Postcards From Carol: More vacation blah blah blah (Vacation Part 2)

We woke, showered, loaded the Escape, and were on the road by 8:00AM. I poked Tom Tom, rousing Dick and soon we were right back on course for Redwood Falls, Minnesota. We had about four hours ahead of us and from the way it looked, most would be under heavy rain. The talk in the motel lobby that morning had been about the heavy rains and some rather large hail that had hit over night. Rick and I looked at each other, we hadn't heard any rain.

Iowa was beautiful and green as ever and had nice smooth highways. And windmills. hundreds of windmills like wind farms or something. I didn't remember windmills from the last trip up there. These must be rather new. And were they ever spinning. I guess stormy weather is good for the wind power industry?It rained off and on all day through Iowa and into Minnesota.

We arrived at Redwood Valley Lodge at around 2:00PM. It's a nice place to stay. Again we were sentenced to the second floor but this place is a bit more civilized than a Super 8. It has an elevator. We unloaded the Escape and started calling around to see where my mother and my sister were. The lady at the desk informed me that my mother and sister had left with "people". You see, when you have an accent you are instantly recognized. The entire staff knew who I was and who I was related to before I even arrived. Kind of made things easy on us.

There's a lot of dead air space out in this area. Even AT&T has missed spots of coverage here. I couldn't get Pat or Mother on the phone so we just asked Dick to find Aunt Judy's (and that's pronounced /Awnt/ Judy's, not /Ant/ Judy's in these parts, when in Rome. . . ) place and headed towards Renville.

We passed through Olivia Minnesota (population 2,362). I must mention this because every time, and there have been many, I've passed through this town, one thought always comes to mind. How clean it is. The houses all look as if they have been freshly painted, the landscapes though nothing fancy are always neat and trim. The down town area is tidy and well kept as well. There's no trash on the street or side of the road. It's just one neat little town. Kudos to you Olivia, Minnesota.

When we reached Renville we found several cousins, an /awnt/ and an uncle sitting in the yard. /Awnt/ Judy, Mother, and Pat were inside baking brownies for the reunion the next day. It's always good to see them. This is the part of my family I feel closest to. The cousins were all my age growing up and I remember so much fun (and trouble) happening here.

Sunday morning as I was getting ready for the reunion, I dropped my can of hair spray directly on my hand mirror and shattered it. Ugh. Seven years bad, seven years bad. Oh boy, and my period was already 4 days late. How much worse luck could that be? But this isn't an announcement, it did finally start later in the week. Back to my story. So we went to Wal*Mart, across the parking lot form the motel and picked up a new mirror, some ice and a container to put it in. Oh yeah, and a bottle of Diurex. Why is it that when I travel my feet swell up so bad?

The reunion was held at Odeon Hall in Belview, Minnesota. I took a lot of pics of family but I'm not sure all of them would be crazy about having their pics on my blog. My mother and sister probably wont mind.

Rick, Mother, me, and Pat

After the reunion, Rick and I drove back to Redwood. We had planned to meet my mother and sister at the Pizza Ranch for dinner but had about an hour to kill. I decided we would ride through Alexander Ramsey Falls Park. It's a lovely city park that's been around for decades. There lots of nice hiking, a zoo, a creek to play in, ball fields, camping, Golf, and I don't know what else. I found this neat VIDEO on the internet. I've been visiting this park all my life. I broke my arm falling off a slide here when I was seven or eight years old. Yes, fond memories. My family used to camp here every summer when we came to visit. Now that I am grown and get to make decisions, I don't camp. I stay in a motel with an elevator.

The falls

When we returned to our room at the motel, we noticed it was way too warm. My husband the fix it person, took the cover off to inspect. Well the filter hadn't been changed this year but there was a bigger problem so we called the desk. The nice young man came up and looked at it and decided he didn't have time to deal with it. He offered to put us in another room so I asked him to put us on the first floor near Mother's room. I didn't have to tell him who Mother was or what room she was in. He simply handed me the key to room 134. Mother was in 135. It's that accent thing. They don't get much of that around there.

We ate pizza at the Pizza Ranch across the street from the motel. Afterward I sent hubby to the Wal*Mart to buy a couple of decks of Pinochle playing cards. My dad is one of my favorite partners. He bids crazy and somehow seems to come out ahead anyway. Since Dad didn't make it this trip, I paired up with Uncle Bernie against my husband and sister. Bernie and I won most of the games. We got lucky.

Monday there was really nothing planned so we ate breakfast with Uncle Bernie and /Awnt/ Carol and bid them a safe trip back to their home in a small town in north east Iowa.

Mother, Pat, and Rick and I spent the morning shopping around downtown Redwood Falls. We went into a gift store where we saw the bridal registry for one of mother cousins who was married the Saturday before. When we commented on it the store clerk asked if we were family. Turned out that she was also related. As we were driving around town my mother pointed to a little bitty historic building and we all looked. Then she announced, "That's the jail where my Daddy stayed." Well, well. Turns out Gramps (who passed away before I was born) was a bootlegger. He was arrested for selling alcohol to a minor during prohibition. There's a tidbit of history we were not expecting. I didn't think to take a pic of the building and can't find one on the internet either.

Next we cruised out to Morton, Minnesota. I've been there many times but I'm not even sure if there's a town hall, a gas station, or what. The only thing I know actually exists in Morton is the Casino, hotel, and campgrounds at Jackpot Junction. And that's where we stopped. I took ten steps into the casino and had to walk right back out again. Oh the smoke! I'm very sensitive to cigarette smoke and apparently Morton hadn't caught up to the times yet and still allowed smoking in public buildings. I left. I went to the car and pulled a book out and found a bench in the shade to read. An hour and a half later my family came out. Rick lost, Pat broke even, Mother won a little so she got to buy us lunch at Chumly's Burger and Brew. The burgers were greasy but the onion rings were awesome.

We quickly ran out of things to do as happens in such small towns and found ourselves back at the motel playing pinochle, an old family favorite. Pat and I teamed against Mom and Rick. My team got lucky again. Pat had lesson plans to do and we were tired of sitting so Mother, Rick and I decided to go walk at the Park. I took some critter pics.