Where am I, exactly?

Not quite a dozen years ago, Minnesota's head of state — the Governator — appeared on late night television and told the country that the streets of St. Paul had been laid out by drunken Irishmen. Any one who'd ever driven in St. Paul knew exactly what Jesse Ventura was referring to.

Unlike in Minneapolis, where roads are either numbered or arranged alphabetically with north-south running roads called avenues and east-west running roads called streets, St. Paul adopted a naming convention that defies logic and reason. In St. Paul, each street, avenue, road, boulevard or curve name can be traced to a city father or other individual significant to its history. As a result, newcomers and visitors to Minneapolis get their bearings fairly quickly while a lifelong Minneapolitan still will get lost when traveling east of the Mississippi River over to St. Paul.

Of course, the Governator was only going for laughs when he insulted St. Paulites, along with every person in the country who claimed Irish lineage. And, while I'll be the first to admit I've had trouble finding certain roads in my hometown (I've never actually gotten lost in St. Paul), St. Paul is not the only place in Minnesota where place names don't align with logic — or reason.

Case in point. Four Cedars Farms is located in Blue Earth County. But there is a town called Blue Earth, which I drove through yesterday, and it lies an hour's drive from the farm in the next county south of here — in Faribault County. What's odder, though, is that the town of Faribault, fairly well known because it's located right on Interstate 35 about 45 miles south of Minneapolis, is actually in Rice County, not in Faribault County. What's more, the Mississippi River flows from Lake Itasca, which is located in Itasca State Park. Which is located in Hubbard County. There is an Itasca County; it's located two counties further east from Hubbard County.

I'm not criticizing those who named the state's cities, towns, counties or roads, mind you. I know my state well and almost never get lost. (Though, I'm finding it more difficult to make out the small print on the maps!) It's just that a mind can wander a bit while driving an interstate in the rain. Thankfully, it didn't wander too far afield before I reached my exit: U.S. Highway 169.

By the way, there are two statues of the Jolly Green Giant standing in towns along U.S. Highway 169 — one in Blue Earth, the other in LeSueur. And lest you begin to believe our universe is totally disordered, LeSueur is indeed located in LeSueur County.