#Bloomington Travel

[thetravelauthority]

Bloomington Beckons: Let The Travel Authority Be Your Guide

In this guest post, we delve into the enchanting world of Bloomington, Indiana, with the expert guidance of The Travel Authority's agents based in Bloomington. Known for their in-depth local knowledge and passion for creating unique travel experiences, these agents are your key to unlocking the best of Bloomington travel. From the lively atmosphere of Indiana University to the serene beauty of the surrounding nature reserves, Bloomington offers a diverse array of attractions. The Travel Authority specializes in tailoring trips that cater to your individual preferences, whether you're seeking outdoor adventures, cultural explorations, or culinary delights. With a commitment to personalized service, their Bloomington agents ensure every aspect of your journey is seamless, from selecting the perfect accommodations to recommending hidden gems. Embrace the opportunity to discover Bloomington's charm and vibrancy through the bespoke itineraries crafted by The Travel Authority.

[stuffaboutminneapolis]

via Bloomington Travel & Tourism

[raw1111official]

Hey #Lovers❤️‍🔥! Discover Indiana's Vegan Treasures 🌽 on 🌺RAW1111.COM🥑. Unveil the hidden gems of plant-based goodness in the Hoosier State! #GVWU Go Vegan With Us 🌱💚

[coyotechewinonacigarette]

[hotelbooking]

Best Western Bloomington Edina - Minneapolis The range of services provided by The hotel is entirely non-smoking, ensuring a clean air environment. Guestrooms at Knowing that bathroom amenities play an important role in increasing guests' satisfaction, the hotel provides a hair dryer, toiletries and towels in some select rooms. Start your vacation days in the best possible way. Your mornings at

[negimonika10]

Cracking the Code: The Ultimate Guide for College Students to Land Part-Time Jobs

Discover the secrets and strategies to successfully secure a part-time job while balancing your college studies. Unlock your potential with our comprehensive guide!

[uwmspeccoll]

Yet Another Wood-engraved Feathursday

CINDY KOOPMAN

This 10 x 8 in (20.4 x 20.32 cm) wood engraving entitled Grasshopper (because, after all, there are some grasshoppers in it) by Minnesota artist Cindy Koopman is very reminiscent of our daily experience here in Special Collections. Every day, sometimes three or four times a day, the green roof outside our windows gets visited by a gang of 3-7 crows that investigate the undergrowth, jump and flutter about, toss random objects into the air, and on occasion actually take a slide down the solar panels on the roof just for fun! They are endlessly fascinating, and every day when they arrive all work stops in Special Collections and the entire staff line up along the windows to watch crows be crows for five minutes or so. It's just a part of our workday, but also one of its highlights.

Cindy Koopman is a Minnesota artist with an MFA in printmaking, and is a faculty member at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, MN. This print was selected for inclusion in the Fourth Triennial Exhibition 2020-2022 of the American wood engravers society, the Wood Engravers’ Network (WEN), and the image is from the catalog for that traveling show.

View more Feathursday posts.

View more posts with women wood engravers.

View other posts with engravings from the WEN Fourth Triennial Exhibition.

View more engravings by members of the Wood Engraver’s Network.

View more posts with wood engravings!

[humanbyweight]

The Double-Emergence of 2024

As you may have heard, there are TWO periodical cicada broods that will emerge between late April and June of this year! This particular combination only happens once every 221 years.

The broods in question are the Illinoian Brood (XIII) and the Great Southern Brood (XIX). The map below is a rough approximation of where sightings are most likely to occur:

There is very little overlap between the broods, so - if you want to experience both - I recommend planning at least two different stops. You should be able to find all seven species by traveling just a few miles north and south of the cities of Springfield, Bloomington, Kankakee, or Beardstown in Illinois, or the city of Mt Pleasant in Iowa.

The University of Connecticut has a handy online guide for identifying all 7 species of periodical cicadas. Note that most species can only be identified by the pattern on their belly. For bonus points, try to find and photograph them all! 😄

[my-vanishing-777]

BLOOMINGTON, Indiana: South Korea finds itself embroiled in an all-out gender war - and it keeps getting worse.

