When I arrived at the house of Mark, Linda, Emily, and Anna on Saturday night I felt right at home and it’s been a great first few days. I first heard from Mark early in the summer when I first started making serious progress on putting the trip together. Mark is the Director of Marketing at Century College and was on MSU’s website at work when he came across my story months ago. …

This morning I woke up to a picture perfect sunny day (despite MSU’s depressing loss to Notre Dame last night, but I won’t talk about that, it’s too sad). I had some delicious waffles to start the day. Then Mark, Linda, Anna, her friend Chelsea and I all went for a drive to the St. Croix river at Taylors Falls. One side of the falls is Minnesota and the other side is Wisconsin. …

Today was about another six hours in the car driving from Winterset, IA to White Bear Lake, MN. Aside from music I decided from now on I need something else to pass the time by while I’m driving. So I figured I’d start counting things. On highway 169 from Winterset to Blue Earth, MN I counted a total of 12 roadkill. Poor little animals, mostly raccoons I think. Anyways… maybe that’s not necessary to know. …

My few days in Winterset were spent doing lots of exploring on my own. I drove nearly 200 miles going back and forth the bridges at different times of days as well to other spots around the area. Winterset is a great little town. It’s interesting to see how a famous movie changes a town though. There are definitely a lot of visitors coming to Winterset and Madison County just to see the bridges, even though there are other counties in the country with many more bridges. …

Driving the Jeep Compass around has been fantastic! It’s the only thing that’s familiar to me on this trip and I love getting in and driving on a day like today. I just love driving it in general. A little ways out of Winterset is a ford where the river passes through a campground. I went through it once, then again and again. Fun, fun, fun. I was at least able to rinse off the bottom of the Compass. …

Today’s weather is completely opposite of yesterday’s. It’s sunny and warm with bright blue sky and big white clouds spread throughout casting shadows on the fields of corn. Driving on the gravel roads from farm to farm is something I could do all day on a day like today. This morning I was in town and just picked up a couple of items at the store. On my way out I met Rusty and his parents, locals who were checking out the car. …

It was a very rainy day here in Winterset. I was quite bummed since I was hoping to get some great pictures of the bridges and other spots around town. The weather just did not cooperate, I tried a few shots but it just wasn’t working out. Oh well. Anyways… bad weather is in all 50 states. I’m sure of it. It’s only a few states into the trip and I’m still in the midwest but everywhere I’ve gone people think that their state has the most unpredictable weather. …

This afternoon Alicia had me come to her sociology class at Southwestern Community College in Creston. There is no doubt that my sociology degree is a key factor in this tour and having the interest to stay with different people. Alicia suggested to her professor that I give a short talk on my project and the sociological influences and impacts of my trip. So I did. I remember writing before after talking to the elementary kids, “if only college students would ask this many questions. …

It was a beautiful drive in to Winterset, taking me between five and six hours. I’m happy to arrive into a small town that I can relate to. There’s only one grocery store, tons of cornfields and farming, and it makes me feel at home I suppose. It feels great to be in a small town after the cities. Winterset is a famous little town. Famous but not touristy. It’s well known due to the movie “The Bridges of Madison County. …

Here’s a special shoutout to all the hard working people at Chrysler’s Belvidere Assembly Plant. Today I was very fortunate to have a personal tour of the Belvidere plant where the Jeep Compass is produced. I was equally excited to be given the tour by Emmitt since he’s a fellow Yooper. Just a couple months ago the Jeep Compass I’m driving rolled out of those doors. For a few hours today the Compass made its way back to its birthplace. …