These boats were made for walking, strangely.

Situated a comfortable distance from everything else, Iowa City heralds progress and prosperity uncommon in the Midwest. There are buildings made of aluminum and plenty of sandwich shops and bars featuring drink specials with t-shirted patrons and mean bouncers doing homework while they pick fights (impressed? You should see how I set my room up this year…)

I’ve joined facebook as I’ve now submitted to some terribly morbid desires to read the threads created as people searched for their friends at VT the other morning. The New York Times gave me this idea, as they have now started web-publishing links like this, which are not exactly news. It’s also an opportunity to create another completely false, yet hilarious, user profile.

Driving through cornfields for two days to this concrete landmark of tank-topped youth we stopped at a Wal-Mart for lunch, which featured something called a Steak and Shake integrated in to the parking lot. The next day we stopped at Mcdonald’s, which, upon entering in search of a bathroom, greeted me with a smell that suggested I was actually already in a bathroom. I noticed a few people putting things purchased in that building into their mouths.

I got an idea about playing isolated college towns like this: it’s awesome. These are people, students and others, who are the right audience for the show, and who have little access to live entertainment on this scale. They don’t have their underpants melted off by searing sax solos everyday is what I’m getting at, but they like it. Also, when Tracy says “come on….Hawkeyes” it sounds like “Come on Honkies,” which is not the point of the show. They do cheer loudly, though.

I’d like to list some of the people I visited in the span from Burlington, VT-Naples, FL: Nick Parrish, Cassandra Corley, Carol and Annie Flanagan, Barb and Dave Flanagan, Erin and Brian and Emma Manning, Jim and Linda Flanagan, Carl Stewart and the Shields, Kaitlin and Kelly Flanagan, Mark and Jan Vinci, The Denny’s, Tom Flanagan and Katie Hayes, Kathryn Stewart. It seemed like a lot, and that’s not including the many cartoon characters and pixies I’ve created in my mind to ride the bus with.