Day 120- On The Road Again (July 9)

There's not much to tell about July 9th. We drove. We drove 805km from Regina to Edmonton, Alberta. 805km seems like a really long drive, but that was the average length of the drives we would take. They were actually obscenely long. Seriously. Learn from my example and do not drive across any country. It's duller than dirt, especially in the prairies.

Day 119- Pretty Darn Flat (July 8)

How is it possible to drive through 3 states and 1 province and have them all be pretty much identical? Out of all the long, boring drives we drove, the distance between Rapid City, South Dakota, and Regina, Saskatchewan, was the most dull. It was just flat the whole way.
Although it was just flat, the dreariness was broken up by another family tradition-type pilgrimage. This time to Rouleau, Saskatchewan, where our favorite TV show, Corner Gas, was filmed. It's a show about a small town in Saskatchewan and the adventures of the local gas jockey, his parents, his assistant, his best friend, his possible love interest and the cops. It's pretty funny, I recommend it. Forever will my family be saying things like: "Y'all remember the time Hank got a fondue pot?" and "Y'all remember the time Oscar found a pair of pants in the ditch?" and the whole family will remember the entirety of that episode.
We walked around that tiny town like the tourists we were. The one thing I noticed was that everything seemed bigger on the show. I could span the width of the gas station with two arm-lengths. Heck, we even re-enacted scenes from the show. Like the time Hank was training to be a crossing guard. That was fun. It's going to be a treasured family moment for a long time.
I remember we had a conversation that mirrored the first conversation in the pilot episode.
"Sure is flat."
"How do you mean?"
"You know, flat, nothing to see."
"What, like, topographically?"

Day 118- What A Rush (July 7)

I made a beautiful double-meaning title. I am legit so proud of it.
Now, this double meaning is clever, due to the fact that when one is in South Dakota, one visits Mt. Rushmore. We were in South Dakota, so we went to see Mt. Rushmore.
Fascinating fact about Mt. Rushmore: you think that seeing a picture of it, or just driving by on the highway is enough. Not true. It's impossible to grasp just how big these heads are without walking by on the 'Presidential Trail' or whatever it's called. It takes you pretty close.
I know this blog is on the 'world-wide web', so it's available to everyone, and not everyone knows what Mt. Rushmore is. It's a real big mountain with the faces of four presidents carved into the side.
The other rush of which I spoke was the indoor water park at our hotel. (Literally THE BEST continental breakfast of the trip! It had things I didn't think existed. I had these spicy potatoes with sour cream and chives and cheese and salsa. There was all the regular breakfast stuff. Then, there were chocolate muffins with chocolate chips that crossed the line between muffin and cupcake. Heck, they had two types of cream cheese. I count my blessings when there's one type. Bless you, Residence Inn by Marriott, bless you.)
So, the indoor water park. I'm not extremely fond of indoor water parks because its closed in and kind of stuffy. You get used to it after a while, but you still feel gross for the first hour. One regularity I always notice with indoor water parks is that there's always a kiddie section with kiddie slides and a giant bucket overhead that tips over basically every 15 minutes and drenches anyone stupid enough to stand underneath it. (Me, for example) These sections are also limited to 100 pounds. Pfft. There was no way I wasn't going to go down the slide that crossed through a wall into the bar next door and had a clear portion for that part and do something rude. So I did. I was ignored.

Day 117- The Most Definite Largest Ball Of Twine In Minnesota (July 6)

The cool thing about Weird Al Yankovic is that he writes songs about actual places. Such as the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota, located in Darwin. Never heard of it? Neither did I, then I looked up exactly where in Minnesota the ball of twine Al sang about was. My family sees Weird Al as something of a tradition. We all know the words to most of his songs. We saw him in concert last year.
So, of course we had to make the pilgrimage to Darwin to see the ball of twine. It was just a shame we couldn't go into the gift shop or stay at the Twine Ball Inn, two locations mentioned in the song. We were too early and had to be on our way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKeHQpT5wVE
That's a link to the song of which I spoke.
The rest of the day was spent driving. We made a detour through the Badlands of South Dakota, just because you really have to see them in person. It was literally like driving through a sun-bleached Mars, it even had weird animals. We also stopped at Wall's Drug Store, famous throughout the billboards of South Dakota, for its 5-cent coffees and free ice water.
That's about it.

Day 116- The Electric Fetus (July 5)

I never knew what heaven looked like. Then, I walked through the doors of The Electric Fetus. In all honesty, it's kind of a stupid name, but it's heaven on Earth, so I don't complain.

