. Good health waves would be subliminally sent to the person in the photo and they would get better.

But then it had other uses. Say you wanted to get rid of an insect problem in your fields. You just dropped a photo of the field, a dead insect, and some insectide into the machine and it would take care of that as well. A very handy little machine indeed. And people bought this rubbish???

Finally, we got back to Goodhue and we’re ready to be on the move once more in the van. Hopefully no more problems are going to happen. I doubt there is anything else that can go wrong with it (touch wood), and whoever buys the van off us is going to get a real bargain since there are all new parts in it…

Categories: Travel, Odyssey 2001