Of course, I'm just kidding. I'm sure they have telephone service and electricity like the rest of us. But the town itself looks like they let a 3-year-old choose the location, which is directly in the middle of a cornfield. (Really. Once you're through Main Street, you're driving in corn.)

There, we spent a day at Walnut's annual antique show, sifting through a lot of garage-sale material in hopes that something of value might suddenly appear. I personally found nothing exciting.

Not exactly my idea of fun.

But when my aunt, Kim Vogel Sawyer, offered me the chance to join them as they traveled to Minneapolis, Minn., to visit her publishing company, I said "sure."

I was surprised Kim let me come along, even with the very real chance that I might accidentally mention that her latest historical novel, "Waiting for Summer's Return," was released this month and is now in bookstores across the country.

I reassured her that I couldn't do this, though, as the newspaper wasn't endorsing the book.

When I mentioned I was going to Minnesota, people would warn me about how hot and humid it would be.

"It's bad," they would say. "The climate is very similar to the inside of a gym sock. Plus the mosquitoes are so big that they require permission from Air Traffic Control to land."

After hearing this several thousand times, I had a fairly good idea of what I needed to pack: light T-shirts, shorts and flip flops.

So naturally the god of weather (Al Roker, to be exact) made it about 50 degrees Fahrenheit and rainy the first day we were there. In fact, the initial thing we did that morning after leaving the Super 8 Motel was visit the local Etcetera Shop to buy jackets.

When I say we completely changed climates on the way to Minnesota, I'm really not exaggerating. Leaving Kansas, the thermometer was pushing 100 degrees. But once at our destination, it had been cut in half.

While traveling up to Minnesota, I noticed three major things.

1. At roadside diners, all middle-aged waitresses are required by law to call you "Hon."

2. The Government would save a whole lot of money if it didn't waste it on marking every stinking puddle that the highway goes over. Sometimes I wonder how much it costs to put up those green signs that say something like, "Diddley-Squat Crick." To me, it would be worth about the same just to have the sign read, "A Stagnant Mud Puddle of Larvae-Infested Water."

3. When you're on the road long enough, you experience about every possible odor. I say this because along the way we inhaled fragrances of cows, sewage, alfalfa, Uncle Don.... The list goes on.

The trip actually took longer than necessary, due to the little breaks along the way. Everybody had a place they needed to stop; Kim liked taking pictures of old barns, Grandpa and Grandma wanted to look at antiques and Don needed more coffee.

I, myself, was fairly content in the back of the van, until it came to lunch time, which was when I began getting restless.

"Hey look," I would point out from the rear, "There's a McDonald's!"

Once we were (finally) in Minnesota-And if you're going to continue to read this column correctly, you must pronounce it "Minneso-tah." Ya, you betcha.- we did a lot of traveling around. The first day we spent in Mountain Lake, where we visited some family, as well as stopped by a couple farms that were fairly strong in family history.

One we went to once belonged to my great-great-grandfather Ben Klaassen. I was brave enough to venture into the hayloft, where I walked around and promptly came back down because it was scary. I'll be the first to admit I'm not a farm kid.

The name "Mountain Lake" sort of invites a picture of a completely natural setting. However, the mountain is a man-made hill, and they moved the lake from its original location.

They say Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes. But I discovered something during the trip: they are not actually referring to bodies of water. In fact, it's the town names they're talking about. Excuse me if I exaggerate a little, but about every other town we drove through contained the word "lake" in its name.

The problem is, most of them aren't even creative. Here are a few of the more duh names: Big Lake, Clear Lake, Elbow Lake, Lake City, Lake Elmo, Lakeland, Lake Shore, Minnesota Lake, Moose Lake, Round Lake, White Bear Lake and Wolf Lake.

However, my personal favorite is Lake Saint Croix Beach. The "Welcome To" sign has to be at least 15 feet long to accommodate that name.

The rest of the trip was spent in the Minneapolis area, where Kim had a meeting with her publisher, and the rest of us spent money at the Mall of America.

It was easy to tell which shoppers were the tourists and which shoppers lived in the area just by watching them come through the door.

The seasoned shoppers would walk in, talking on their cell phones, oblivious to the world around them, whereas the first-time visitors would stop in their tracks in awe of the Shopping Splendor that was held before their eyes.

One young girl went as far as throwing out her arms, looking towards the heavens (the fourth floor) and exclaiming, "It's BEAUTIFUL!"

After Kim joined us at the mall later that day, we went to the Rainforest Café, which is a great place to eat if you don't mind taking out a second mortgage.

Kim offered me an item off her plate that looked like a small onion ring, and said, "Dip it in ranch dressing. It's good."

That's the last time I'll ever take anything off of Kim's plate. I found out what I had eaten was actually calamari, also known as a chunk of squid tentacle.

But aside from eating part of an animal that has more than four legs, it was a good trip. Kim got a great contract, I spent my money and we all ate way more food than we should have.

And that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where the men are strong, the women are beautiful and the tourists are really hoping Uncle Don finds a rest stop soon.

* * *

UFO: The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., is the size of 78 football fields: 9.5 million square feet. Not that it matters, Madison, Minn., is the "Lutefisk capital of the United States."

Don't ask why.