The animosity between South Korean men and women has reached a point where some women are outright refusing to date, marry and have kids with men - a phenomenon known as the 4B movement.

As a Korean feminist scholar living in the United States, I’ve followed this gender war from afar as I conducted research on contemporary Korean gender politics.

However, I also became embroiled in it myself after my research on Korean masculinity was published by CNN.

The article described foreign women who travelled to Korea after becoming enamoured with the idea of dating Korean men from watching Korean television dramas. I pointed out that since the tourists’ fantasies were based on fictional characters, some of them ended up disappointed with the Korean men they dated in real life.

The article was about racial politics and masculine ideals. But some Korean readers thought that I was simply criticising Korean men for not being romantic and handsome enough. One enraged Korean man commented that I was an “ugly feminist".

But this was tame in comparison to what women living in South Korea have endured in recent years.

EXTREME MISOGYNY AND A FEMINIST BACKLASH

Over the past couple of decades, there have been flashpoints in this gender war.

In 2010, Ilbe, a right-wing website that traffics in misogyny, started attracting users who peppered the forums with vulgar posts about women.

Then in 2015, an online extremist feminist group named Megalia arose. Its goal was to fight back by demeaning Korean men in ways that mirrored the rhetoric on sites like Ilbe.

A year later, a man who had professed his hatred of women murdered a random woman in a public bathroom near a Seoul subway station. He was eventually sentenced to decades in prison, but the lines were quickly drawn. 

On one side were feminists, who saw misogyny as the underlying motive. On the other side were men who claimed that it was merely the isolated actions of a mentally ill man. The two groups violently clashed during competing protests at the site of the murder.

A BACKDROP OF DIGITAL SEX CRIMES

However, none of these events has elicited as much public controversy as the steep rise in digital sex crimes. These are newer forms of sexual violence facilitated by technology: Revenge porn; upskirting, which refers to surreptitiously snapping photos under women’s skirts in public; and the use of hidden cameras to film women having sex or undressing.

In 2018, there were 2,289 reported cases of digital sex crimes; in 2021, the number snowballed to 10,353.

In 2019, there were two major incidents that involved digital sex crimes.

In one, a number of male K-pop stars were indicted for filming and circulating videos of women in group chatrooms without their consent.

A few months later, Koreans were shocked to learn about what became known as the “Nth Room Incident,” during which hundreds of perpetrators - mostly men - committed digital sex crimes on dozens of women and minors.

They tended to target poorer women - sex workers, or women who wanted to make a few bucks by sharing anonymous nude photos of themselves. The perpetrators either hacked into their social media accounts or approached these women and offered them money, but asked for their personal information so they could transmit the funds. Once they obtained this information, they blackmailed the women by threatening to reveal their sex work and their nudes to their friends and family.

Since sex work and posting nude images of yourself online are illegal in Korea, the women, fearing arrest or being ostracised by friends and family, complied with the perpetrators’ demands to send even more compromising images of themselves. The men would then swap these images in chatrooms.

And yet a 2019 survey conducted by the Korean government found that large swaths of the population blamed women for these sex crimes: 52 per cent said that they believed sexual violence occurs because women wear revealing clothes, while 37 per cent thought if women experienced sexual assault while drunk, they are partly to blame for their victimisation.

In other words, a significant percentage of the Korean population believes that female sexuality is the problem - not the sexual violence.

GOVERNMENT POLICY LAYS THE GROUNDWORK

Digital sex crimes are too widespread to lay the blame at the feet of a handful of bad actors.

To me, part of the problem stems from the long history of “gendered citizenship".

Korean feminist scholar Seungsook Moon has written about the ways in which the government created one track for men and another for women as the country sought to modernise in the second half of the 20th century:

“Men were mobilised for mandatory military service and then, as conscripts, utilised as workers and researchers in the industrialising economy. Women were consigned to lesser factory jobs, and their roles as members of the modern nation were defined largely in terms of biological reproduction and household management.”