The Electric Fetus introduced me to delights and wonders never before imagined. Here's the question: what am I talking about? Am I drunk or something? No. The Electric Fetus is a pretty famous record store, one of the personal favorites of Prince. Its selection is huge. They gave us a deal: buy a certain monetary amount of merchandise, and you get 5$ worth of free used records. This resulted in 12 records, 3CDs and a movie, not counting the fabric bag, the two guitar picks and the sticks that say "Electric Fetus". My purchase is as follows:
Records
"Space Oddity" by David Bowie
"The Man Who Sold The World" by David Bowie
"Aladdin Sane" by David Bowie
"Pin Ups" by David Bowie
"Pictures At Eleven" by Robert Plant
"Appetite For Destruction" by Guns N Roses
"Tug Of War" by Paul McCartney
"Ringo's Rotogravure" by Ringo Starr
"7800 Degrees Farenheit" by Bon Jovi
"The Rod Stewart Album" by Rod Stewart
"Blackout" by Scorpions
"Go For The Throat" by Humble Pie
CDs
"Heroes" by David Bowie
"Let's Dance" by David Bowie
"Black Crowes Live" by The Black Crowes

Although this visit only lasted an hour and a half (yes, I really do mean 'only', I could have spent a lot more time there) it spawned a new obsession: to find a copy of David Bowie's "Hunky Dory". While I was at The Electric Fetus, there might have been a CD copy of it, but I was pretty insistent on wanting it on record, so I'd have his first 5 albums on record. That was stupid, because I checked at least three other record stores after it, and there was no sign of "Hunky Dory" anywhere. Not on record, not even on CD. Nowhere.

The rest of that day, we went to the Mall of America, one of the biggest malls in North America. I had two personal landmarks there: my first time on an actual roller coaster and my first time buying fun socks. It was at a cute little shop called 'Sox Appeal'. I ended up getting three pairs of funky socks: one with birthday things on a black background, one with slices of pizza on a black background and one with little pink shrimps on a baby-blue background.

Day 115- Dozier Really Did Make An Amazing Catch (July 4)

I'm not really a baseball kind of gal, since there are literally no baseball teams within 17 hours from my house, and that's too darn far. But I love watching games in person. This was my second Minnesota Twins game, the first one being in Toronto a few years back. I had no baseball memorabilia at the first game, but this time, we went to the 'Twins Gear' store near our seats and Dad got a hat. He got it for himself, but let me wear it for the game. Once we got back to the hotel, it was pretty obvious that that hat was mine, and no one could stop me. I was the only one in my family cheering on the Twins and still defending them after the game, even though they lost 3-1 against the Oakland A's. They only really let the ball slide after the guy who should have been out in the 7th wasn't out. Stupid ref.
Now, my title is talking about Brian Dozier, who made an amazing catch, because he did. I have proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHSb-O8Doeg
I always like baseball games, they're so exciting. People yelling and such. And we had great seats, too. Mine was three sections up, right along the third base foul line. It was a great view.

Now, it being the fourth of July in USA, there were fireworks to be seen. If I had thought Ottawa was nutty, Minneapolis was... indescribable. There was a family leaving as we passed them, leaving a big area open on the side of the bridge. There was a constant stream of people moving both ways for a solid hour and a half. If I'm not mistaken, I believe that the Minneapolis fireworks display was the second best in the country, behind Seattle. I don't disagree.
Like Ottawa, everyone was going the same way to get out, so we formed a lineup again and walked through the throng until we were back at the hotel.

Day 114- Bacon-Flavored Cheese, My Prayers Have Been Answered (July 3)

So, I learned a fun fact about myself on this trip: when thinking about Michigan, I will inevitably say 'Minneapolis' or 'Minnesota' before arriving at the proper state. We drove through Michigan with no event. But Wisconsin, Wisconsin is where the Gods sit and think, "How can we make cheese even better?" then they do it. And they sell over-priced cubes of the most beautiful cheese in the world to unsuspecting tourists, such as myself.
Those Wisconsinites sold me bacon-flavored gouda. They are an evil, evil people. EVIL, I SAY! I mean, who flavors cheese with bacon, then doesn't make it available around the globe? (Shut up, you vegans. Those cows and pigs would beg to get parts of themselves made into bacon-flavored gouda.)
Now, if you happen to be curious as to who these mysterious people who make the bacon-flavored cheese are, a map in their headquarters says that their cheese is available in most parts of the US. These evil people are the family behind Marieke Gouda Store in Thorp, Wisconsin. If someone should go there because of this post, tell them I want more cheese and to send Katherine Thayer more cheese because I deserve cheese.
So, we drive through Wisconsin and end up in the middle of Minneapolis, one half of the Twin Cities. I must say, the hotel we stayed at has one of the most comfortable pull-out couches I've ever slept on. I'm not telling you where it was, because I don't get paid to. I only did it for the cheese store because then, there might be the chance for free cheese.
I like cheese.

Day 113- I Guess It Was A Pretty Big Nickel (July 2)

We left Avril and Maureen's house on the 2nd, en route for Sault Ste. Marie, with a pit stop in Sudbury. (For all the people who don't know, these are both locations in Ontario)
Most of how our trip went was that we'd have a day of driving and a day for stopping and relaxing and having fun in the town. Dad had every detail planned in a giant binder, from what we were going to do, to where we were going to eat. Most of the restaurants were featured on Food Network shows.
Some might argue that Saskatchewan is far more boring to drive through than Ontario. I beg to differ. Ontario is just trees. Big, tall pine trees that line the highway. Saskatchewan is cool, because it's so flat and colorful. All the fields I saw were really bright yellow, and you could see as far as the Earth went.
Sudbury isn't really different than any other po-dunk town we've driven through. But it had a nickel. I was talking with a buddy who used to live in Sudbury before the trip what we should do there. "Well, you gotta see the big nickel!" Yeah, okay, it's a big nickle. Okay, it's a really big nickel. What else you got? Nothing. They got nothing.

