St. Cloud State trip
Back from our day-and-a-half trip.
Decided to come home a day earlier than we had planned because the daughter of one of the friends we were visiting was having a baby. Apparently she'd been in the hospital for a few days and they we're trying to induce labor because all her amniotic fluid was gone. Last we heard the inducing had finally taken effect and mom and baby were doing well, but we thought it best to leave the family to family things. We did stay over night, and the visit itself was a lot of fun - if a cut a bit short. We had very very yummy home made pizza last night for dinner and then fresh baked sweet rolls for breakfast this morning, and it was very good.
St. Cloud has a friggin' *huge* campus. Like, twenty or thirty buildings (a far cry from the three we have here). We got a bit lost at one point, and parking was a bitch and it was cold and wet and rainy while we were walking the block and a half or so between the parking lot and the Atwood Center where Transfer Advisory Days were taking place (as well as another block or so between Atwood and the Science/Math building where I was supposed to get my advising). The advising itself, however, was very informative and the advisor I got seemed to know what he was talking about. He told me the three classes he thought I absolutly should take in the fall and made a few suggestions to fill in the rest of the credits to become a full time student. I also learned that going into Geology as a minor would be a really really good idea because the market is pretty much wide open. This made Maren very happy as she had originally been considering a Geology major, but I decided to change it because I doubted there would be much of a job market for a geologists once I finished. So, not only did the trip cement my major in Meteorology, but it also offered me an excellent minor in Geology. YAY for Transfer Advising Days!
After St. Cloud we went up to Duluth to visit the aforementioned friends. That was an adventure in and of itself. We got to the city and promptly got lost thanks to Map Quest's oh-so-informative directions, but Dad had done some studying of the area and had located the general area of Kim and Lu-Ann's using topography maps, so he managed to get us pointed in the right direction. They were situated right at the top of a hill and had an *awesome* view of Duluth and Lake Superior (the best vintage point of which ended up being from the room I was sleeping in. It was way cool to see the boats floating on the harbor and then seeing the rest of the city lit up at night). And there was pizza. And lots of talking. And it was very very good.
This morning we hung around there a bit longer. Both Kim and Luann had to work at 9 and 10, but we did get an hour or so in with them (if only because we were all up by 7:30 anyway) before we all headed off in separate directions. Kim to work (in a used book store, which we visited), Mary to the hospital to check on her daughter, and Mary's daughter Sorrel to get the the baby's shower set up at their church (yes, the yet as then unborn baby. I'm not sure how they had planned on working that out). Next stop we visited the bookstore Kim worked at (they had the Gospel of Judas in hardback. I was very tempted to buy it, but I resisted) before she pointed us to the fresh water aquarium that Duluth supported (The Great Lake's Aquarium). Wheee, aquarium! There were lots and lots of fresh water fish in big honkin' aquariums and they even had a little corner wired off for live freshwater birds! (which had all been found injured in some way, shape or form that prevented them from going back into the wild). And they had river otters! Omigod, they were so *cute*! And quite a bit bigger than I had pictured them to be (I've only ever seen them from a distance). Also? I got to pet a live freshwater stingray! I got a sticker and everything! I didn't even know there *was* a such thing as a freshwater stingray (who, by the way, have rougher skin than I would have thought). I think dad got a picture of it, but he hasn't downloaded them on to his computer yet so I can't show you.
We headed across the lake and back home after that, stopping at a little family restaurant for lunch around 1:00 which had *the* best cheesecake I have ever tasted. Then it was lots and lots of driving back home, stopping at the occasional rest stop for potty breaks and munchie fixes along the way. I listened to almost my entire music list on my mp3 player (which currently has about 8 or 9 albums worth of songs uploaded onto it) and slept a lot seeing as I didn't get much last night. The round trip was about 400 some miles, and it was so incredibly nice to get *AWAY* from Marshfield and the YMCA's reach for a few days.
