When It's Cold in Cape Girardeau There's Nothing Much To Do

This last weekend the family went on sort of a mini-vacation. The primary reason for the trip was to check out this house design from Rocio Romero. Eventually, we'd like to buy some land and put this structure up on it. I don't think it's going to happen in 2007, though.

We left Indiana on Friday, and we stopped in Mattoon to eat at Villa Pizza. There was a guy on the Goner Records forum who was from Mattoon but currently lives in Austin (and when I mention Austin, I mean Austin, Texas, not any other Austin, such as Austin, Minnesota, home of the Gear Daddies and Hormel chili) who said that Villa Pizza was better than pizza from just about anywhere else, including New York. Andy in Oakland asked me about this place. I said it was just pretty good. I mean, it's GREAT for a town like Mattoon. But I was eating there at least once a week, so the thrill was gone. I remembered the first time I ate there, I was like, "Okay, this is what I remember GOOD midwestern pizza tasting like!"

We had the Villa Special on Friday, and it was great. If you're ever going down I-57, it's worth it to drive the couple miles to downtown Mattoon on Western Avenue (across from the County Market grocery store) just to have some of this pizza. Every night except for Friday-Sunday they have a great buffet, and I think every day at lunch as well.

The title of this blog comes from a lyric from "Song for a Deck Hand's Daughter," from James McMurtry's "Too Long in the Wasteland" CD. It's a great album. The song has always made me want to see what Cape Girardeau is all about. Abbe has been wanting to go to the open house I mentioned in the first paragraph for about 4 months now. The house is in the country, just outside of Perryville. We opted to stay at the Hampton Inn at Cape Girardeau, mostly because I've always wanted to see the town.

Cape G is on the Mississippi River. So the town has built a wall to protect itself when the river gets too high. I'm from Davenport, Iowa. We don't have a wall, we don't have a levee. We like to see the river where I'm from. If it floods every 50 years, we just say "fuck it" and clean it up. Cape G actually got creative with its wall, though, and covered it in murals. It's done very tastefully.

Overall, the town is like any town on the Mississippi; dirty and full of taverns. But I did enjoy the feel of it. Even despite the fact that it was a dreary day. Southeast Missouri (SEMO) University is located here, and looked to be a pretty decent school.

After we visited Cape G and the house in Perryville, we went to my folks house down the road on I-44. I-44 is a sweet piece of road to drive. Lots of hills, curves, and since it was built along old Route 66, there are a lot of old businesses and new businesses to look at.

We stopped at a gas station because my daughter had to use the bathroom. I carried her potty seat in. There was a guy smoking outside wearing a white North Carolina jacket, and he had gone in the bathroom before we entered the store. When we opened the bathroom door, Holmes was standing up, pissing in the toilet stall. There were 2 free urinals. He comes out of the stall and leaves. I go into the toilet stall and he's pissed into the toilet with the fucking seat down. There's urine on the seat. So I clean it up, and put the potty seat down.

What is up with that? Does this guy still have a case of stage fright? I'm okay with that. Maybe he had a bad experience as a child. But what's the deal with leaving the seat down and dribbling all over it? Am I missing out on some sub-genre of thrill-seekers here?