The trip

Where to begin...Well first off, I'm obviously back from the land of 10,000 lakes. It was an interesting trip. Here's some of the highlights.

1) Day one I made the nearly 6 hr drive up there in exactly 5 hrs. Maybe my true calling is to be a race car driver. Honestly, I only drove 100 mph part of the way officer. Most of the time I did between 80 & 90. Once we got there we had dinner and spent a couple of hours at Barnes & Noble. Figured we'd just be lazy the first day since we arrived around dinner time anyway. I bought the book "Sometimes I Act Crazy". Haven't started reading it yet tho.

2) Day two we shopped our asses off, though all I managed to buy for myself was a sticker that says "i hate you" from the David & Goliath store. The kiddie made out like a bandit though. Lots of clothes & other stuff.

3) Day three was spent riding all the rides (for those not familiar with the mall, there is an amusement park in the middle of the mall). The big dork that I am, I insisted on going on the Spongebob ride despite all the protests from the kiddie. Ha, she enjoyed it as much as I did. We also did the Underwater Adventure which is basically a huge shark aquarium in the basement of the mall. Very cool! The look on my daughter's face was amazing. She is definitely choosing the right career for herself as a marine biologist. She loved the tank that had some smaller sharks and sting rays that you could pet.

4) Day four was spent wandering around St. Paul and Minneapolis. Compared to Chicago, those cities are so damn small though. I do like the fact that you can wander around pretty much the whole downtown of Minneapolis without ever stepping outside.

5) Also on day four we drove up to our other hotel, the waterpark resort. It wasn't as big as I thought it would be. Guess it just seemed bigger on the website. I spent most of my time floating along the lazy river or sitting in one of the hot tubs.

6) Day five we spent mostly at the waterpark. I did manage to forego my fears and go down some of the water slides. Now I remember why I have a fear of those things.

We came home on day 6. Now for the lowlights.

1) Not all Chevy's Mexican restaurants are created equal. Guess our first hint should have been that there weren't any Mexicans working there. They did have the same great margaritas they have here, but the food was pretty bad.

2) Never travel to a strange city and try to find something without looking at a map first. Think we circled the entire Minneapolis/St. Paul area 3 times trying to find the Mall of America. Considering it's probably the area's biggest attraction, you'd think there would have been more signs directing dumbass people like myself there. Funny thing is, this wasn't my first trip up there, but I don't remember it being right by the airport.

3) I hurt my left hand somehow, but can't think of how. My index finger has been very tender and half my hand has been swollen since Friday. I didn't hit it or twist it at all. What's weird is that the only thing out of the ordinary I even remember doing to that finger was that I touched holy water with it. We were in St. Paul looking at some church because I loved the architecture of it. The kiddie asked what something was and I told her it was a basin of holy water and told her to touch it. She was too chicken to so I did. Finger was sore and swollen later that night. Guess I'm evil ::shrug::.

4) I yelled at the kiddie while we were shopping. She was having a good old time as long as it was all about her. But the minute I wanted to look at stuff, particularly clothes, she would bitch about being bored. Of course I immediately felt guilty and wondered if I was justified in yelling at her or if I was just overreacting.

5) I was panicky most of the time we were in the mall. Paranoid that there would be a terrorist attack because I'd recently read that terrorists were considering attacking "soft" targets like malls or schools. Figured the largest mall in America would be a prime target.

6) On the way home, I got a ticket and surprisingly it wasn't even for speeding. We stopped to get gas at some bumblefuck town in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin, population of which is probably 10. As we pulled out of the gas station, there was a divider so we could only go one way. At the first light there was a no u-turn sign. I made a u-turn anyway because I didn't see any other place where I could turn around. Ah ha...this was all planned as a trap. Apparently many people not familiar with this stupid ass bumblefuck town in the middle of nowhere make this same mistake. A cop was sitting there waiting somewhere just out of sight and pulled me over. The bastard tells me that because I'd made an illegal turn he had to write me a ticket. I told him that he didn't have to write me a ticket, he chose to and probably because I was from out of state. He could have given me a warning. I also told him that I didn't appreciate the trap of forcing drivers to go one way and not providing any way for them to turn around. It's important that there be a divider in the middle of fucking nowhere that prevents people from going in the direction they need to. It's not like they get that much fucking traffic thru there.

7) I dissociated so damn much on the drive up there it's a wonder I didn't go off the road. I did a bit better on the way home. I was much more aware after getting the ticket.

Ok, enough...I've gotta go do laundry and stuff. I'll be back later to write about the emotional strain this whole trip was and also about the wonderful crap that has befallen me regarding therapy.