America is the land of mass marketing.  We are all used to the plethora of junk emails, the fact that the only thing we get in the mail are bills and marketing materials, the huge billboards on the side of the highways and cutesy, if somewhat odd, (deranged?), names that businesses use.  I sometimes wonder what possesses places to do this to themselves.  While in Utah we saw Ye Ol’ Geezer Meat Shop which does not seem to run by the Geezer family…so someone there decided that was a good name for an upscale butchers….OK, I guess.  However, out there in the wilds we saw a few places which have names that, well, just shouldn’t be used. There is a chain of convenience stores called Kum & Go,  roadside  restaurants entitled the Kum on Inn, Eddie McStiffs and last but certainly not least the Uranus Fudge Factory in Uranus Missouri.  I also need to mention the Thunderbird restaurant in Mt. Carmel Utah, which advertises Ho-Made pies.

A couple of other things that struck me as funny while we out there:  There are outlet malls all over the place.  It felt like we saw one everywhere we stopped.  There seem to be two versions  of them.  The standard outlet mall that have Gap, Columbia, North Face, Nike, Addidas, Ann Taylor etc.  The nearest one to us is at Pleasant Prairie in Wisconsin.  The second type is the more upscale Fashion outlets which has stores like Coach & Barneys.  Both types are all over the place.  It is no wonder the malls are dying between the internet and outlet malls sprinkled everywhere like fairy dust.

Finally, and I don’t know why this is so funny to me, but Tucumcari New Mexico has Mac&Cheese festival.  Unfortunately we missed it.  😦