The above GIF is actual footage I took of the big nickle next to a regular-sized Canadian nickel.

Sault Ste. Marie. (Sou Saint Marie) There's a fun little town. I'm not being sarcastic. Well, a little. It was a stop-over town. We were there to eat and sleep. And it's not really the town's fault that the street where we needed to be was closed to all vehicular traffic. (Kind of, but it isn't... nah, it's totally their fault. 100%.)

Day 112- Bada-Bing, Bada-Boom (July 1)

I've never had a chance to use that expression before, but it makes sense in relation to the rest of this post.
For all you people who just don't know, July 1st is Canada Day, the day Canada was formed and the day the city of Ottawa is an absolute zoo from morning to well past midnight.
July 1st, my family was staying with Avril and Maureen's family (you remember Maureen, the girl who's given me reason to question my life. Great gal). One of our traditions with the two of them is to go to the most epic of the three playgrounds near their house and play "Grounders", a complicated game where someone always ends up jealous that I never get tagged.
Last year, while we were playing on that same equipment when it started to rain. It wasn't too hard, just a bit of a drizzle, so we decided to go to the playground that had a sort-of shelter on some parts of it. Coincidentally, this playground was also the farthest from their house. Within minutes, there was a torrential downpour going on, and we decided the sort-of shelters weren't going to cover it. We made a mad dash across the soccer field between the playground and the house. We came to the door all soaked through to the skin.
This year, however, we didn't get caught in the rain. We decided to go out and explore the suburbs of Ottawa and its many playgrounds and frat parties in backyards. (Ever seen a Canadian flag tied to a hockey stick sticking out of the back of a pickup truck, being held down by a carton of Molsons? You won't unless you see a backyard Canadian frat party)
So, we're a long way from any shelter, with at least 2km of newly constructed suburbs between us and the house. Somehow, through sheer Canadian determination and grit, Avril and Maureen lead us back to their house. We find, once we get there, that our dad has gone out looking for us so that a repeat of last year doesn't occur. Literally 5 minutes after we enter the house, there is a thunder storm happening, identical to last year's.
We spend the next few hours in the basement, before it starts getting dark outside. We had planned to take a bus from the nearest stop with parking to downtown, right in front of the parliament buildings. It was 8 o'clock and there was thunder able to be heard through video I took of what we were doing instead of going to see fireworks.
The great thing about weather, however, is that it's never consistent. The rain sort of stopped with enough time for us to catch a bus downtown. I thought it was crazy, and there wasn't even half as many people as there would have been, had the weather been nice. At 10:30, the fireworks started. They lasted for precisely 15 minutes. I would know, I filmed them all for the movie I was planning on making of the whole trip. If all the GIF-making websites weren't such weenies about video size, I'd be making a GIF of a few seconds of them, but they are, so I can't.
Everyone retreated as fast as they could to the lineup of buses on the street as soon as they were over, including us. See, as travelers, we go to a lot of big cities, and Melanie has small, slow legs. We've developed a system so as to not get lost, keep a hold of two other peoples' hands, unless you're at the front or back of the line, even if the hands get sweaty. This system proved to be extremely useful both in this situation and many that followed this month.  

Day 111- A Buttload Of Driving

Hey, y'all! I'm back! I am officially a month behind on posts, but I kept track of everything that happened, so you will get to know what I did during the past month. I'm going to start where I left off, back on June 30. Hope I don't screw this up too badly.


First off, (you're gonna laugh at this) I wasn't really lacking wi-fi. I went on a month-long vacation with my family and came back last Sunday. I actually had wi-fi every night of the trip and could have posted every day. The funny part is this: the day before we got back, there was a really big storm. Not big enough to cause massive damage to our house, but the house got hit by lightning, frying most of our electronic devices (like our router). I told you that we were out of wi-fi so I couldn't be stalked by stalkers or anything like that. Then, we actually lost our wi-fi and needed to get a guy in to fix it. Hilarious, isn't it?

Now, on June 30, there wasn't much excitement. We drove 14 hours to get to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, where we were going to visit old friends, Avril and Maureen. These are friends that we haven't seen in a long while, almost a year. We were all pretty bushed from being in the van for 14 hours. Take that into account; 4 kids, all under 15, and we didn't kill each other. The fact that there were movies playing the whole time probably helped, but, still.

These friends of ours, we've known each other since we were in diapers. We once watched old home movies with them, and they were there on my second birthday. That's why I have a problem. Maureen, the younger of the two sisters, she...

...she's like a sister to me. But the sight of her makes my breath hitch. She's beautiful.

Jeez, even admitting it to a screen is making me question my whole life.