Manda Visit! Yay!
12/31/09 - 6:31 pm
Just got on the train and am on my way to Saint Cloud. Me thinks it will be a very long 6 hours
8:35 pm
Still on the train. And we are stuck in train traffic. Just outside of Winona, MN - not anywhere near the Cities and we are stuck in traffic. Go figure.
10:54 pm
Made it to Minneapolis/Saint Paul. No traffic, but we are stuck here for another 20 minutes or so for train maintenance. Full house tonight, too, all seats taken.
11:51 pm
Still on the train. Trying not to fall asleep. Are we there yet?
01/01/10 - 12:17 am
Happy New Year! Still on the train.
12:30(ish) am
OMG, FINALLY! I never thought I'd actually be relieved to see Saint Cloud again. Also, I am hungry... Nothing but beef jerky and water the last 10 hours or so.
1:30(ish) am
At Manda's! Yay! And thanks to a stop at a 24 hour grocery store, I have food. Mmm, turkey and cheese sandwich.
2:02 am (I think)
Popped in Dead Man's Chest. No way will we be able to watch it all the way through.
2:30(ish) am
Yeah, going to bed now.
2:40(ish) am
... or at least I would be if Manda's couch wasn't trying to eat me. Should be an interesting night... or morning, whatever.
7:16 am
Managed to sleep at least long enough to have a weird dream I don't remember at all. Also, called parents to let them know I arrived in one piece.
Couch's valiant attempts to eat me throughout the night thwarted by multiple pillow-and-cushion rearrangements. Bwahaha, I have conquered the big red beast!
... Okay, so the sleep deprivation might be making me the tiniest bit loopy.
9:15 (ish) am
Managed to doze a bit more after calling parents. Manda is up now and we are eating breakfast. Mmm, oatmeal. Next on the agenda - watch the rest of Dead Man's Chest.
1:30 (ish) pm
Hit the same 24 hour grocery store for supplies and more movies. Sandwich fixings, juice, and lots of munchies on the menu for the next few days. Speaking of - I have just tried crab salad (or, well, imitation crab salad?) for the first time ever. It is quite good.
I have a chai latte from Carribiou (only spelled right) Coffee. Aside from the given (friends), this might be the only other thing I miss about Saint Cloud.
Finished Dead Man's Chest; now we are onto At World's End. Yay PotC!
3:30ish pm
Wow, I forgot how long this movie is.
6:23 pm
Went to Manda's parents to feed the horse and meet the family. Lil Brother is cool; Mother is slightly obsessed with keeping her kitchen table scratch free; Father seems nice, too, and apparently is very sciency.
8:47 pm
Just finished watching the movie Knowing. I was hoping for another run-of-the-mill disaster movie. I did not get it. No shortage of disasters, but there was also a lot of creepiness and a general feeling of hopelessness and depression. I will admit, it was intriguing, but I highly doubt I'll ever watch it again.
9:20 pm
Dinner of crackers and cheese and Night at the Museum (aka, fluff!) to end the night! Manda has never seen either of the Night at the Museum movies, so I figure it's a good way to dispel the lingering gloom of Knowning (seriously - if I don't have some depressing and/or messed up dreams tonight because of that movie, I am going to be very surprised)
01/02/10
Today we started with breakfast at Perkins and then it was off to Coon Rapids to see Melissa, who I haven't seen since I left Saint Cloud more than 3 years ago. There was a bit of a mix up in the directions she gave me (which told us to go left on one street when we were really supposed to be going right), but we made it there without too much difficulty. She and her hubby have got themselves a very nice house which is currently full of several foster cats that she is looking after until they can find a proper home. We jabbered a bit, played with the kitties and her chihuahua puppy, and then we piled into Melissa's car and made off for The Cities with the help of her rather spiffy Tom Tom GPS device.
First stop was a shopping district/square kind of place near where her hubby works. Can't remember what it was called - Northwest-something maybe? - but it consisted of several buildings with several shopping/department stores/little delis or grills each, all connected by enclosed skyways (aka, walkways), which came in incredibly nice because the temperature this morning when we got up was a whopping -15 degrees Fahrenheit, with wind chills somewhere down around the -35 mark, so being able to stay inside was quite nice. First stop was some fashion clothing store nearby the ramp where we had parked the car. They had some really cool shirts, but they were insanely expensive (around 75$ bucks each) so we didn't get anything there.
