I’m still in my hotel in Chicago. There is a huge thunderstorm outside. It has knocked out the tv reception. I can’t get on the internet, except through my cell phone, which has pretty limited capability. The only dvd I brought with me that I can watch on my laptop is Pirates of the Caribbean I, which even I don’t think I can sit through again right now.

Two weeks ago, my husband and I took a week off from work. Since it was the week of July 4th, and both our offices are closed that day, we each only had to take 4 vacation days.

Saturday June 30, we went swimming at Long Lake, near our house , for the first time all summer!

Sunday, July 1, we went mini golfing.

Monday, July 2, we drove to the World’s Largest Ball of Twine, in Darwin, Minnesota.
It seems like every time we drive to Green Bay, we listen to the Weird Al album in which he sings about the family taking a driving vacation to the “Largest Ball of Twine in Minnesota.” It seemed fitting that we should drive to it, it’s less than a 90 minute drive from our house, and listen to the album with that song on it, along the way. So on our way, we searched through the Weird Al CD’s we had brought, only to notice we had not brought the right one!

My husband and I enjoyed walking down the main street of Darwin, Minnesota , which is clearly a very agricultural area. The ball of twine itself is about 10 to 12 feet tall, encased in a glass-walled gazebo, on the lawn of a house. The house has a sign on it saying it is also a museum…but it was closed when we got there. Who knew you should call ahead to check when the ball of twine museum is open? A hand-made sign explained that if you wanted ball of twine souvenirs , we should walk a block to the Twine Ball antiques store. We found the antiques store that must be the last place on earth that accepts hand written checks, but not check debit cards. So we spent the last of our cash on a postcards, a Frisbee with a drawing of the twine ball on it, a little twine ball desk toy, and my Ball of Twine bumper sticker which is on my car right now. We then went to a BP convenience store about 2 blocks away to find an ATM…but they didn’t have an ATM, and weren’t sure where there was one. Instead, they had a sink full of minnows for bait, and a mesh scoop.

Rather than try to get cash in Darwin and see if the Twine Ball in was actually in operation, it looked deserted to me, we drove on. We drove north to Alexandria to see the Kensington Runestone and its museum. Its supporters insist that Vikings sailed down a tributary from Lake Superior and carved a note in stone, in Nordic Runes, 100 years before Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain. Detractors insist University of Minnesota students 100 years ago had more time on their hands, a much better sense of humor than they do now, and were proficient in Nordic Runes.

But the museum, which is also the Douglas County history museum also had an old fashioned frontier town on its grounds, or should I say, in its fenced back yard. So the kids enjoyed running in and out of the one room schoolhouse with its rows of attached desks, the frontier church, old fashioned log cabin, and other buildings.

That night, we attended a party at our friend, Andrea’s house. Every year, holds a Fourth of July party, so we can all watch the fireworks over downtown Minneapolis, from the balcony of her condo. But this year she had something to do that night, so she held a Third of July party.

We stayed home and cleaned house on the Fourth of July, but that night the kids and I went to a public park in the suburb of Roseville to watch fireworks. My husband took that time to take the cat to a friend’s house, as we would be gone for the next several days. We’ve been watching a friend’s cat while he’s in the hospital, but another friend of ours agreed to watch the cat while we left town.

Thursday, July 5, my husband took the dog to the expensive doggy hotel, and the 4 of us drove to Madison, Wisconsin, to visit my friend Debi. She’s been there for two years, and has visited me several times, and I’ve never visited her once! The kids enjoyed checking in to a hotel in Madison, Debi met us there, and we all visited the University of Wisconsin Madison campus. I loved sitting on the “terrace” of the student union, for dinner that night, and watching all the sailboats on Lake Mendota. I’d never been there before. Afterwards, we all drive to Debi’s house. She let the kids watch cartoon dvd’s in her bedroom while she and my husband and I sat in the living room of her apartment and talked until late that night.

Friday, July 6 we got lost driving out of Madison and ended up passing endless cornfields before we finally found our way to Cave of the Mound in Mount Horab, WI. We took a one hour tour of a cave, there. Then stopped by the gift shop of another nearby tourist attraction called Little Norway. We’d spent enough time and money at the cave, and my children were impatient to drive the rest of the way to their grandma’s house in Green Bay.

We spent the night sleeping in my in-laws’ basement with the usual sleeping arrangement we have there. My husband and I get the double bed, which has become increasingly cramped over the years as we’ve both put on weight. My son sleeps at a mattress on the floor at the foot of the bed, and my daughter sleeps on a fold out bed a few yards away.

Saturday, July 6, we all dressed up and watched my husband’s youngest sister’s baby boy’s Catholic baptism. She had named my husband the baby’s godfather, so he was involved in the church service. Afterwards, his sister hosted a dinner at her house.

I was glad when we drove home the next day.

