Greetings and salutations from rural America.  That’s right, I’m on a road trip.  Not just any road trip, either.  This is the full blown, 1k in a day, dawn to dusk, variety.  To paraphrase Danny Glover, “I’m getting too old for this.”

You may be wondering why I would undertake such an incredible journey on a day off before a major 3 day weekend.  I’m going to take a page from J. J. Abrahams’ book and stuff that bit in the mystery box.  But no worries, you won’t have to wait three or four seasons to find out (or in the case of that one show, never find out because it was canceled).  I’ll tell you tomorrow when I’m back and fresh memories of our highway system.

Today I’ll make up for missing yesterday with an excerpt from Washington’s journal.

3/18/1983,  Dearborn, MI

I met up with the man who invented soda pop this afternoon, Winward Iacocacola.  We had stopped at the same roadside diner and struck up an immediate friendship.  He told me that one of the most difficult things for his company was transitioning from the expensive and unreliable glass bottle to the economical and practical can.  To solve the problem he partnered with a Japanese firm (Mitsubishi) to help with the manufacturing.  In exchange for access to his secret formula, the conglomerate would receive a small percentage and, in 100 years, get to name one of the Iacocacola products.  (Current plans are to call it Coke-Zero after the most successful products of both companies.)

While we were talking, the counter girl interjected that she liked the old glass bottles and had a terrible time with the cans. Winward asked her about it and she related story after story of cans being shaken and then exploding when she popped the tab.  He said that the trick was to shake a shaken can even more until it was very firm in her grip, then squeeze as hard as she could while popping the top.  Stops the explosion every time.

I will have to try that and let my new friend know how it worked.