Although these policies are no longer officially carried out, the underlying attitudes about gender roles remain embedded in Korean life and culture. Women who veer from being mothers and housewives expose themselves to public and private backlash.

[fastcardotmp3]

Ronance AU where after the Upside Down has been neutralized and the fight for Hawkins is over, they go their separate ways and stay in touch largely through letters.

A couple of months together at the end of the world, a couple more helping Hawkins rebuild in the aftermath, and then Nancy is off to the East Coast for college and Robin is taking a gap year to spend the time with her family she lost in the war and they're not quite close enough for regular phone calls at that point, but Robin gets a great picture of Mike and the kids that she just knows will bring a smile to Nancy's face so she sends it and that's--

Well that's how it starts.

Polaroids with little notes at the bottom to show each other what they're up to, where they've been, who they've been with. Robin thinks it's easier to get to know Nancy Wheeler through the written word, none of their individual hang-ups can be in the room to get in the way and Nancy is just-- God she knows how to string a sentence together.

It's life updates and questions asked and answered and book and movie recommendations and--

Steve and I are moving to Chicago in the summer so I can start that linguistics program I told you about.

I usually have a layover in Chicago! Maybe I'll take a day to see the sights...?

It's plans made and it was good to see you's and more Polaroid photos with little notes at the bottom and it goes on for years, is the thing.

They move around and never end up in the same place. Nancy is chasing her dreams and chasing stories from city to city and country to country and she hardly sees her family outside of major holidays let alone Robin, but Robin gets the uncensored preview to a lot of her articles in long-hand scrawl from a cramped airplane seat and that's nearly as good.

Steve is Robin's platonic soulmate, always will be the bastard, but the more years it goes on through the end of both their undergraduate years and then into Robin's first Master's and Nancy's first staff writer gig and then into careers and new friends and lives and their thirties, well.

Well, Robin is pretty sure that Nancy Wheeler is her best friend. At least on paper.

It's like, the letters don't come every week or even every month, but every single time that familiar handwriting with a new return address comes sliding into her mailbox, thicker with photos the longer it's been, there's this flutter of utter joy and gratitude that Robin just can't deny herself.

Nancy Wheeler sure can string a sentence together. She can string a sentence together so good that Robin knows her just from pen and paper. Sees her just from the wall of Polaroids that travels with Robin from Chicago to a couple years getting yet another degree at UCLA and all the way back home again to Indiana.

When Robin imparts the news that she's gotten a teaching position (now that she has her doctorate) at IU, Bloomington to Nancy, it's with tongue-in-cheek jokes about whether or not this place is haunted too, but mostly Robin points out that she'll be close by again for when Nancy visits her parents.

She sends the letter before she gets into the passenger seat of the U-Haul Steve has insisted on driving cross-country for her out of fear for your safety, Buckley which is code for we haven't been on a road trip in too long and I miss you. But what it really means, the haste and the excitement, is that she doesn't manage to get her new address into the letter before it's already in the mail.

It shouldn't matter. She'll send another one when she gets to Bloomington in a week or so, depending on how many roadside attractions she and Steve decide to indulge in like they're teenagers with all the time in the world and not thirty-five-year-old dweebs singing along to mixtapes they made in 1987.

It shouldn't matter.

Miraculously, it doesn't.

She's getting a feel for the new campus the first time she sees Nancy Wheeler in probably four years, walking through the lobby of the student union like she belongs there.

(She belongs anywhere she decides to lay her feet, Robin thinks.)

She's walking through the student union, and out of nowhere Robin is a too-blunt, no-filter teenager and--

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Hallowed halls of a respected institution, Robin couldn't care less about it as Nancy turns over her shoulder and beams.

"I'm sorry," she gives Robin a once-over like she had been waiting for this moment, like she had known, "who are you?"

Robin is lifted across the room by the force of her own joyous laughter before she even has the chance to call Nancy any of the names she'd like too, wrapped up around her and swaying in the middle of what will become a well-used study space once the semester starts in a week.

Wrapped up around her. Feeling her here and now and real as she is on the page. Nancy Wheeler knows how to string a sentence together with a pen, but god does she know how to do it off her tongue just the same. Everything that rolls out of her and into the world has Robin's cheeks aching from how hard she smiles, has her buzzing despite the lack of caffeine in her system.

