Greetings to my friends and family in the Chippewa Valley. You were promised fabulous book tour photography, and so it shall be. What you are seeing is Iowa or possibly Illinois (there were border issues and it was after midnight). I do know it was at least an hour after I hit the raccoon somewhere near Mineral Point. Poor little furry fella tried to merge with me but failed to signal his intent and the only consolation from the resulting thump was the idea that some chickens may have been spared. One bears no ill will to wilderness creatures, but after 21 years of ambulance calls one is loathe to take split-second evasive action at 68 mph with a car full of book boxes, as there is no airbag in the ceiling. I followed the pink line on the GPS screen to a Super 8 motel and only after hitting the sheets at 3 a.m. did I realize I had no idea where I was. In the morning light I looked at the address on the bedside phone and it said Bettendorf, Iowa, which I guess it was unless someone at the Super 8 is a real joker. I did look up the Bettendorf website and learned it was originally part of the Wisconsin Territory, so I will shortly fire off a letter to Governor Doyle and determine if those sneaky people in Iowa called no give-backs. When I awoke the drywalling contractors outside my window were dropping the F-bomb regular and referring to their “bishop sticks,” which, if I recall my firefighter training properly are devices used to stabilize a ladder and not associated with naughtiness in the church or something you might find in a Christopher Moore novel. Right now I am in the empty breakfast area of a conference center in Moline, Illinois (John Deere Central), where in one hour I will try out postmodern Wisconsin cow piths and allusions on an agriculturally-minded group of forward-looking conferencers. Afterward I shall attempt to transact commerce involving the aforementioned book boxes. After all, this is a business trip. Then it is back in the diesel (yah, check out price of diesel versus gas right now, I look smart for at least a week!) and off to Iowa City for one of the legendary bookstores, Prairie Lights.

Stops on the second leg of the tour, thus far:

View Michael Perry’s COOP book tour: Part II in a larger map

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