MARICOPA COUNTY, Ariz. — There are things you expect to see along a desert highway and then there are Justin Ekelman’s hand-painted signs.

Drivers on State Route 347 between Phoenix and Maricopa usually pass them before they see the old, white cargo van Ekelman parks in a dirt lot off Riggs Road.

He is a man, with a van, who sells seafood.  

“I do this year-round, I sweat it out and then when the winter comes, the snowbirds come back and it’s amazing,” Ekelman said. “You can’t bring enough; you can’t fill this thing enough.”

He is also not oblivious to what some people think when they see his Pike Place Market on four wheels: Seafood from a van in the desert? It seems a little sketchy. And a little dangerous.

But if you stop, Ekelman will proudly show you his frozen food vendor permit and other licenses one needs to sell shrimp and scallops on the side of the road.

Ekelman’s business, Shrimply the Best, has a fan following. In fact, one-third of voters in a recent InMaricopa poll named his seafood van their favorite food source.

Shrimp from Rocky Point are his bestsellers but Ekelman keeps his chest freezer stocked with Caribbean lobster tails, mussels and a variety of fish, too. An extension cord plugged into a gas-powered generator keeps everything frozen even when it’s 115 degrees outside. 

“If it was sitting in a cooler in ice, it may be a little weird,” Ekelman said.  

Selling seafood out of a van has provided Ekelman, a single father of two teenage boys, with enough to pay his bills and keep a roof over their heads. He feels more blessed than he did 15 years ago during the Great Recession.

Ekelman bought his first home in 2008, then lost his job as a carpet and air duct cleaner.

“Long story short, I ended up having to short sell my home, lived with my parents for a year and a half. My dad said come do this,” Ekelman said.

His father, a former door-to-door meat salesman, ventured into the roadside seafood business 40 years ago. Ekelman said his dad used wet rags to keep himself cool during the summer months.

“I did it one year like that. Why would you do that when you could buy a $130 air conditioner? I made a stand, put it in my window, now I have a little cold room,” Ekelman said, pointing to the curtains at the front of his van.

His father retired more than a decade ago and Ekelman retained many loyal customers. The business has not changed much since then, including the rudimentary hand-painted signs along the highway. Those are informative – and nostalgic.

“Ahead: Rocky Point Shrimp,” one of them reads.

“I go to Home Depot, get the wood, get them cut and paint them up, that’s how my dad always did it,” Ekelman said. “I have people stopping all the time saying ‘I can make you professional signs’ and I‘m like, ‘Bro, this is what people see. It’s a lot cheaper.’”

Ekelman also gets his seafood from the same source: His dad’s friend who owns a distributing company and gets seafood shipped to the Valley from across the globe. The company supplies seafood to restaurants, cruise liners and small fry (we couldn’t resist) like Ekelman.

“A lot of people assume I am getting it all from Mexico, it’s not,” Ekelman said. “A lot of the shrimp do but I just had salmon from Alaska, my lobster tails right now are out of the Bahamas, I have got orange roughy from New Zealand, the catfish is from here in the U.S., all sorts of different places but it is wild caught.”

Ekelman said he gets a good deal buying wholesale but the COVID pandemic forced him to raise his prices.

“My lobster tails, I was paying $5 a tail cheaper near 2019, COVID hit and everything went up,” Ekelman said. “I have tried to keep it pretty reasonable but my profit margins have gone down.”

Shrimply the Best accepts cash and credit cards.

A pound of raw, frozen shrimp ranges from $9 to $12 per pound depending on the size and type. Ekelman sells a 5-pound bag of extra jumbo, U-15 size tiger shrimp for $60 a bag. Chilean black mussel meat is $10 per pound. Wild-caught U.S. catfish sells for $6 per pound and orange roughy, a deep-sea perch caught in the waters off New Zealand goes for $12 per pound.

When Ekelman has no customers, he sits in the cab of the van with his makeshift air conditioning unit and reads his Bible.

