MN. the recap.

So, I'm a week late, but it's ok. I'm sure no one pined or cried while waiting for me to write something w/o a video as a feature.

I love Minnesota.
Where else, in 3 days time, could I shop one of the largest malls in the country, get my white man dance on at a wedding, see more fat people than an obesity-is-us reunion buffet dinner, learn that a Prius can ride well when being floored to 75mph, play vintage video games in a bohemian-like retro-game pub, AND shoot 2 handguns, 1 assault rifle and a 12-gauge shotty? No where.

...well, I guess anywhere, but not that weekend.

I know 6 hours is a haul, but once you ride it out, it's not a bad drive at all to see some long-time, long-since-seen friends. Our Friday night started with a trip to the Chatterbox Pub. This place was fascinating. It could garner a blog all its own. Yeah, it will. The long and short of this place was it was one sweet atmosphere with funky fare, games, brews and crazy comfy couches. Everyone invited wasn't able to make it out, but I didn't care. The people who came were awesome. Kim was able to meet a large handful of future-wedding-invitees. It was a great way to kill 5/6 hours.

The only major downside of Fri night and Saturday was the hotel. A nice Hilton Garden Inn on the far East side of St. Paul but it was far too expensivo for not getting free breakfast. It was a fine price to pay to get to see Kyle/Steph for their wedding, but F, $140 a night (before taxes and nonstop dirty movies) as the wedding block rate...ridiculous. No. Redonkulous. I realize free wi-fi is nice, but it's not worth jacking the price up to what is normally a $180/night room. Yeah, choke on whatever you're eating, it's that outrageous. Would I recommend staying there? Nope.

Wedding was cute and fun. It was also another opportunity for Kim to meet more people (Brenda, Kyle, Steph, Jenny, Joe...)
Stephanie was a really cute bride. I've never seen a bride hurry her ass so fast down the aisle. If there was a runner, she wouldn't of cared, she was booking too fast down the aisle. When she got to the end of the alter, there were still 2-3 minutes left in the song the man was singing.
That man, I think he was family, was a treat. Flowy 70's Dirk Diggler hair, poofy mustache, late 70's wedding garb and when he got into his singing...man oh man did he get a case of the Elvis leg shake.

I'm not kidding either. He didn't look or sing as well as Elvis, mostly because he took his own artistic liberties on everything...which cracked me up. He looked sort of like the guy in that photo over there. Man...that's eerie. So combine that guy with the Elvis shake and you've got a great rendition of Switchfoot's 'Only Hope.'

That aside, it was a quick and cute service. They had a really cool sand art idea for when the guests left. Each guest dropped in a bag of sand to show their support for the couple. I only fear the day Kyle accidentally bumps into it and it spills all over the carpet...ugh.

Ok, Friday and Saturday covered.
Sunday. MOA. Kim's first time since she was 13. What a difference 12 years and a full-time job make. She tore that mall apart. I've never seen such a successful shopper. We spent a LONG time there. As Kim mentioned in her blog, the best store we found was the store created to sell only Minnesota paraphernalia. Amazing place. It's also where Kim saw that everyone- man, woman, child, fat, skinny, ugly or transgender - wore a Vikings jersey on football Sunday. The state is packed with sports support. It was also the home of a plethora of bustin-over-the-belt guts that Kim LOVED. She was a half click away from running up to a suspender-wearing man and shake his belly of jelly.

Saturday night
Gannon and Jen took us to the closest place to home: Old Chicago.
As Gannon put it, "just because it says Old Chicago doesn't mean the food tastes anything like it does in Chicago. Don't let the name fool you." It was a cool bar where you can take their World Beer tour, which consists of 110 beers. If you do it 10 times. Yeah, 10. You get a big fat mug they leave there for you and 1/2 off a liver transplant. The one catch is, you can only be marked off for 4 beers a visit. That means you need to visit a minimum of 28 times to go through one round. 280 times of 4 beers per visit to get through the tour 10 times. Amazing.

That night was filled with copious amounts of fancy pants beers, touches of Halo, some COD4 then a foray into Castle Crashers and intoxicated (for me at least) Mario Party.

Monday
Are you bored yet? You should be.
We shot guns. Many guns. Many bullets. We avoided the crazy man who lives next door to the range. I nominated and voted myself the Range Master. It's always a cool experience. Kim shot her first firearm and when she returned to work someone said to her (after seeing her in a picture shooting a gun), "Kim, I didn't know you were a republican." That's how you know it was a good time. Let's see what I can show of the day...

Hmm, yeah. A M4, a couple of hand guns and a 12-gauge later, we had ourselves the fun-filled Monday morning we had hoped for. Thanks for the fun, Gannon!

After that it was all-you-can-eat chicken fingers (oh man, so good) and then we were back on the road for 7 hours to get back home. That's right. St. Cloud - B. Grove in 7 hours. We made great time.

That was pretty quick considering the speed that we moved at all weekend long.
I need to go back and I was just there. There are a lot of awesome people and a WHOLE lot of fun things to do, whether it's shooting a firearm, eating nonstop, playing video games, checking out mall-roaming fatties or catching up with old pals. A lot, lot of fun!

And this blog...done