Because as it turns out, Robin isn't the only one coming home, isn't the only one looking to maybe create a home base to return to at the end of each long trip, isn't the only one who snagged a gig teaching a new generation of world savers just how to do it. (The IU School of Journalism is, after all, one of the best in the country, and thus fitting of a mind like Nancy Wheeler's.)

It's strange, not to need to pen a letter to talk to her anymore, to be able to go for dinner on Thursdays after classes or work on lesson plans in tandem in Robin's eclectic living room because Nancy is still very much working on the whole having furniture thing after so many years on the road.

Robin knows it won't last forever, that Nancy can't sit still for more than the next couple of years she's on contract here, but the longer they spend together the more it becomes clear that Nancy really does want a place to come home to for longer stints in between assignments.

She wants roots, she says, people and bars where she can consider herself a regular and students to teach how to take no shit from the old guard.

Robin wants that for her too. Wants to make that happen for her. Wants it to be here.

With her.

They're not kids anymore, and the world doesn't need saving in the same way it once did, and the pictures they take now are together, together, together and Robin finds it's so much easier than she ever thought it could be at seventeen years old to look at the woman she loves and not be afraid of it.

To lean into her on the couch while they listen to a record Nancy had picked up somewhere in her travels in a language Robin speaks and can translate in real time, to share her space, to kiss her like they've been kissing all this time and like they're inventing something new wrapped up in one.

"So, roots, huh?" Robin breathes, foreheads tipped together and those blue eyes bigger and brighter than ever.

Nancy Wheeler knows how to string together a sentence, but all she needs right then is two words.

"Yeah," she smiles, bright as the flash on a Polaroid camera, "roots."

[wildissylupus]

The Soldier Analysis

The differences between canon

Unlike with Jack who almost defiantly has reservations about killing Reaper, The Soldier shows little to no hesitation when killing The Reaper. Though there does seem to be a reason behind this other than "they're enemies", but that will be discussed later.

The Soldier is seemingly a lot more pessimistic then Jack.

The Soldier knows The Reaper, The Viking and The Alchemist but has seemingly no familiarity or fondness for The King, unlike with the canon original Strike Team.

The General Lore Presented

First thing that we know about The Soldier is that he and the Alchemist have been travelling together before the events of Junkensteins revenge. In interactions the history they have together is mostly unhappy.

The Soldier is still from Bloomington, Indiana, though he also travels a lot so he probably hasn't been back for awhile. He's also stated to have never cared much for nobility, The Alchemist saying that it's strange for him to be fighting in this battle.

The Soldiers motivations are that he is on a hunt for justice, considering the fact that he is also been stated to be hunting down The Reaper this implies that he either seeking justice against The Reaper, or The Witch. Considering the fact that when eliminating The Witch the description given by the narrator is "The Soldier slew the Witch, sparing no time to seek another target.", which is a very apathetic reaction compared to everyone else's, I think it's safe to say that the justice he's looking for is against The Reaper.

We know that he fought in a war and as I stated in a previous post this war was most likely only taking place in America as only The Gunslinger and The Solider talk about it.

What is Implied

Now let's start off with what is implied by the skin that is canon to this universe;

Which is the immortal skin. Now immediatly the name of this skin implies that The Soldier is immortal, or at the very least hard to kill and doesn't die of old age. Now combining this fact with one of his interactions saying that he believes in Alchemy because it keeps him alive. I believe that this has a double meaning, the first being the obvious in the fact that The Alchemist is a healer and is keeping him alive during fights, the other meaning being that Alchemy is literally keeping him alive, like a Philosophers Stone;

It also seems that The Solider is able to sense magic or abnormalities in people but this is something that I will talk more about in The Gunslingers analysis. Since that is where I'm going to reference it the most.

Also unlike with The Alchemist and The Viking, it doesn't seem that The Soldier knows the lord of the castle.

