Trip 13: Minneapolis, Minnesota

After a fantastic drive through Wisconsin, we arrived for our long stay in Minneapolis - we arrived on July 22, and we didn't leave until July 27... our longest stay anywhere, and it wound up being Minnesota!  I was originally scheduled to fly home and have a bit of a break, but due to various circumstances, the company decided it would be better to keep me downrange.  I missed not going home, of course, but they were very good about trying to give me as much time off as possible in Minnesota.

We jumped hotels almost every night in Minneapolis - I guess there were lots of events going on that weekend, and so finding a place to stay proved a little more difficult than anticipated.

We visited the Mall of America on our first day in town.  It's absolutely huge!  Seriously, I think it has more parking than Disneyland, and the entire center of the mall is filled with rides and rollercoasters.  We wandered the mall for a few hours and were just overwhelmed by all of it - hundreds of people, and three levels filled with more shops than I had ever heard of.  I did take advantage of it and bought myself jeans that fit, though, so I guess I can say I've officially shopped at America's largest mall!  (And second-largest, back in Philadelphia's King of Prussia Mall, where I bought sunscreen and chapstick.)

Other than visiting the Mall, the only other activity I did in Minneapolis was to begin being trained on driving the truck and trailer.  This meant that I did some class time, some hitch training, and some behind-the-wheel training, as well as training on how to log my hours in compliance with all the trucker laws.  Sounds fun, doesn't it?

We had the full weekend off before the event, and none of us really realized how tired we had been until the event rolled around and everything just went insanely smoothly.  Three am wake-up calls don't seem so bad when you're full up on sleep!  We could all really notice the difference in how we felt at the end of the event since we had so much time to recover before it, and it was really nice to have that break in Minnesota to sleep in for a few days without any work or stress to interrupt it.

Our site at 4 am.

At 4:30 am, it's nice to be alert enough to appreciate the sunrise!

 For all the bouncing hotels, the truck and trailer training, and the fact that we did have an event to run, it almost felt like Minnesota was "time off".  The usual trifecta of laundry, letters, and grocery shopping was achieved without feeling rushed for time.  Plus, I got a call from friends in Spokane announcing their engagement, so despite the crazy freeway systems in Minneapolis, I really enjoyed Minnesota!

Also, we stayed in Minnetonka, a suburb of Minneapolis, in Minnesota, near Minnehaha Creek.  If, like me, you were curious about what on earth that minne in all those words means, the answer is: water.  It's an old Dakota word.  And it makes sense, as Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes (with 12 in Minneapolis alone!).

After how restful Minneapolis was, it was a bit hard to leave.  Still, we left the day after the event to drive south to the furthest west we've been all tour: Omaha, Nebraska.  Of course, we had to drive through Iowa to get there, and as L lamented, it was about 380 straight miles of corn...

-Beth