Next stop was Macy's, where Melissa made us all try on a bunch of dresses. None of the ones I tried were all that flattering on me, but it was fun and we got some cute pictures. After the dresses she made for the hat department, where we also took a bunch of goofy pictures. The whole experience might be the girliest thing I've ever done, but it was fun in its own way.
After that we went in search of food and got totally lost in the process. Not sure if we were looking for the car or just wandering aimlessly - maybe a bit of both, hence the 'being lost' thing - but did eventually find our way back to where we came in. Alas, we did not find any promising food, so we decided to start the drive to the Science Museum and see if we couldn't spot anything on the way. Took us a bit longer to find the car (none of us could remember which ramp we had parked on, and we ended up trying three or four floors before we finally found it. If Melissa hadn't been pushing the alarm button so we could hear where it was, we might've ended up trying *all* of the floors before we got there - as it was, we pretty much followed the noise for two or three levels after we got tired of zipping down in the elevator), but we found the Science Museum easily enough with the help of the GPS. We did not, however, find any food. You'd think there would be more restaurants between Minneapolis and Saint Paul, but apparently not.
Ended up parking a bit farther away from the Museum than any of us though and had to walk about a half a mile in the cold to get back there, but we made it with noses and ears intact. Again it was a search for food when we got there, but all that was still open was the little coffee/donut place right near the entrance. Not the best selection, but they did have fudge and Caribou Coffee, so not a total loss. I had to wait 20 minutes for my damn soft pretzel, but at I did get a free hot chocolate out of the deal.
We had bought tickets for the Titanic exhibit at 5:15 pm, so that is where we headed next. It was extremely impressive, but by this time we had pretty much been either driving or on our feet for almost 7 hours straight, so it lost some of its awesomeness in the haze of tiredness and sore feet. It was still incredibly cool, though - I especially liked the quotes and the stories that were posted all over from some of the passengers, and I *really* liked the huge chunk of ice on display to show people what the water temperature was like for the passengers who survived the sinking of the ship only to die of exposure and the bitterly cold water they were left in. It was also featured on Ghost Hunters as a location where one of them had a pretty damned cool experience.
After the Titanic exhibit, we kind of wandered aimlessly through whatever parts of the museum had the most interest for us. Manda went for the microscopes, Melissa the human body sort of stuff, and I went down to the weather corner and the dinosaur bones. I had vague memories of all of these things, but I don't think I had been in that particular area since I was around 7 or 8 years old, and everything looked a lot bigger. It was still incredibly cool, though.
We finally headed back to Melissa's house around 8:00 pm. Didn't see the entire museum, but again, all of us were pretty darned tired at this point and we had seen the Titanic exhibit, which was the biggest draw. Next time I come, we'll just have to set aside an entire afternoon for the museum instead of just a few hours - there is just too darned much to see. Also, Melissa needed to get her car back home by 9:00 so her hubby could get to work on time. We hit McDonald's on the way back, and then Manda and I headed back to Saint Cloud and proceeded to crash by about 11. It was a loooooooooooooooong day, but it was still awesome.
01/03/10 - 8:30ish am
Did not sleep very well - couldn't seem to get comfortable, and I kept waking up every few hours for no reason I could determine. Had a dream about being in a bus with Melissa, Manda, and other random dream people (possibly my parents?) and there were literally hundreds of tornadoes snaking down from the sky every where we looked. It atmosphere very much qualified as "dark and stormy", but instead of freaking out and being afraid, all of us were running around from one side of the bus to the other trying to take pictures. In fact, when I woke up, I wasn't the least bit scared and instead was kinda bummed that all of the awesome pictures I took during the dream were not, in fact, real except in my head. Sadness.
11:47 am
Manda went to her parents house to feed her horse and to ask her dad to fix her burned out headlight. I opted to stay here at the apartment when the weather channel informed me that it was currently -17 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Some sort of football pre-game show is on the TV right now, though I'm not really paying attention to it. I'm actually not even sure which teams it is a pre-game for, but hey, its football! Nice and mindless background noise that doesn't even require me to pay attention.
12:34 pm
Sweet! 3rd Rock from the Sun is on!
8:19 pm
The rest of the day consisted of doing a bit of shopping and then hitting Red Lobster for an early dinner around 4:00. Manda had never been there before and was duly impressed. We ate too much and now we have leftovers for tomorrow.
Just finished watching Night at the Museum 2 - Battle of the Smithsonian, which is still lots of fun even with the two or three parts that are kind of irritating.
