Not this time, anyway.

Megan Dust is not worried about finding a ride.  Even up here in northwestern Minnesota, sooner or later someone will stop.  They always do.  More than likely, it’ll be a guy, noticing her long tan legs and denim mini-skirt.  In the meantime, she strolls right along the grassy border edging the shoulder, peering south along Highway 75—AKA the King of Trails.  The road is a two-laner that starts out at the Canadian border and cuts along the western edge of Minnesota, straight down to the Iowa border.

Megan grew up about seventy miles south of our neighbor to the north, on a farm near Warren, Minnesota.  They had no animals, yet her father planted whatever crop seemed to be the in-thing.  For the past five or so years, due to a spiked demand for canola, corn had been his crop of choice.