On to Minneapolis... I left Mass on January 18th from Boston. Carrie had a shuttle pick me up at 4:00 am and she was up long enough to get me out the door and then I am sure she collapsed... but she did have her work that morning, but her kids didn't have school... arrived at the airport at 5:00am and was ready to go onto the next leg of the trip... I flew from Boston to Milwakee, WI then on to Minneapolis to see Steve and his girl friend, Brenda... very nice lady... I met Steve and Brenda at the airport and off we went to their house in a town just outside of the Twin Cities... stopped for lunch on the way... home and had a very good lunch... arrived at the house and unpacked a little and on to the fun... Steve took a few days off from work so that he could spend time with me... it was cold and snowy and lots of fun... Monday night, we went into Minneapolis to the mall so that Steve could buy new computers for him, Brenda and her daughter and we walked around the mall. When we got back to his house, he gave me his old laptop.. which I am writing this blog from... yeah for me... I received as a early birthday present, this lovely HP laptop that is just fabulous... and lots of CASH!!!! yeah... I love cash... it is a good thing... as Martha Stewart says...
Tuesday, went shopping and sledding and fun stuff like this... story time with John.. this ought to be fun... the sledding story..... hehehehe... It all started back in 1968.... oops.. wrong story... sorry I digressed.. bad me... I wanted to go play in the snow... from the moment, I started planning this trip... I miss SNOW lots.. granted I only live 2 hours at the most from snow... but .. I still wanted to PLAY in the snow... while on this trip... so I was talking to my brother and he asked me what I wanted to do while in town and I said that I wanted to go sledding... sounded fun at the time... but picture this.. a heavier than normal, at least what I call normal... 42 yr old man and his older brother... going into Target to buy sleds and then driving around the area to find hills to go ride said sleds... down the hills at a fast rate of speed... now then... let me just update people here in saying that the area had not had snow for a few days... so any snow that was on the ground... was melted and then re-froze at night... what do you get with this?? funny you should ask... ICE!!!!! Yipee... for me.. we finally found a great place to go sledding out where Brenda use to work... and this hill was PERFECT... or so we thought... there were people out there sledding.. well Steve decided he was going to be first down the hill... and he gets on the sled.. and starts riding and takes off like a bat out of HE--... laughing and hooping and hollering all the way down... he hits a few bumps and gets thrown off the sled... and he finally stopped at the bottom and starts up the hill... now I watched this and was debating whether to go down said hill or go to a little lower starting point and take off. Steve goes down for one more trip, and get bumped up and bruised and is done... I in the meantime have found my "happy place" and was having a blast.. I would go a little farther each time... and I was getting bumped and bruised and thrown off but it was fun.... I met a little girl who tried to tell me that I needed to go down face first... I was going down on my back... and I liked that... I thought that I could control it a little better so that was how I was comfortable.. I went down the said hill... or "ice slide" three or four more times... it was a blast.. we finally ended the day with a lovely dinner at a great restaurant in the area.. The next day... was going home day...