Tales from the Road

1:30 am.

 Mitchell, South Dakota.

"Holy shit! You're never going to believe what I just saw in the parking lot!" Mr. C just finished schlepping our luggage up from the car as I am tucking the sleepy kids into bed after the first leg of our California or bust odyssey.

Judging from his initial shock and excitement I couldn't imagine what just happened in the deserted parking lot of the Kelly Inn.  Aliens, perhaps?  Maybe The Black Eyed Peas stopping for the night on their way to the benefit concert they are giving in Minot, North Dakota?  The Kelly Inn did have down pillows and comforters which I thought was quite something for about $100 a night.   If it was good enough for Fergie, it was certainly good enough for me.

 But no, it wasn't Fergie and the gang.  It was this.

See, Mr. C is not from around here and still marvels at all things that scream "Midwest"- Crock pots, polka bands, the prolific use of "Uff Da" among seemingly normal folks, Sloppy Joes, hotdish, a beer chaser served with a Bloody Mary, the whole hunting culture.  All of these things still stir up mild confusion for poor Mr. C., but this mobile hot dog, that was something entirely mindboggling and quite frankly (no pun intended) without explanation, super weird to him.

"No WAAAYYYY!!!"  I nearly screamed in the dull, flurescent light of our motel room as he showed me the picture he snapped on his phone. The Oscar Meyer Wienerwagon!! The look on his face was an expression of shock, horror, slight disgust and total confusion.

"YOU know what this thing is? Of course you do."

You see, that magic mobile hot dog is based in Madison, Wisconsin and was once the symbol of the most coveted internship on campus at the University of Wisconsin- Madison.  I actually wanted to apply to drive the thing in college for a summer (well, not really, and even then my driving record was not exemplary so I'm sure I never would have qualified) but it was a seriously difficult gig to land. The job went mostly to marketing and business school students at Madison (my alma mater) and honestly I was never quite daring enough to spend a summer away from my friends in exchange for co-piloting a giant hot dog around the Midwest with some earnest ag- business student from Appleton.

But I was quite tickled to run across the Wienerwagon almost 20 years later with my kids in the middle of South Dakota.  And I must say, the vehicle nowadays is way more slick then it used to be- it was hauling ass down the freeway and seems to have some aerodynamic type of sports package.  It actually looked, dare I say, "cool".  We spotted it several times the following day and it was good fodder for killing time on the drive.  After regaling my family with some of these good, clean college tales outloud they were all quite relieved to know that their Mom (and wife) did not spend a summer of her youth driving the Wienerwagon while conducting a Heinz ketchup cross promotion in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Omaha. 

"Soooo embarrassing!!!"

 I read that it is now a year long paid position for any college graduate.... I think I might put my resume together.

(PS- I do not know how to put that little accent thing over the word "resume" on my laptop.  Just wanted to let you know that I know it goes there.)