It's Been a While

Yes, it's been a while since I've posted.  I've thought about letting this blog go the way of the earth and turn to virtual dust.  Mostly it's because I really don't like writing my thoughts down.  At all.  Ever.  I was sitting in a teacher training class last night for church and one girl commented that she liked giving people note cards to jot down their thoughts during class.  That just sounded like a cruel form of torture.  I don't journal (gasp!), I don't even like taking notes in work meetings.  I think I'd almost rather go run through a patch of prickly pear cactus.

So why, you might appropriately ask, do I blog?  Well, it all started with Buckle (he'll never have another name.  Steve just doesn't sound the same) when he encouraged me to start a blog to give people updates my new home state of MN when I moved from AZ.  And... somehow it ended there... in MN.  At least, that's where my last post took place - last summer in MN before I made the jump back to the Seagull/Beehive/Red Rock/Salt Lake state of Utah last Fall after a 10 year hiatus.  There are things I absolutely love here and there are things that I just try to ignore for my own sanity.    I'm not sure how often I'll continue to blog, if ever.   But I'm sure every so often I might be compelled to scrounge up a post or two.  

Minnesota Drivers

After more than three years in Minnesota, I am more than thoroughly convinced that Minnesotans may be some of the WORST drivers. EVER. Here's a top 10 list of why:

10. They all drive well below the speed limit.
9. Not only do they drive under the speed limit, they do so in the left hand lane.
8. When multiple drivers are forced to pass the afore-mentioned slow left hand lane driver, the passers all receive dirty looks but the slow driver will still fail to move over to a right hand lane, feeling entitled to drive slow in the left hand lane.
7. If a driver doesn’t like that you will actually use an empty (and legal) lane to drive in, they will actually drive partially in BOTH lanes in an attempt to stop you from driving in the empty (and LEGAL) lane.
6. No understanding of what yield actually means.
5. No sense of how to actually appropriately enter a freeway – they key is to speed up, not slow down.
4. If you’re going to pull out in front of me, just make sure you’re at least going to speed up and not stay at your maddenly slow pace – it will just make me want to tailgate you.
3 ½. I wanted to throw this one in even though it isn’t specifically related to drivers but it helps paint the picture of driving in Minnesota. The absolutely brilliant use of the clover leaf freeway on/off ramps is one of the most asinine things I’ve seen in poor road planning. Even in good conditions you have to cut your speed so dramatically that it makes it difficult when you finally make it to the freeway to merge at a decent speed. Winter driving on the clover leafs always gives me anxiety since any little bit of ice will put your car in the ditch. And the merges at the end/beginning of the clover leafs are all about 100 feet long so busy interchanges are a nightmare. A big thanks to the Einstein who thought clover leafs were a good idea. They are definitely NOT lucky.
3. Piling up all in one lane at stoplights rather than using both lanes. And, you get the stink eye if you use the free lane.
2. Randomly applying your breaks for no apparent reason. The closest car is two football fields away and there’s no reason to slow down. They just do.
1. Not knowing how to appropriately do a zipper merge when a lane ends 2… or 5 miles down the road. Once they know a lane will eventually end, they hit their breaks and try to merge over into the next lane. And then there is a huge pile up of cars that sometimes is miles long and no one is driving in the open lane except for me and a few other brilliant drivers that know that it’s still legal to drive in the lane and are willing to brave the wrath of the Minnesota (passive aggressive) “nice”. The real kicker is they are actually wasting MY hard earned tax money that I have to pay the state on a full-on PR campaign to teach Minnesotans how to merge. www.dothezippermerge.org. Check it out. A full radio/billboard/internet campaign on teaching people how to merge. Ridiculous.

So, until I leave the state, I will continue on with my West Coast driving ways. Even if it means enduring the hate-filled, stink-eyed wrath of the other Minnesota (passive aggressive) “nice” drivers, which is anything but nice.

