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The campground we stayed at last night was great! I didn't hear a single train! Ah, it's the simple pleasures! We actually got some marshmellows and roasted them over the communal campfire. That is until we were overrun by the Minnesota state bird - the mosquito! Actually it was a great campground.
Anyway today was a day for travel. We logged 424.8 miles and traveled through 4 states, MN, WI, IA, and IL. We planned today to do 2 things, get us close enough to home that we can get in at a reasonable time on Wednesday and to check off 2 more states on Andy's list. I know it sounds like a Fred Katz quest (got to go to Kenosha) and come to think of it, it really is! Here are the list of states that each of us have NOT visited:
Cel - Michigan
Tommy - Michigan, Oregon, Hawaii
Andy - Michigan, Oregon, Hawaii, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Louisiana
We'll list Canadian Provinces another time! So as you can see a road trip to Michigan is in order. Maybe a Predators/Red Wings game at the Joe? I almost forgot. Cel was in Heaven for most of the day as we increased our GQ (gravy quotient) when we stopped at the first Cracker Barrel we have seen since the beginning of our trip. I think it's time to be home!Current Mood:  contemplative
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Minnesota, yah, yah! We spent the first part of the day driving southeast across the state to Savage which is a suburb of Minneapolis. Minnesotans (is that how you spell it) have a wonderful sense of humor about themselves. I'm not a Garrison Keilor fan but I think he captures them pretty well. Let see, they talk funny, have pretty bland food, and they're all Lutheran. I haven't seen this many of one kind of church since I was in Utah! Oh yeah, and they have a big mall! Only in America would you have a mall as a tourist destination. This must have been where the Opryland people visited when they decided on the idea of "Shoppertainment"! The place is enormous, but do we really need a mall with 3 Gamestops or 4 Lids? Now I admit I did enjoy the cheese shop (it sells cheese and Green Bay Packers items), and the Lake Wobegon store (they've got a great book on Lutherans that Tracy would enjoy) but come on aren't malls passe? What are they going to do with this building when the anchor tenants move out?
We also did a tour of downtown Minneapolis/St. Paul. Yes we saw the bridge that fell, the Excel Center (where the Wild play) and the Greyhound bus station (OK, we got lost in that part of town - we always do that somewhere). On the way back to the campground we saw several foxes (the wildlife kind not the Dave kind) run across the road. That was about a tenth of a mile from our campground. We logged 315.3 miles today and tomorrow will be a longer day as we try to make it home in 2 days.Current Mood:  giddy
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All good things must come to an end, so they say, and this morning reality rears it's ugly head - our cruise is ending! After 7 days of being waited on hand and foot, having food and drink at our beck and call, and viewing beautiful scenery without having to lift a finger, it's over! The finger lifting has begun.
For those of you that have taken a cruise, you know the drill. Bags in the hallway before you retire for the evening. Getting up early and leaving your stateroom before breakfast, then being herded. First to a lounge or theatre to wait for the real herding to begin, down the gangplank, through customs, and to the airport. All the rest of our group was envious of our day. They all had to rise early to catch flights heading into earlier time zones. Tracy, Paul, and Jack caught a flight to Toronto and then on to Philadelphia. Everyone else was flying to Detroit to connect to Nashville. Hopefully they are all there by now!!! For the Franklin's the day was a little simplier. After riding the Princess bus to the airport we caught the shuttle to the Holiday Inn Express. There we picked up our truck (which I made add was awfully glad to see us), then we drove to Ferndale Washington to get our camper. Well of course we couldn't do anything that simply. We had to stop at 5 sporting goods stores looking at hockey goalie pads. I learned today that not everyone in Canada plays (or even has an interest in) hockey. I suppose it would be the same if a visitor to Nashville asked me where to get good deals on golf equipment (on the other hand I could take them somewhere to hear or buy country music). Anyway we ended up in Surrey looking at a wall of hockey pads (Andy's eyes did glaze over). Eventually we did make it to the border where the US inspector was pretty amazed that we had actually driven from Tennessee. He did finally lower his eyebrows when we told him that we (well actually just Cel and I) are teachers. We found the pop-up right where we had left it (in storage) and pulled it into a site and popped it up. The beds are actually not much different but we were pretty bummed when we had to fix our own dinner!
We're staying 2 night here so we can plot out the course home. If you have any place we need to visit in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchiwan, or Manitoba be sure to let us know soon! Current Mood:  crushed
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