He’s especially proud of his lobster tails, which are nearly as big as his forearm. An 18–20-ounce tail goes for $36 or two for $68.

“Mother’s Day is crazy; I could fill this thing with lobster and it’s just gone,” Ekelman said. “Father’s Day? Well, we don’t get treated as well as the ladies do sometimes.”

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WELCOME, Minn. — Nine students were injured Wednesday morning when a truck crashed into a bus in southern Minnesota.

The crash occurred at 8:15 a.m. in Welcome, Minnesota after the bus driver failed to yield to the truck, which had the right-of-way at the intersection of County Road 7 and 280th Street, according to the Redwood County Sheriff’s Office. In a press release, officials say the nine students sustained “minor injuries” and were transported to a nearby hospital.

The initial investigation indicates that the truck, an F550, was traveling north on County Road 7, while the bus, which was providing service to the Wabasso Public School District, was traveling east on 280th Street. The news release says the truck had the right-of-way at the intersection.

“We are grateful that no serious injuries happened to our students, the driver or the other driver, however, nine students were transported to area hospitals for follow-up treatment,” Superintendent Jon Fulton said in a letter to parents. “… The District and 4.0 bus transportation company is praying for a speedy recovery for the students and families involved.”

MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Lynx is inspiring the next generation of athletes regardless of whether they win or lose.

Sophia Witkowski went to the game with her mother, Christy, to watch Game 3 of the WNBA Finals.

“For her to see all her idols it’s just so fun,” Christy said.

“I like it because women’s sports aren’t that popular. Now the WNBA is really popular,” Sophia said.

They weren’t the only mother-and-daughter duo at the game. Amanda Williams took her 10-year-old daughter Abby to watch.

“It’s really awesome to have my daughter here to see great role models from the team and the fact,” Amanda said.

“I think that it’s super cool that they get to do what they want to do, and they get paid for it too,” Abby said.

Maggie Niska with Her Next Play, a nonprofit working to empower the next generation of female leaders through sports, said their visibility is everything.

“I think it gives these girls someone to look up to, and it gives them something to aspire to, and by having them in the community it makes seem a little more reachable too,” Niska said.

She said the Lynx Academy put on a basketball clinic for some of her girls in Hopkins Tuesday night. Niska said all of the professional women’s sports teams in Minnesota show girls they can have a future in sports.

“I just think that any visibility these girls can get to women competing at sports at a higher level, hearing these women speak, and seeing them succeed, and getting insight into their lives and what they do to compete at this higher level, I think all of that serves as a great inspiration to these girls,” she said.

It’s something Lynx Head Coach Cheryl Reeve understands well.

“For young girls to see the opportunities for them to play in any sport and then also more in sport, jobs in sports that sports can be a career,” Reeve said.

Sophia Ritter and Taylor Tool drove hours to see the players in action.

“We traveled from Aberdeen, South Dakota and the Northern State women’s basketball team took two vans,” she said.

Ritter and Tool both said it was a cool opportunity for them to see two great teams play on the professional level.

“Growing up, WNBA wasn’t really a big a thing and something that everyone was watching and now that it’s growing it’s really nice to see,” Ritter said.

“It’s really fun seeing all the support and seeing how many people come to watch the games like it’s really cool to see all the fans in the stands filling up and it’s growing,” Tool said.

Gophers’ Shoot Guard Mara Braun went to the game with her team after practice.

“These women out here are just amazingly talented and they play with this toughness that I think we’re really trying to embody as a team,” Braun said.

She knows young girls are looking up to her and her teammates just like they are with the Lynx.

“Especially growing up, you know, you want to play college basketball, and the next level is WNBA or overseas or whatever it is, so for me this is obviously a dream and something I’m working towards to be able to see it,” she said.

Braun dreams of playing in the WNBA and watching the Lynx and the Liberty in the finals makes that dream feel like it could be her new reality.