The Great Northern Minnesota Adventure

One day, Carrie started talking all about this place in the US that you have to go through Canada to get to. I didn't think much about it till we decided to spend a weekend exploring the Northwest Angle and tossed our camping gear in the trunk and headed out of town on a Friday after work. You might ask yourself why we would spend HOURS in the car just to go to this unknown place called the Northwest Angle. And that's a valid question. Here's why. You have to drive through Canada just to get to a part of Minnesota. AND, it is the most northern point in the continental 48 states. Now, THAT'S pretty cool.

So, we drove about half way up on Friday night (4 hours that night) through a fantastic little town (Walker) where we had dinner and then headed out to find a camp site. We ended up on Cass lake.

Morning on Cass lake before we broke camp and headed for Canada/US/Canada/US.

On our way up to the border, we found this fantastic little hole in the wall in Gyrgla (don't worry, we had to ask how to pronounce it too). My toast was this delicious homemade wheat bread with a combo of whole wheat, coarse ground wheat, and rye. It was so good (and I'm so bad at making my own bread), I asked if I could buy a loaf. It came in handy later that day at a border crossing.

After the delicious breakfast and a few more hours of driving through beautiful scenery (where we saw a black bear cub run across the road right in front of us), we finally made it across the US into Manitoba, Canada.

This was the most unusual border crossing I'd been to. We had to CALL into the border patrol and pick which country we wanted to talk to based on whether we were going in or out of the Northwest angle.

And, this was what we found in the Northwest Angle.... fishing. Not surprising, we didn't have a boat or fishing licenses. So, we spent about 10 minutes up there and headed out.

But, when we got back to the MN/Manitoba border that we had crossed earlier, we found this.... markers showing the actual US/Canada border. Forget standing in two states, I stood in two countries.

And then we took a little run/frolic along the border because when do you actually get the chance to do that on an international border? Pretty much never. Carrie's awesome photography skills caught one of my heel clicks

The previous border crossing was fun, the next, not so much. I guess crossing an international border 4 times in less than 3 hours must throw up some red flags because they spent a good amount of time strip searching our car to see if we were trying to smuggle illegal items back into the US. They had a hard time believing that two girls would road trip up to the NW Angle just to see what was up there. That's where the loaf of bread came in handy. They commented on it and then we could tell the story of stopping in Gyrgla... breakfast... buying the loaf of bread. Plus, they didn't find anything illegal in the car. So, we got a fantastic reference for a place to eat in International Falls from one of the border guards.

Along the way to International Falls (often the coldest place in the continental 48 states), we found Wally the Walleye.

And we stopped in a National Park - Voyager's NP.

Ate dinner at Sha Sha's (a definite must if you are ever in International Falls)

And camped the night on the edge of Voyager's National Park.

Camp Shirts... finally!

I finally got the Stake Camp Director to approve the logo for the camp shirts. I know it isn't what you saw before, but she didn't like those and was still fighting for the scrolly, loopy, non-camp type writing. I finally won them over with this design. After much discussion, I had to convince them that I was designing the shirts for teenage girls, not middle-age women.

Now the fight is on for the color. I really want the girls to have the green t-shirts. The camp director doesn't like green. I love the green shirts. I don't want them in a red or blue or olive or yellow... and definitely NOT pink. My solution? I'm putting the Stake leaders in navy shirts with the same design and the male leaders in charcoal shirts with the same design. That way she can't say that she doesn't want to wear green. She won't have to.

An Answer to One of Life's Mysteries

The other day when Carrie and I were in Joann's after her hit & run (she was hit and the lady just drove off), Carrie spied some material that was ummm... well... not really our style. Denim with crabs embroidered on it. The curiosity, wondering who in the world would actually wear clothes made from that, was promptly forgotten when we left the store.

UNTIL...

I was eating BBQ in North Carolina with my brother Joe and a few friends when I spied this.

Lest you can't tell from the picture, the shorts are a dark navy with red CRABS embroidered on them. I guess fitting for an old lady in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

Now, one of life's mysteries (who would actually wear crabs clothes) is solved.