On the topic of The Soldier being Immortal, it seems that he fights in nearly every war, both with his line to the Gunslinger; "There's a man like me in every war" and the hero selection line; "A nameless Soldier, veteran of countless battles."

Basically The Soldier saw Jack say "my war is never over" and went "aight bet".

It explains why The Alchemist says "this should be our last battle" though, but I will get to that in her analysis.

Though this is probably a reference to the canon game, The Solider and The Gunslinger have seeming met at some point before Junkensteins revenge, and either The Gunslinger doesn't remeber The Solider completely or they met awhile ago, either way The Solider is avoident of the question of if they have met. Only saying "maybe in another life", combining that with him calling The Gunslinger "an oddity" it some what implies that something happened to the Gunslinger that The Solider knows about.

It also seems that in between the vents of Revenge and Endless night that The Solider and The Alchemist stopped traveling together. As he is the only one of the two to return in Endless Night, as shown through the fact that The Alchemist has no interactions with anyone other then the other three original Revenge travellers.

Ok now this is something I just want to mention and that is the interaction The Soldier has with The Renegade;

The Soldier: I know a man trying to escape his past when I see one. The Renegade: Easier to outrun your shadow isn't it.

RENEGADE WHAT DO YOU KNOW-

Also something else of note, The Soldier, despite being adverse to nobility, is rather kind to The Countess. Referring to her as "My lady" and asking if she's feeling well because of how pale she is.

Anyway that's it for now, this is just a basic analysis I will probably get into this more when I finish the other analyses.

[thetravelauthority]

Discovering Bloomington: A Journey Guided by The Travel Authority

In this guest post, we explore the multifaceted allure of Bloomington, Indiana, emphasizing how a travel agency like The Travel Authority can enhance your "Bloomington Travel" experience. Bloomington, known for its vibrant cultural scene, natural beauty, and historical attractions, offers a variety of experiences. The Travel Authority, with its comprehensive knowledge of the region, can tailor your journey to your interests, whether you're a nature enthusiast, a foodie, or a culture lover. They offer inclusive planning, curate special interest tours, and manage group and corporate travel. They're also committed to sustainable travel, contributing to the preservation of Bloomington's environment. Your travel experience is backed by their comprehensive support services, making your Bloomington journey seamless and personalized. With The Travel Authority as your guide, the charm and vibrancy of Bloomington are yours to discover.

[trivialbob]

Today was scorching hot and very sunny. I doused myself with suncreen, filled a backpack with water, more sunscreen, and dental floss, and went over to the "Great Minnesota Get-Together," otherwise know as the annual Minnesota State Fair.

When I arrived at 10:00 AM the place was packed. If you do not revel in big crowds, sweaty people, fried food, food on a stick, high food and drink prices, farm animals, or tractors, this place is not for you. I can tolerate this mixture of things if I go to the fair every few years.

Lots of people. Did I already say that?

Getting there is easy if one takes a bus. $5 buys a round trip ticket from one of several park-and-rides around the cities. Both the bus ticket and the admission ticket can be purchased online ahead of time. Very easy.

People watching is excellent. Food smells are delightful. The assortment of eats is interesting. It would never have occurred to me to make deep-fried pickles. I didn't try them but I heard some people raving about how good they were.

French fries and huge tubs of chocolate cookies are popular and available in several stands. I shudder thinking what a nutrition label on those cookies would look like. It likely would indicate a serving size as "one small bite" just so the amounts of sugar, sodium, and fat didn't exceed 200% of the recommended daily allowance.

For my lunch I tried the HotDish-on-a-Stick. Hot Dish is a Minnesota thing, made with a tater tot topping over a mixture of meat, cream of mushroom soup, and maybe some veggies. The stand selling hotdish-on-a-stick didn't have a line of people. That is not a good sign. It did have a sign explaining what you got for $7 (a bargain compared to other food stands).

I liked the concept, but results didn't work for me. It tasted like deep fried batter. The mushroom-hamburger dipping sauce was too salty, and I only dipped into it one time.