Also, Manda is bouncing balls on her head. Apparently she really likes them.
8:31 pm
Now we're onto the movie August Rush. Looks (and sounds) pretty good so far.
10:17 pm
Yes indeed... That was pretty damned impressive.
01/04/10 - 6:43 pm
Started the day with a movie called Believe In Me about a 1964/1965 Oklahoma women's basketball team, then we wandered to the Saint Cloud library for an hour or so. The plan was to try and get on the internet, but surprisingly the place was pretty busy and we couldn't get a computer with internet access without quite a bit of a wait, so no internet for Maren. Or Manda. Not too crushed, though - I'm mostly just worried about weather or not UWSP sent me a doctors bill yet for the twisted ankle I had beginning of December (which, by the way, is still healing and hurts like a SOB whenever I over extend it), and since UWSP is a paperless campus, such a bill would be sent via email rather than snail mail, so yeah, no idea if I owe them money or not until I get back online. Otherwise, I've survived almost a week without internet! Who'da thunk it was possible for an internet junkie like me. :)
Anyway, after the library we hit Target so I could get some munchies and a birthday present for Manda's little brother, whom is turning 8 years old tomorrow. Also, I know for a fact that the present I got him (a "Cosmic Robot" according to the box, which talks, spins, and walks) will drive their mother - who really does kind of deserve it - totally nuts. I know, I am so mean.
Went to Arby's for lunch, and then we went to Manda's parents house to give lil' bro his presents and to kinda chill (literally - high today might've gotten above zero, but only just) for a little bit. Manda fed and watered her horse and then the three of us played a totally non-regulation game of soccer for a half our or so out behind their barn.
Headed back to the apartment around 3:30ish, where I proceeded to make Manda watch Labyrinth because she had never seen it before. David Bowie in tights remains terrifying, but I still love that movie. Manda didn't know what to think of it, but considering how twisted (and yet fun) the movie is, I really can't blame her.
Manda is off doing some class thingy now, and I was going to see if there was a new Castle on, but sadly, it does not appear that Manda has a channel for ABC. That's okay, though, cause I am less than 24 hours away from having internet access again and after email and stuff, I am totally hitting Hulu like a mad hitting thing.
That said, the train supposedly leaves at 5:15 tomorrow morning. Ick.
01/05/10 - 4:20 am
Time to get up. Don't wanna
5:51 am - finally on the train. Was supposed to leave at 5:15, but it was running about a half hour late. Conductor at the Saint Cloud station was telling us that we are lucky to be traveling today - most of the trains running tomorrow and Thursday have been canceled because of the issues they've been having with the extreme cold (one train was running 3 hours late when I left on Thursday night).
7:01 am - just getting into Minneapolis/Saint Paul area. Running about 45 minutes late now. Texted dad to let him know the situation; he think we shouldn't have too much trouble making up the time between here and Tomah, so hopefully there won't be any additional hours on the train.
9:51 am - following along the Mississippi River. The scenery is much prettier when you can actually see it. Also, anytime we run ride by a good stretch of open water,, there are a whole bunch of bald eagles trying to get in some fishing. I did get a few pictures, but they look more like fizzy black dots than large birds of pray. :)
10:31 am - Just pulling out of station in Winona MN. Haven't seen any eagles for awhile, but I have seen several eagle nests scattered here and there along the river. Again, the ride is much more enjoyable when you can actually see the scenery.
10:36 am - Just got a call from Dad. According to the automated schedule lady, our train is still pretty much on time, give or take 15 minutes. Hurrah, only an hour or so left!
10:47 am - Hey, cool! I just saw a fox running across the frozen river! On an entirely different note, my left ear is rather sore from wearing my MP3 player ear buds for the last five hours. Ow, stupid ear buds... ::grumbles::
11:45 am - In Tomah! Almost on time, too, so koodos to the train driver. Dad and bro picked me up, and now we are on our way home.
2:00ish pm - At parents house. YAY FOR HAVING INTERNET ACCESS AGAIN! Summary now, pictures later I hope. Happy (Belated) New Year everyone!
Next on the agenda - take a nap Clean off my bed and *then* take a nap. Sleep deprivation for the lose, but four whole days with Manda - TOTALLY WIN! It was fun, and I hope to do it again now that I know the train has a regular schedule. Next time, though, I'm going to shoot for a time when the Midwest isn't in a deep freeze.