Road Trip!

Since February Matt's family has been planning on heading up to Duluth to see the Tall Ships. They're kind of a big, blessed family of nerds in that regard. Everyone had their hotel rooms booked waaaay in advance. Everyone that is, except us. We're more fly-by-the-seat-of-our-knickers type travelers. Plus, we'd figured we could always stay with my mom and sister (who are conveniently located for such a stay.)

However, as the weekend neared, my energy level was sapping. Matt had been gone more weekends than home in July and I was pooped from parenting. Also, I come from a long line of ceaseless worriers and have been able to work myself up into quite the froth these days. Everything from the prospect of Matt's job ending at the end of August (and the stark knowledge that not a lot of people are looking for a water management guy in the Minnesota winters) to political divisiveness of our country, to the fact that my mom's condo isn't really equipped for a lot of people. Or a lot of Matt. The man, while breathtakingly handsome, is not exactly the master of spacial coherence.

For a couple of wonderful moments we considered him taking our boy up there and me staying at home. I couldn't tell you exactly where this plan fell apart, but somewhere along the lines, I found myself plotting, packing, and making plans to caravan up north with Matt's mom and sister.


We stopped halfway up. I tried to convince my lovely bonus mom to buy herself a 5lb bag of beef jerky. You never know when you need beef jerky! It lasts forever! Somehow I wasn't selling it. Instead, she carried a tired little boy all the way back to the car. He thankfully slept soon after this. I still have my hopes that he's going to develop into a good little road tripper.

We finally rolled into town, met up with some more inlaws and headed over to see the ships (finally.) Well, we started to head over. Like the fool that I am, I volunteered to take Vin back to the hotel and the both of us could take a nap.

I'm not going to say which hotel we stayed in, but let's just say it was walking distance to the Kozy Bar. Anyone familiar with the place will tell you, this is not exactly the ritzy side of town. For some bizarre reason, the hotel insists that everyone drive on the LEFT side of the parking ramp. Instead, everyone is roaming around in there confused. Once inside, it reeked of phantom B.O. and our room's curtains were firmly secured OPEN. There would be no shade without a massive staple gun and some industrial grade tarp.

My boy, on the other hand, loved the room. He zipped from one end to another, climbing up and down off the beds and furiously flipping around TV channels on the remote control. It was clearly the greatest thing ever. Who was I to complain? (Well... I'm me... I'm usually complaining. Just no one there to hear me. If a wife complains and her husband is no where near to hear it, is it still his fault? Hmmm.)

Since there was no way to convince the little fella that it was time for sleeping, we trooped back down to the lake. I figured it wouldn't kill me to look at one of these ships everyone is talking about. I tried to walk down the whole lakewalk to get to the big event, but I was exhausted. And hot. And Matt was somewhere having a Blue Moon in the shade. I briefly contemplated divorce on the grounds of "No Fair," but decided instead to go jump in a lake.

Now I've heard my whole life of people swimming in Lake Superior and it always seemed kind of stupid to me. It's freezing. Always. Usually Duluth hovers around a balmy 65 degrees in the summertime, and also - it's a pretty big freaking lake, so how could it ever be warm? This summer it's been exceptionally hot and the water was actually quite inviting. I wanted to actually swim in it, but had a pretty long hike back to the car. Just the thought of the chafing kept me in the wading end of thing. Still, it was gorgeous.

Finally, after a week of being wound so tight, my rear could've produced a diamond, I took a deep breath and let go a little bit. I watched my son investigate his world.




Now what kind of monster can't smile back when you get this little face?

Vince decided the second greatest thing about Duluth (other than the amazing hotel room) - the rocks! He couldn't get enough of picking them up and letting them fall back to the ground in a slate and ore colored shower.

The rest of the family meandered down and found us in the water. I asked Matt to take a picture of Vince and me to show that I was present for this weekend.
He handed the camera back to me. "Proof. Not flattering, but you're in it." Great.