Some food stands had enormous lines. There must have been 150 people waiting for a new-this-year doughnut stand. "The Doughnut" was $5. Based on the long line, they easily could charged more. The Peanut Butter Cream doughnut was $10. At that price I would have thought it would be served on a stick. This stand had me curious, but I wasn't going to wait in that line.

On Machinery Hill there were collections of vintage farm and garden tractors. Very cool. There were also lots of trucks, modern lawn equipment, side-by-sides, ATVs, and travel trailers on display. I sat on a swell little John Deer tractors and made revving noises with my mouth, much like I did as a 5-year-old in Sears stores long, long ago. I thought it was funny, but an actual 5-year-old boy today looked at me and backed away.

There are also a lot of the "as seen on TV" displays, selling items you didn't know you had to have!

The 4H people had farm displays. I like those kids. The Miracle of Birth Center had newborn calves, chicks, goats, and lambs.

After several hours of walking around my feet were burning and my back hurt a little. As I made my way back to the gate where the buses were, I stopped to try some deep fried mac and cheese bites and have a beer. Those bites were delicious. The beer, while a little pricey, was extremely refreshing and frankly worth the price in that heat.

I plopped into a seat on the articulated bus. The air conditioning worked very well. I actually started to nod off as we waited to leave.

Four blondes and a brunette get on a bus...

No, this isn't a joke. It really happened. As my bus started to pull away and take us back to our cars, an adorable young woman, the brunette, walked up to the driver.

"Wait, where does this bus go?" She apparently missed the large banners with park-and-ride names and the those same names flashing on the bus LED signs.

The driver explained that we were going to the Bloomington park and ride, next to the Mall of America.

The brunette turned to her similarly cute cohorts, the four blondes with nearly identical haircuts, who sat midway down the bus.

"What bus did we take to get here?"

The other four came up to the front of the bus. They discussed it. I heard one blonde say she was sure they had not parked in Bloomington.

"Ohmygosh, will let us get off this bus?"

We hadn't left the parking area yet so the driver politely said he could do that. The brunette turned to address the rest of the passengers.

"I'm so sorry you guys, to make you wait like that." (It had been under a minute.)

Everyone said it was no problem and wished them well finding the correct bus. I smiled, then dozed off for the ride to Bloomington.

[thegalleryobscura]

I'm traveling in Ireland right now, but wanted to go ahead and post this.

We've got our first pop-up shop coming in July! You can find us at the Midsommar Market in Bloomington, Indiana on the 13th.

We will mostly be debuting our shadow boxes, but will have a few other odds and ends available as well. We're so excited to finally show off what we've been busting our asses on. Joe has built over 40 boxes and is just waiting for me to come home with more materials. I've been picking up feathers, driftwood, sand, rocks, and ephemera while in Ireland. I've got some big ideas for when I get home this Sunday.

If you're local or visiting the area on the 13th, stop by and say hello! I'll be posting updates, sneak peaks, and more info leading up to the market.

[meraxes-of-new-albion]

Hannibal takes place mostly in Baltimore but they travel to other places. It was shot in Toronto.

thank you anon that's very kind of you to let me know

i assume this is in response to me getting way the fuck hung up on the elk

according to the wiki range map, elk are at least... more nearby ish toronto these days than they are to literally any of minnesota

(although.... like.... if you're gonna say a place is bloomington.... bloomington HAS hotels. bloomington has MSP, one of the biggest airports in the states, i'd bet it rivals chicago's in terms of traffic. like. i'm sure mads mikkelson could hang out at the hilton or whatever it is that's literally attached to the MOA.)

is this a very silly thing for me to be upset about? yes. i never said it wasn't lmao. i'm sure hollywood gets seattle/europe as a whole/most of the rest of the world very wrong too. but i do genuinely like minnesota, as much as i can like any of the united states, and so it bothers me when people misrepresent it because it's... idk.... not cool enough or something. (especially since we're reasonably relevant in us politics; you hear about klobuchar and omar doing things on a semi frequent basis, and we've consistently swung blue in presidential elections for like 50 years. so i get REAL annoyed whenever we get lumped in with like... wisconsin. or the dakotas. god forbid ohio. because... we're not.)

anyway i was being genuine about the thank you. i do appreciate the information, it's enlightening and interesting, i just. ramble. and i get hung up on dumb shit. that's just par for the course for my whole entire life lmao.

