Weird Western Wisconsin

(From GazetteXtra.com, 6-23-2010)

Hoover: This is ridiculous. What are we going to do?

Otter & Boon: Road trip.

-“National Lampoon’s Animal House”

Earlier this week, I found myself in the car for seven hours, making a trip to Independence, Iowa and back. My GPS insisted that the quickest way to my destination began by taking I-90 up to Madison, and then US 151 southwest to Dubuque. But I opted to shorten the route by 21 miles and take Highway 11 west from Janesville instead. Am I glad I did; I expected a more scenic and interesting trip but was not prepared for the treasure trove of weirdness that I found between Monroe and the Iowa state line.

(By the way, when I don’t follow the path my GPS has mapped out for me, it gets very annoyed. It repeatedly implores me to turn around and go back to its preferred route. There’s something very satisfying about mentally telling a machine to stuff it, like Garry Kasparov defeating Big Blue in chess.)

The trip west was, at times, a pretty trip. Orange tiger lilies lined the highway through several areas. But the beautiful was often mixed with the odd.

First, we had Animal Odd – the real and the unreal, and sometimes both.

The real: a Holstein, lying dead at the end of a driveway, being picked apart by birds.

The unreal: a group of metal dinosaurs, set up in a random field.

The both: a dead deer lying on the shoulder of the road, while on a small hill overlooking the scene, a statue of a content lion sat proudly, giving one the impression that the lion killed the deer. I initially thought this might make for a humorous photo, but the deer carcass was just too grotesque.

There was Vehicle Odd. A standard farm tractor sat in a front yard, souped up with massive dual exhaust pipes protruding from the sides. On another front lawn, what looked like an older model blue Camaro Z28 sat with police lights affixed to the top. (Both times past, I reflexively hit the brakes.)

There was Sign Odd.

Like the new municipal hall in Hazel Green that has its name hyphenated in stone on the front (“Municipal-Hall”). Or the sign in Leadmine pointing the way to the “Primitive Methodist Church.” (I assumed it meant a historic chapel, but a Google search revealed that it’s actually a small denomination.) But the best by far was the sign in Benton advertising lawn mower races, to be held at the “Death Bowl.”

Then as I was driving through a rural area in Lafayette County, I saw this scene and immediately thought of Janesville:

These observations made the long trip much more interesting and often amusing, but it also made me wonder what travelers think when they pass through Milton or Rock County. What do visitors find amusing or odd about our area? I’m sure Bessie the Cow turns some heads, and Heaven knows I’ve heard enough comments about the three roundabouts in Milton.

I’m sure it’s all perspective. What is commonplace to us probably strikes others as weird, just as people in Lafayette County don’t find the “Primitive Methodist Church” sign the least bit interesting. But being on the lookout for the unusual made seven hours in the car go much faster for us.