My Summer Vacation

We finally had a real summer vacation, the first real vacation since we had kids. We were gone for a week and a day - getting back yesterday - to Minnesota. Our itinerary:

Saturday: Travel
Sunday: The Science Museum
Monday and Tuesday: Valley Fair
Wednesday: Pilgrimage to IKEA
Thursday: Minnesota Zoo, shopping
Friday: Mystery Cave, shopping
Saturday: Travel

The first day was stressful. We got a late start and Rob noticed that there were cracks in a tire when he was filling up. So we pulled into Cdn Tire and asked about it and found out that 3/4 tires were not really fit to drive on. So we resigned ourselves to waiting about another couple of hours while getting new tires. The staff, meanwhile, resigned themselves to fooling around, disappearing and chatting so as to take almost an extra 4 hours out of our day. A manager later left a message on our machine asking about our experience. He will get an earful.

When we pulled into Roseville MN it was after 1:00 am. We discovered that the hotel we had booked at was a dive. Peeling paint, no towel rack, no signal for the advertised wireless access, no coffee pot or basket for the coffee maker, stains on the hallway walls, our feet were sticking to the damp carpet, and as for comfort, well, as Rob so eloquently put it, "I've seen maxi pads that were thicker than those pillows." So in the middle of the night I was on the phone with the customer service agent finding something, anything, in the area that was not already booked up. She did find us another room which we moved to the next day, which was much better.

It was interesting to notice the different cultural mix just 8 hours south. Both MN and MB are multi-cultural societies, but the mix is different. Of course both have many caucasian people, but I find that in Winnipeg I am more likely to meet First Nations and Asian people on a daily basis, while in MN there are many spanish-speaking and African-Americans. What I loved about this: a wealth of Mexican restaurants, which is one of our favourite cuisines.

Everything we went to was tons of fun. The kids had a blast and were surprisingly adaptable to the pace and changes of vacation. Taryn went on every roller coaster and thrill ride at Valley Fair she could and Ashlin was ticked off that she couldn't because of height restrictions. I popped a Tylenol with Codeine every day and survived the stresses quite well.

Stopped by a Lane Bryant store on Friday night which advertises itself for curvy women. Had to put that one to the test. It seems that the company has introduced a new line of jeans. They researched their own customers' bodies (I couldn't think of a better way to say that) and came up with jeans that are designed to fit different builds. In other words, a manufacturer finally figured out that customers might buy more clothes if the clothes actually fit them. Amazing, isn't it. I did try their jeans - I'm a "blue fit" and they were perfect. I bought 2 pairs. The clerk said they are flying off the shelves. Yet most manufacturers seem to still be making clothes that only look good on Kate Moss. For a society so obsessed with making money they really miss some obvious ones.

The trip back was a repeat of the trip there. We got a late start after experiencing a scary what-if-this-turns-into-a-tornado kind of storm the night before. When we finally got on the I-94 to head home we encountered a massive traffic jam where we were just inching forward. We finally detoured around it, but it set us back enough that we arrived home after midnight.

I feel incredibly relaxed after the trip and am contemplating ways to keep this feeling into real life.