But Monday morning, July 8, it’s a good thing I still scheduled a ½ day off. My 13 year old daughter had an 8 am orthodontist appointment. I had to pick our dog up from doggy hotel way out where I couldn’t find it, and, by then, make lunch for the kids, before finally driving back for an entire half day of work.

And that was how I spent my summer vacation.

The storm has quieted down a little bit. There really is nothing but crime on this tv. I might actually have to just go to bed.

Note, after I wrote all that last night, I still couldn't sleep. So I watched Priates I AGAIN, but this time I watched it with Kiera Knightly's and Jack Davenport's commentary on, for the first time. They were pretty funny!

Hi, I’m here in Chicago right now, on one of my two double beds, watching a crime show. I don’t even like crime shows, but that’s all this hotel seems to get.


I flew Monday, met with the client Tuesday and today. I was so happy when they said today’s meeting resolved all their questions they had from me, and I would not have to stay tomorrow 1/2 Friday morning, as planned.

This evening my co worker and I went walking, to look for someplace for dinner, and noticed picketers outside the hotel. So we stopped and asked them what the strike was for. They said that the Congress Plaza hotel where we were staying offered no benefits, paid employees $5 less than comparable hotels did, and had a several-years’ wage freeze on them. They must just hold their picket line not very often, because I’ve been here 3 days and this is the first I’ve seen of it.

Last weekend, my husband and two kids and I went camping. We had to buy a tent. We’d never camped before and didn’t have one! Friday night we joined some of my husband’s friends, many of them families with children, at a group camp ground near Rogers, MN. This same group gets has this camping trip once every summer. We met several of them in college, back when they all used to play Dungeons and Dragons board games. Now that’s grown in to writing and play acting their own RPG’s.

Our kids hung out at a camp fire and ate hot dogs while we played along with the gamers. Paul has played this with them before, but it was my first time. The team who put this game together created a “train” by lining up picnic tables and screened tents, and assigned everyone roles as passengers or employees on the train. I was the porter. I agreed to play, thinking they all sit around board games and roll dice, not expecting the “How to Host a Murder” experience , and also not expecting it to go past midnight. I have to admit I didn’t do much, unless one of the game moderators came over to me with a suggestion, like “here’s where you ask anyone if they’ve lost any luggage,” or “here’s where you invite everyone to a party in the dining car.” Occasionally one or both of my kids would follow along behind me and ask when are we going home.

We drove home at midnight, because the game was still going on, and I didn’t want our 13 year old daughter to be too tired for her fencing lesson in the morning. Too late. She woke up sobbing when we told her it was time to wake up on Saturday morning, so we let her miss class anyway.

Saturday we bought a tent, groceries, packed up the sleeping bags, blankets, pillows, and dog. We both drive Saturn sedans, so we had to take both cars just to take all the people and stuff, and buy a tent at Gander Mountain on the way.

We almost got a divorce just trying to follow the tent set up instructions, but the children enjoyed going inside it when we were done. We let out 8 year old son bring his gameboy which attracted other boys about his age who wanted to watch over his shoulder and take turns with him.


Other people are gourmet camp fire chefs! Our hot dogs looked pretty bad next to the elaborate stews and steaks other people cooked!

I swore I wouldn’t play that night’s game, but they started complaining that they didn’t have enough people to play all the parts , so I changed my mind. The theme was that the Earth had established a colony on the moon, and I was the teen aged secret inventor of an addictive, intoxicating drug, in chewing gum form. Children as young as apparently about 8 played, but neither of my children were interested. I was happy to see one couple I went to college with, their 12 year old autistic son played!

I think I was a lot more realistic about what to expect this time, so I played along a lot better, played all the way to the end, and attended the camp fire rap up meeting afterwards.

We came back to our tent to find both our children already asleep on opposite sides of our tent. There was just enough room in our tent for the 4 of us to lay side by side, with our dog sleeping at our feet.

My husband played volley ball with everyone the next day. I didn’t. I got my son and some of the children to play a game I only recently heard called “Texas Horse Shoes”, in which players have a small rope with a golf ball at each end, and have to throw it so that it lands on one of three bars of an upright goal post. My in laws gave it to us for Christmas, so we had brought it with us.

Well I’ll be glad to be able to go home tomorrow. I’m going to take the “train” to the airport. There’s an elevated train stop just a few blocks from here, and it goes all the way to Midway airport, so I’ll be riding it like a native, tomorrow morning!

I never was able to get on the “free wi fi” Chicago is supposed to have, so I was never able to connect to the internet from my room. I could connect fine, from the client’s office. But I’m writing this on Microsoft word , and will have to past it in to blogger, when I can get on the internet some time. There is a thunderstorm now, and it has disabled the cable or satellite tv I was watching. I got to watch Martin Short get caught as a murderer by Ice Tea, on Law and Order, but I’ll never know the end of the National Geographic special about murderous jailed white supremists.