Day 2 -- Nashville, Tenn. to Belleville, Wis.

So, about last night …
The Tripod is back in rare form. Thank you Madison, Wis. It was a one night stand I’ll never forget.

I crashed a bachelorette party and a family reunion. All in the same bar.

But let’s commence from the commencement…

I arrived in Belleville an hour late and a buck ahead. Martin Jelenic, a brother of a close family friend, was more than happy to take me in for the night. His girlfriend, Sam, immediately handed me a Newcastle. She knew how to get on my good side, apparently.

Martin pan-fried some spicy Thai food and served it up with an award-winning shiraz. Not exactly the best road food, but it was delicious.

Martin and Sam gave me a comprehensive rundown of the bars in Madison. There was a kickin’ polka band playing at a German pub, and that sounded like my calling for the night. They’re aficionados of Madison’s music scene, knowing every band they saw listed to play that night.

He then showed me to the apartment I was crashing in for the night. It’s a nice place slapped on the side of a worn-down carpentry shop. Oh, and there’s no plumbing. The toilet works with a crank. Thanks for the Thai food, Mart.

My main stop for the night was called Essen Haus, but it could have easily been called Dunderbach’s North. Huge one- and five-liter steins were the haus specialty. I followed the huge servings with my eyes to find the drun… um, most welcoming… people. When you’re on day 2 from Florida to Alaska, damn it if that isn’t currency in itself, and I was hoping it would open a few doors for me.

My first encounter was the Picard/Pekar family. I don’t know how to spell it. (Ed. Note: It is Pecard. Thanks Sam) They were passing around a three-liter boot of beer and making the second-to-last person to drink it pay for the next boot. I merely introduced myself as a “wandering soul,” and they immediately took me in. They were a Milwaukee-based clan, so I got in good by talking Brewers baseball. Good folk. They ended up calling me “Alaska boy” by 11 p.m.

By 12:30 a.m., I was regaling my tales of the road to a 25-year-old brunette, who then led me to her fellows at a bachelorette party to share the rest. One of them taught me how to polka. I stepped on her feet at least 12 times.

Before hitting the country roads back to Belleville, I took a quick tour of the downtown area. It was a lot like downtown Bradenton. Clean, a little dull after last call and only slightly populated by drunk stumblers. I walked for a few blocks under the lights of the capitol.

The Drive
Corn. That was mostly my view the whole day. Illinois, Kentucky and Wisconsin don’t boast much more.

Everyone should be required to enter Kentucky through I-24. On your left is a rusty, beaten barn, and on your right is endless miles of corn. Your FM receiver can catch at least 35 country stations. Hell, I even listened to some of it for the hour I spent in the state.

But two Tim McGraw songs is two too many, even when the scenery is there to complement them. So I was onto CDs by the time the Kia lurched over the Ohio River into Illinois.

I stopped in Metropolis just past the river. I opted not to push a woman off a building to see if Superman would rescue her. This was mostly due to the realization that only two things could happen: 1) He wouldn’t come and she plummeted to her death or 2) he did come, saved her, and she’d probably rat me out.

So farewell, Metropolis, for I can only imagine what magical things happen within your borders.

My second stop was Effingham, Ill., mostly because it’s name sounds like the act of sodomizing pig meat.

Northern Illinois has only one thing going for it: The most disturbing poem I’ve ever read. On the side of the road there were four lines on four signs next to a (guess what?) cornfield. It was pro-gun propaganda that ended with “if only he knew/ the teacher could shoot back.” Yeah…

And then there was Wisconsin, a lot more of it then I expected. Madison is not far from the Illinois border and the little town where I was shacking up -- Belleville -- is even closer. But it isn’t easier to find.

South Wisconsin is a mesh of tangled rope in street form. Western roads go north. Eastern roads go west. Northern roads go east. Southern roads follow the path of x to the third power. It took me ten hours to get to Wisconsin. It took me another three to get forty miles inside it.