April 11, 2006


mpls.

Ok, I'm handwriting a lame account of this as well, but I've got to put something up.

So, this past weekend I went to Minneapolis.

At Jason's birthday party Steve mentioned he found a car up there he wanted to buy. I offered to drive him. Last Wednesday night he messaged me asking if I wanted to go and Saturday morning I was at his doorstep at 7am ready to get on the way.

Thanks to staying out kinda late with Jason, then getting stuck on AIM until 2:30 had kept me up late but I drove the full 7.5 hours there. The rest of Missouri up I-35 is boring. Iowa is 100x more boring. But there were 3 spots were there were tons of windmill thingies for wind farms and they were absolutely fascinating. Other than that, Iowa was horrible.

We stopped in Ames and I got to meet Steve's parents and a couple of their friends and I think Steve might have the most awesome mom in the world. We ate at a burger stand called B-Bops and then got stuck waiting on a train trying to leave.

Mostly though, there was just a ton of ungrown fields and wind. It was just drive and driving and the next thing I know there's skyline. We get to the dealership around 3 and in no time Steve is driving his awesome Outback to Ben and Sam's apartment with me following.

Very good to see Ben again and to finally meet Sam, who is his IRC persona in real life. Weird. We hung out for a short time and I rested then it was off to drive around town.

I was not ready for Minneapolis to be a liberal city, or a pretty city or well intentioned. Given it has it's rough "we're northern and catholic and brick & mortar" feel to it, but they've got amazing build up for their rivers and bridges around the town. The neighborhoods all feel tight and quirky. The entire place is full of character and I think that's what made me like it so much.

Somewhere along the way it turned into night, and I got to hang out with my favoritest Jory and his friend Misty. We had some great pizza that had no sauce but had baked potato on it instead and had cheese, bacon bits, broccoli and a side of sour cream with chives. As expected, there was some competition between Jory and Ben over eating. We ended up drinking for a bit at Town Hall Brewery and a raspberry lambic later we're dropping Jory and Misty off and going back to sleep. And Ben might have the most comfortable couch ever.

Steve and I woke up fairly early and sat around silently waiting on Sam and Ben. Sam eventually emerged to make an amazing cup of coffee that he roasted and ground himself. It marked my first time of fully drinking and enjoying a cup of plain coffee with nothing added or nothing fluffed up about it. We eventually went to a small diner for breakfast then we were soon on our way.

I stopped at an outlet mall on the way home to buy Keaton's birthday gifts and ended up wandering around way too long and loosing a couple hours. I drove and called both my parents, Keaton and Megan to keep me company before getting stuck in the shitty Fazoli's in Ankenny, IA.

We left Minneapolis around 11:30 and I didn't get home until 10pm. Sunday night was a deep deep sleep.

Steve seems to think I did something huge in dropping a weekend and 900 miles to take him to get his car, but I'm just not sure. I had already agreed to go, and it got me out of the house, out of my little Johnson County candy coated shell and into some place new and exciting, and it gave me an opportunity to see Jory. I got to hang out with some decent people, and I got to spend a lot of time coming home thinking (mainly about how much I wished Keaton would have been there to see everything and have the same fun I was having!). I don't know if it's peer pressure or a sense of adventure, but there was no way to say no. I mean, he needed to go get his car and I had a way for him to do it, so why not?

I've always had these huge lofty ideals of what friendship should be, and I guess that's why I'm incessantly disappointed by it, but is what I did really that out of the ordinary for most people? If you're not willing to be as giving and open as possible, exactly what could you expect in return?

I guess what I'm really saying is I shouldn't have read so much Ayn Rand as a teenager and that I had an awesome time. But trust me, if I ever get my handwritten account scanned, it'll be more appropriate.

::Mobile Photos in Flickr Set: Minneapolis


Posted by Courtney at April 11, 2006 10:51 PM
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