[sohannabarberaesque]

Postcards from Snagglepuss

And Gatlinburg awaits!

OFF I-39/90 AT A TRUCK STOP OUTSIDE JANESVILLE, WI: "You know, Snagglepuss," Huckleberry Hound was observing as we were getting the journey underway again in our motorhome, "having the Cattanooga Cats hosting an informal Easter parade down Gatlinburg way seems so--"

"Quixotic. Interesting, even," saith I to compensate for Huck's being in a struggle for words apropos the moment. "Especially with the routing bypassing Chicago--I-39, for the most part, down to Bloomington, Illinois ... thence on I-74 via Indianapolis to Cincinnati, maybe a bowl or two of Cincinnati chili, even ... joining I-75 from the Queen City to Knoxville, Tennessee, thence on US 441 into the Queen Mother of Tourist Traps!"

"And I've oft wondered why exactly Gatlinburg would be such a 'gold standard,' so to speak, for tacky tourist-dependent communities," mused Huck over a substantial-size soda as he was filling the motorhome with diesel fuel, preceded by some additive supposed to improve engine performance--especially after winter storage.

Which also saw Crazy Claws, our guest this time around, get some decent(?) Wisconsin cheese, sausage and crackers in a not-so-touristy sort of manner, which he put down to "just wanting to get some decent snacking out of the way without the 'cheese shop' markups as seem common to tourist areas. Wisconsin Dells included, come to think of it!"

"At least Crazy Claws had some sense in his mind," Huck added.

Yet what was especially worthwhile was the meetup of The King and girlfriend Sheena, he in a denim jeans jacket looking so cool and Sheena in a V-neck sweater, considering the coolish weather. But at least they followed a sort of Funatstic tradition we've established while travelling of travelling light, packing pretty much the essentials (maybe a couple days' change of clothes, consider some time at a laundromat at destination before returning, and essential toiletries and medications, if required).

"Heeeeeeyyyyyy ... and heeeeeeyyyyy again!" was how The King made his presence known into the motorhome, doing the old Edd Byrnes number with the Brylcreem and pocket comb along that glossy leonine mane of his. "And I take it we are heading for the Great Smoky Mountains over Easter?"

"I take it you received our message by text," explained I.

"Actually, King and Sheena," Huckleberry Hound remarked, "it's that the Cattanooga Cats--as in that Gatlinburg coffee shop of theirs, Cattanooga Klatsche--are arranging an impromptu Easter Parade of sorts in Gatlinburg along the Parkway on Easter Sunday!"

"Ohhh," Sheena purred oh so seductively, "I can't help but seriously appreciate what coffees the Cattanooga Cats manage to come up with!"

"I take it," Huck asked, "you order your coffees from Cattanooga Klatsche?"

"Correctamundo" was how The King responded with his usual leonine swagger. "You never tasted anything better--especially when it's whole bean, and ground back at home! Especially when you can blend two such varieties, impromptu, and grind them together!"

"Hopefully," Crazy Claws chimed in, "you can stand some not-so-touristy Wisconsin cheeses and sausages for the odd snacking as we head down to Gatlinburg."

"And who else," Sheena remarked, "will be joing us?"

"It'll be rather interesting," saith I. "And we have a couple more Funtastic types joining us down the road--let alone many others perhaps heading to Gatlinburg before too long." (This as we were driving back onto I-39, which is part of I-90 into Rockford, with tolling prevailing until the I-39 junction just on the southeast side of Rockford; I-39 continuing southward with US 51 to Bloomington.)

*************

@warnerbrosentertainment @ultrakeencollectionbreadfan @theweekenddigest @iheartgod175 @funtasticworld @archive-archives @screamingtoosoftly @themineralyoucrave @thebigdingle @thylordshipofbutts @warnerbros-blog1 @groovybribri @zodiacfan32 @jellystone-enjoyer @indigo-corvus @warnerbrosent-blog