I just got back from a ten-day vacation from seeing friends and family on the East Coast. Don’t ask me why, but we drove back, a three-day ordeal trip through the eastern half of the US, back home here to Minnesota. Here is my TOP TEN LIST.

10. Paint shortage? Driving off the main highways, I noticed two things. One, some homeowners would just as soon mow around something, like an old car, washing machine, whatever, than move it around to the back or throw it away. Two, houses would look a lot better if they would just PAINT. You’d think we were rationing paint.

9. Road construction season. It sure seemed like every state is working on their roads and bridges, a LOT. If they would think of the resulting traffic issues as a customer service opportunity as opposed to a necessary traffic re-routing situation, it would make for a less stressful trip.

8. Toll Roads. I guess I understand that if you use something, you should pay for it. So toll roads make sense, barely. Again, here’s a customer service tip, round the $1.85 toll up to $2. Sitting behind Grandma as she finds the right change made me want to kick a small animal.

7. Cooperstown, NY is a must-see. I like baseball anyway, but the people who organized the Hall of Fame did a superlative job. The RV Hall of Fame in Elkart, IN, wasn’t nearly as appealing. Best part of Cooperstown? Eating a hot dog at DiMaggio’s and watching a Little League team from San Clemente, CA, make a game out of jumping a dirt drainage ditch that ran alongside the property. Some things never change.

6. Stockbridge, MA. The hometown of Norman Rockwell is just like you imagine it would be. In fact, each Christmas, the town re creates the downtown scene exactly, just like it was in his painting.

5. The more expensive the hotel, the more you pay for WIFI. There is a real disconnect here. Mid-range hotels and motels offered wifi for free, but the more expensive hotels charged at least $10 per day. Irritating.

4. Obama vs McCain. I was shocked to realize at the end of our trip that we had seen only two Obama bumper stickers and none for McCain. I saw more Kerry ‘04 bumper stickers today on the drive in to work. And, I evensaw more Obama and McCain dog bandanas (www.thedogvote.com).

3. Americans are just nice, dog-gone-it. It is easy to keep to yourself, and not acknowledge people, I understand that. But if you say ‘hi,’ or make a comment, everyone smiles and says something in return.

2. Truck drivers are incredibly polite. BTW, there did not appear to be a gas crisis, good golly there are a lot of trucks on the road…and, every one we noticed was polite, yielding and very, very safe.

And the Number One thing I learned while driving across the USA:

Signage Sucks. Seriously, it is like a conspiracy to confuse, obfuscate or ignore new drivers in the area. It cannot be that hard.  It is that way no matter if the road is federal, state or local IMHO.  If we didn’t have GPS, I ‘d be going dizzy on a roundabout in western New York even today.