Holiday Inn Express Minneapolis (Golden Valley)

We arrived mid afternoon in Bloomington. We passed the Mall to go register at our hotel. We stayed at Staybridge Suites just west of the Mall. It is a super nice place and they offer a full breakfast in the morning. Also every room is a suite with a ...

... we had to weave through the other drivers. We met Aleen for dinner at Trieu Chau, a local Vietnamese restaurant in St. Paul. I ate Bun Rieu while Susan had Bun Bo Hue and Aleen ate the vegetable soup. We made it to Hung and Lien's at 8:30 PM exhausted but ready to see what Minneapolis has to offer since this is our first time to go sightseeing here.

We will be seeing the Mall of America...

I'm frantically trying to work through my 3 page list of things to do before I go. Setting up a travel blog was one of the things on my list. Hopefully this will work as a great way to share stories and photos will all our friends and family back home. This seems pretty easy so far. My next task is a little more complicated...buying another swim suit. Why did I wait until 48 hours before departure to tackle this monumental task?

Off to MOA!

Mary

... the Latinos, are rude and not helpful. One white guy smiled at me as he ignored my question and walked away. And it's too difficult to smoke cigarettes here. Que mierda! Glad I'll be spending my tourist dollars elsewhere.

We are praying we can check in early for the flight and get to the cozier secure terminal for some hot food and maybe one last bloody mary. All that was open ...

... through Detroit was about as much time as I would want to stay there, it was a rather sad place to be with all the unemployment and uncertainty about the automobile industry.

The hotel was fine, and as advertised was just down the street from the Amtrak station which made getting to the train much easier! It was also just up the street from a shopping center so we picked ...

... and miles upon miles of corn; and there were not specific attractions, either historical or natural, to stop and explore. It was enough to drive through the undulating hills with their plowed fields and scattered farmsteads and wonder what this land had been like when the settlers were coming here. There is so little 'wild' land left here that it's hard to imagine what it would have been like to be a family with a wagon ...

... Becky calls, "the smallest plane EVER." It's the first time I've ever had a window seat and an aisle seat at the same time! It's overcast in Minneapolis and gloomy. I always forget that we'll break through the clouds and the sun will be shining. Dull grey rain falls. We slice through the clouds; the sudden sunshine makes me laugh! I had that same feeling I get before every trip that I take, the feeling that I didn't pack ...

... By the time we got to Cold Spring, we had had to stop and scrape the windshield 4 times and refill the washer fluid. Well, we couldn't be in Cold Spring and not go to the bakery so there was a quick stop there before making the decision of not going to St. Cloud for the Social.  Yes, we are growing up and making better decisions based on the weather even though we may not like them! I called Les and he was vacuuming but we were welcome anytime.  So the ...

Hello, all, I'm sorry that I haven't written in a terrible amount of
time, nor did I post the photos I promised I would.

BUT,
now I have gotten it together and made two albums. It's hard to try and
distill 1245 photos into 120, but I think I did ok, if you have any
questions or want to see a different photo, email me at ...

... ceremony and inauguration party. I went over to a table that was adorned with lots of French flair and decorations, and a hostess offered me a glass of champagne. It was so good! I then made my way over to another table full of Parisian o'dourves and appetizers. In between eating and people watching, I looked up and noticed Carl Eller from the ...