Nothing Accomplished

Despite my best-laid plans, I accomplished almost nothing on my list this weekend. Instead, I spent most of the weekend laid out from a migraine. Yuck!

So, along with watching the beginning stages of the Tour de France (two American teams this year!), I am going to be spending a few evenings this week trying to get more caught up -- like I would have been if I had been able to do anything all weekend long! Along with catching up, my goals are to: start some new Christmas stockings, make a pattern for coffee cozies (more on this later) and cut out at least 2 per color of fabric I have on hand, and clean out the bottom half of my kitchen for the installation of a dryer, which has to be near the stove plug for 220V.

Is July really already 1/4 gone? Wow!

Home from Vacation

After my trip to Ft. Snelling, things got really busy with the bike race. It started on Wednesday, and finished up Sunday afternoon. I had a really, really, really great time, but if you want to read the details, you'll have to visit the officiating blog.

After the race was over, I parted ways with the rest of the officiating crew, and headed back to the Minneapolis International Hostel. This is where I was staying the whole time I was gone, for a mere $38.98 per night, including tax. It was a really lovely place, and it was kind of interesting to walk in after each day and discover a whole new group of people in the common room.

On Sunday evening, I had dinner at a really awesome restaurant, the Black Forest Inn. I had one of the best German meals I've ever had here in the states, and there was even a duo playing and singing music, with an accordion and a trumpet. Made me very nostalgic. This restaurant was only 4 or 5 blocks from the hostel, and just across the street from another place I ate earlier in the week, called The Bad Waitress. Their food was also good, and the service wasn't as bad as they'd like you to think.

I drove home on Monday, and tested the fuel economy of the car. My gas mileage wasn't great, but I *did* get all the way from Minneapolis, MN, to Lawrence, KS, on only ONE tank of gas. This only means that I have a 21-gallon tank in my "new" car (a '96 Volvo wagon)...

And now it is time to get back to work. 10 days off was very nice, but I have plenty to do now that I am back!

Fort Snelling Sightseeing

This morning, I spent a gorgeous 3-4 hours at Fort Snelling. I didn't really have a plan in mind when I departed the hostel this morning — I offered one of the other guests a ride to the airport, and we left about 7:45. On the way there, we drove past the exit for Fort Snelling just a few miles from the airport... And since it was on my list of "possible destinations", I decided to pull over.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I can't read my analog watch, and looked at it thinking it was really closer to 9:30, not 8:30, so I started in, and got stopped by one of the employees who pointed out just how early I was. Mortifying!

And then I thought about how beautiful the weather was, and the fact that I had breakfast food in the car, and made my way over to a picnic area with yoghurt, dried fruit and a new book I brought with me. So I passed a really nice, quiet hour reading and then headed inside when they were really open.

Fort Snelling was in itself very interesting, since it has a weird layout compared to other forts I've visited — the buildings are set inside the fort at a 45 degree angle to the walls, and in a roughly diamond shaped pattern. Like I said, very strange. Oh, and aside from its role in early Minnesota history, I also learned that this was the place where Dred Scott met and married his wife, and that their time there was a major part of their basis for suing for freedom. Very interesting!

In the afternoon, I headed back to the hostel, changed rooms again, and then set off on a walk to the corner grocery two blocks away. I decided to venture further, and discovered a fun coffee shop called The Spyhouse. I had my book in hand, so I had a really tasty chai and sat there to ready for a while before picking up the milk and eggs and bread at the grocery store on my way back to the hostel.