The Highlights Of Our Trip

Well, for US these are the highlights. We don't go out of town and suddenly get 'wild and crazy.' For us, an exciting evening is dinner and then back to our hotel room so K can go to sleep/watch TV and I can do a little Web surfing. Big excitement. ;)

We got to St Paul early on Saturday afternoon and settled into our room. I guess it was quite a standard room--we stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn. I must say that I don't know when I have been treated as nicely by the hotel staff--their people were just great. We went to visit with A and her husband and then went to dinner. That was the end of our first night.

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On Sunday we went to the zoo. I already posted about this, however I still have to chuckle over the section of the zoo called the 'Minnesota trail.' I can look out of my window here at home and see most of the wildlife there was on the Minnesota trail. That was quite a kick.

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Monday found us at the Mall of America. While the MOA is very impressive, I don't feel the need to visit there every time we go to the Twin Cities. We were there once before and the only reason we went back was so that I could go to LUSH. I told K that if he wanted to leave after LUSH, it was fine with me. However, we stayed to walk through the entire place.

One thing I was surprised at was the lack of ANYTHING that had to do with the Red Wings. I understand we were in the heart of Wild country, but still. I managed to find the 2009 Red Wing calendar (which, by the way, STILL doesn't have Baby Boy as one the players of the month!) and most stores had one or two styles of baseball cap with the logo, but that was it! I KNOW there is a great hate for the Wings, but really--they are, after all, the champs this year. For crying out loud, I even saw a Calgary Flames Stanley Cup hat--and THEY won the Cup in 1989! Oh well. We asked in one store if they had any Wing jerseys and the clerk looked at us as if we were crazy before answering "NO" in the same tone of voice one would say "DUH!" It is sad that we can't find anything with our favorite team logo on it unless we order online--and we even live in the same state as the team is.

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We drove around on Tuesday and found some interesting shopping centers/malls. I really don't know what to call them, but they were laid out like mini-downtowns--quite neat. Every store you would find in a regular mall was there, but the centers were made for walking and weren't enclosed. We went into our first Trader Joe's, which was cool. The store wasn't much bigger than a convenience/party store, but I was impressed with what they actually DID have. If we had one around here, I could see going there to shop once in awhile, but I think Trader Joe's is geared more for the 'granola crowd' than for someone like me. :)

I also got to go into a Borders for the first time. I guess it isn't ALL that much different than Barnes & Noble, but for me ANY new bookstore is a great place to go. I did manage to find all of the season preview hockey magazines that I was looking for PLUS I found some that I never heard of before. I mean, really, a magazine devoted completely to GOALIES!?!? How crazy is that?

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The concert on Tuesday night was nothing short of absolutely fantastic. I was very happy with the mix of songs they did--even though the guy sitting behind A WASN'T. (He complained the entire time over the NEW material.) Of course, a lot of the music was from their newest CD, but it was much less than half of the playlist. Not only did they do some of Don Henley's and Joe Walsh's hits, but they did most--if not all--of their own. How can you be unhappy when you get to see the Eagles do Hotel California, Take It Easy, Witchy Woman, Peaceful Easy Feeling, and Desperado, amongst others. We WERE in the nosebleed section, but it didn't matter--we got to watch the Eagles for over three hours! I was one happy camper! All in all, a great night. I LOVE going to concerts--can't wait for the next one. I'm hoping that Led Zepplin and/or Cream decide to tour again. Now THOSE would be concerts to see--once in a lifetime deals, for sure.

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On Wednesday morning. K woke up at 5:30 AM after sleeping only a few hours. I don't know if he still was wired after the concert, but he definitely couldn't get back to sleep, so we got on the road early. Again, we had good travelling, so we were home early in the day. K was very pleased with the route we took and said we should be doing the trip a bit more often than we have. Hey, I'm ALWAYS up for a road trip--especially one where I get to spend time with my Baby Girl! :)