Occupy Minivan - Central Time

The route.

After the radiator sabotage incident the Occupy Minivan Cross-Country Movement got off to a smooth start. Until I got to my first stop in Chicago. There I found out that I can’t party like I used to in college. But I survived the weekend and caught up with some old friends. My friends were not very impressed with the Occupy Minivan idea. But we had fun anyway.

The real Occupy Minivan movement began in West Liberty, Iowa where I picked up Occupier/Public Relations Director/Party Master Andrew Hanson. Unlike the hipster kids and homeless guys in Zucotti Park we take our movement to the real people. And/or (mostly or) the places where we know people who will house us. West Liberty is the first majority minority town in Iowa (52% Latino). The turkey plant (as in processing plant, not a turkey that grows in the ground) employs most of the people of West Liberty. The story of Andrew Hanson is the typical small town Iowa farmer boy story; born to a high school principal father and Polish/British mother in Sao Paulo, Brazil and moved to Iowa at the age of 9. Put on a leotard and started wrestling kids. We didn’t actually speak to any of the “real people” but I think that our presence there really made a difference.

From West Liberty we continued west to Des Moines where we picked up Occupiers Kenny Hood and Cameron Jones. Then we headed 2 hours north to the Hood residence into the middle of nowhere Clare, Iowa. If you’ve never seen small town Iowa then go to Clare. Actually don’t. I’ll just tell you about it. In Clare’s sprawling 100-foot-long downtown metropolis there is a soon to be closed down Post Office and a bar called Antlers. Antlers prides itself on having “more dead animals on the wall than clients at the bar.” They do not disappoint. If you continue down the cornfield, gravel road that must be home to several serial killers you might arrive at the Hood residence if they happen to have their lights on. Otherwise you’ll freeze to death. But once inside the Hood residence you’ll experience the only warmth found in frozen Clare, Iowa. The Hood family fed us a hearty Midwestern dinner (actually I think pasta came here from Greenland or Tokyo or something) and took us out to Antlers where the only thing more numerous then deer antlers were cans of Bud Light provided by the ever generous Phil Hood, proprietor of Hood Excavation. If you need work done on your septic tank in Iowa this is the man to call. “A royal flush always beats a full house.” Truer words have never been spoken. We also picked up a camera in Clare, IA which will provide the photos for the rest of this trip. Nothing photogenic happened before there anyway.


Left to right: Mr. Hood, Andrew, Kenny, Katie, Mrs. Hood, Cameron, Duncan, Kelsey (absent).


Hood house.


The road to Kenny's house. Caution: Serial Killer Crossing


We left Clare, IA in the morning and headed to the steak capital of the world, Omaha. We didn’t see any steaks or steak cows but we did score a free lunch form Andrew’s Jesuit priest friends at Creighton University. Peace Corps volunteers will mooch a free lunch off of anybody who so much as hints at an offer.

Welcome to Omaha!


Andrew's old frat house. It was frat-tastic!

I can do it!


How 'bout them apples.


From Creighton we headed to the rendezvous point for the final occupier/minivan lounge singer (yet to provide us any on flight entertainment) Justin Hitchcock. With our requisite fifth occupier needed to officially occupy a minivan we were finally ready to paint the minivan in true Iowa high school girls volleyball fashion. Anybody who questioned the seriousness of the Occupy Minivan movement previously now had no choice but to recognize our fortitude and teenage girl organization tactics.


The crew is complete. And we mean biz-nass.


Introducing the Occupy Minivan minivan.

The final leg of the Midwest leg took us through the exhilarating I- 80 section of Nebraska. (Tumbleweed rolls across the screen). Then we arrived in Denver, a mile high. The city, not the occupiers. We were high on social justice. We never would have made it were it not for the steadfast navigation of Mrs. Tom Tom (GPS). Not once did she complain of the perversion and flatulence circulating through the minivan.


Navigator Mrs. Tom-Tom