YAY road trips! Even if it did only last two days. ;) I hope we can do it again sometime when we have more time to spend with our friends and, like, they don't have a child going into labor. ;)
And no, I didn't get any of my homework done. Didn't want to risk reading in the car and getting carsick (or at least thats the excuse I'm using). Good thing we came home a day early, yes? ;)
Decided to come home a day earlier than we had planned because the daughter of one of the friends we were visiting was having a baby. Apparently she'd been in the hospital for a few days and they we're trying to induce labor because all her amniotic fluid was gone. Last we heard the inducing had finally taken effect and mom and baby were doing well, but we thought it best to leave the family to family things. We did stay over night, and the visit itself was a lot of fun - if a cut a bit short. We had very very yummy home made pizza last night for dinner and then fresh baked sweet rolls for breakfast this morning, and it was very good.
St. Cloud has a friggin' *huge* campus. Like, twenty or thirty buildings (a far cry from the three we have here). We got a bit lost at one point, and parking was a bitch and it was cold and wet and rainy while we were walking the block and a half or so between the parking lot and the Atwood Center where Transfer Advisory Days were taking place (as well as another block or so between Atwood and the Science/Math building where I was supposed to get my advising). The advising itself, however, was very informative and the advisor I got seemed to know what he was talking about. He told me the three classes he thought I absolutly should take in the fall and made a few suggestions to fill in the rest of the credits to become a full time student. I also learned that going into Geology as a minor would be a really really good idea because the market is pretty much wide open. This made Maren very happy as she had originally been considering a Geology major, but I decided to change it because I doubted there would be much of a job market for a geologists once I finished. So, not only did the trip cement my major in Meteorology, but it also offered me an excellent minor in Geology. YAY for Transfer Advising Days!
After St. Cloud we went up to Duluth to visit the aforementioned friends. That was an adventure in and of itself. We got to the city and promptly got lost thanks to Map Quest's oh-so-informative directions, but Dad had done some studying of the area and had located the general area of Kim and Lu-Ann's using topography maps, so he managed to get us pointed in the right direction. They were situated right at the top of a hill and had an *awesome* view of Duluth and Lake Superior (the best vintage point of which ended up being from the room I was sleeping in. It was way cool to see the boats floating on the harbor and then seeing the rest of the city lit up at night). And there was pizza. And lots of talking. And it was very very good.
This morning we hung around there a bit longer. Both Kim and Luann had to work at 9 and 10, but we did get an hour or so in with them (if only because we were all up by 7:30 anyway) before we all headed off in separate directions. Kim to work (in a used book store, which we visited), Mary to the hospital to check on her daughter, and Mary's daughter Sorrel to get the the baby's shower set up at their church (yes, the yet as then unborn baby. I'm not sure how they had planned on working that out). Next stop we visited the bookstore Kim worked at (they had the Gospel of Judas in hardback. I was very tempted to buy it, but I resisted) before she pointed us to the fresh water aquarium that Duluth supported (The Great Lake's Aquarium). Wheee, aquarium! There were lots and lots of fresh water fish in big honkin' aquariums and they even had a little corner wired off for live freshwater birds! (which had all been found injured in some way, shape or form that prevented them from going back into the wild). And they had river otters! Omigod, they were so *cute*! And quite a bit bigger than I had pictured them to be (I've only ever seen them from a distance). Also? I got to pet a live freshwater stingray! I got a sticker and everything! I didn't even know there *was* a such thing as a freshwater stingray (who, by the way, have rougher skin than I would have thought). I think dad got a picture of it, but he hasn't downloaded them on to his computer yet so I can't show you.
We headed across the lake and back home after that, stopping at a little family restaurant for lunch around 1:00 which had *the* best cheesecake I have ever tasted. Then it was lots and lots of driving back home, stopping at the occasional rest stop for potty breaks and munchie fixes along the way. I listened to almost my entire music list on my mp3 player (which currently has about 8 or 9 albums worth of songs uploaded onto it) and slept a lot seeing as I didn't get much last night. The round trip was about 400 some miles, and it was so incredibly nice to get *AWAY* from Marshfield and the YMCA's reach for a few days.
YAY road trips! Even if it did only last two days. ;) I hope we can do it again sometime when we have more time to spend with our friends and, like, they don't have a child going into labor. ;)
And no, I didn't get any of my homework done. Didn't want to risk reading in the car and getting carsick (or at least thats the excuse I'm using). Good thing we came home a day early, yes? ;)