Minnesota

Tuesday morning I flew back to the Twin Cities. My parents picked me up and we headed over to pick up my brother at the harmony. We then headed down to the scene of the I35W bridge collapse. Its sad that it took a bridge collapse for me to walk on the Stone Arch Bridge for the first time in my life. That neighborhood by Saint Anthony Falls and the new Guthrie Theater is really beautiful. Minneapolis is such a beautiful city. The scene of the bridge collapse is truly terrifying. I can't imagine what it was like to be at the scene when the bridge fell.

We headed back to Woodbury and had a late lunch at Sunset's. After lunch we visited my grandma. She looked very good. While we were enjoying grandma's company my Uncle Paul, Aunt Tami and cousins Tevor and Alexandria walked in. I haven't seen these folks in about ten years. It was very good to see them. After our brief visit with the extended family we headed back to Cottage Grove Drive. A little while later Paul, Tami and the kids stopped by for a visit. We sat on the deck and chatted about where our lives have brought us. It was very cool to see my extended family. They may be moving to Denmark, so perhaps I will one day visit them there.

After the extended family headed out and night fell we started a camp fire in the back yard and enjoyed some s’mores. It was a very relaxing evening. My brother and I fisnished the evening by watching a few episodes of Luckey Louie, HBO's first ever sitcom. It's extremely funny.

After breakfast Wednesday morning we headed down to my parents forty acre plot of land in eastern Wisconsin. We hiked around and enjoyed the surrounding nature. We found our old Boy Scout camp ground. I also found some lashing my friend Adam Grovender and I did about 20 years ago. It's pretty amazing that it has lasted. We also visited the Walnut plantation. We planted about 500 walnut trees and 1,000 white pines 17 years ago. It's a regular forest now. After we returned from our hike, we headed south and crossed over the Mississippi back into Wabasha, Minnesota. We enjoyed some dinner at Slippery's made famous by the movie Grumpy Old Men. After dinner, and a quick stop at Dairy Queen, we headed north towards the Twin Cities. On our way back we stopped by my great aunt, Bernadine's, place in Hastings and visited with her. We then headed back to Cottage Grove Drive. My brother and I ended the evening with some more episodes of Lucky Louie.

I arrived at MSP at 5:20am on Thursday morning. I was unable to get on either a United for Frontier flight, so I ended up flying the hometown airline, Northwest Orient, back to Denver.

Here is the link to my picture.