I've been calling Chinese restaurants in Wisconsin to make sure they actually exist before I go driving all over tarnation looking for them. It can be pretty funny, because I'll ask, "What's your cross street?" & they'll be like, huh? which makes me imagine some tiny 1-stoplight town where it's completely pointless to ask where they are. Or they ask, "Where are you coming from?" expecting me to say I'm at the other end of town, and then I go, "Um, actually, I'm calling from California." Hee hee!

One place, I asked if there were any other Chinese restaurants in town. They helpfully included the Tempura House in their short list. Well... some people argue that Japanese folks originally came from China... (which kinda reminds me of a friend of mine who was catching flak from some militant Afrocentric types because she was hanging out with a white friend; she said to them, well, you're always talking about how all humans came out of Africa, so aren't we *all* Africans then?)

Motels in Wisconsin & Minnesota are not as rock-bottom cheap as Wyoming, but really I can't complain.