In my last entry I forgot to talk about one of my favorite things from this leg of tour so far! On a lovely freezing (-10 was the high I think?) day in Eau Claire a group of us went to tour the Lienkugel Brewery in Chippewa Falls. It was really cool! Upon arrival we were given two free coupons for 7 oz beer tastings. We indulged in one prior to the tour and saved the second one till after. We had to walk over from the lodge to the actual brewery which was sooo cold! But the tour was very cool, it was like being inside an episode of How It's Made! We learned all about the history of the brewery, how beer is made, the different kinds of beer and what goes into them, and saw the bottling process. Very informative and very free! Here is the group on the way back to the lodge.
Anyway... on to Minnesota!
The Mall of America was fun! It ended up being Lindsay, Brian, Dave, Eric, and I. Dave was meeting a friend for dinner and upon walking into the mall Lindsay and Brian were attracted to a soap store whilst Eric and I leaned more towards the Sports Memorabilia store, so that ended up being the night! Eric and I immediately found the underwater aquarium to go to. I spun the wheel and got us 5 dollars of admission, only one tick away from an extra spin and 50% off, damn!
The Aquarium was pretty cool (number 2 of the tour! lets see what that number ends up as at the end). It had one of those big tunnels you can walk through and see all the fish! it was crazy.
The rays were very friendly! We got to touch them at the end which was cool. Overall 15 dollars well spent.
We then walked over to the amusement park to check it out. It seemed pretty cool but a little kiddish. BUT then we saw LEGO land and both made a BEE LINE. Ha we are losers. We played with some legos and tried to build things but it didn't go very well! Then we both realized we were hungry and went upstairs to the food court and had sbarros and swapped bad show stories. Then we just walked around the mall a bit, went into a western store where the woman was determined to get me to buy 400 dollar cowboy boots. She told me all the guys who came in for the Republican National Convention stopped by to buy boots... that was my sign to walk out the door! We also found this awesome store called Ragstock! It's like a salvation army but with non-used clothes as well, and nothing we saw over 10 bucks! We found this rack we lovingly labeled "death to the awful christmas sweater"
The next day we drove to Galesburg, IL. It was a HELLISH drive. We drove through the middle of nowhere!!! There were ground blizzards and cars flipped over on the side of the road every 2 miles. We stopped at State Line Pizza in Iowa... it looked like it was in the back of someone's house and it was also the home of a convenience store with expired food, and general store with fireman boots. It was interesting to say the least but we did eventually make it to Galesburg! We had a day off there, in the middle of nowhere, and nothing is open sunday's in the midwest, except Crappy's Pub! Where Eric, Rudy, and I spent the entire day watching football. Margo came and joined at one point and then Brian, Lindsay, Jonny, and Kevin came later but since my team lost and the Ravens were in the process of losing I didn't really talk to anyone. Eric got food poising so Dave took him home then came back to get Rudy and I. It was a sad day but I am glad I saw the games. That night we continued LOST watching in Margo and I's room, we are slowly moving through season 1 and everyone seems pretty into it!
The next day we drove to Springfield, IL and then a group of us went to give blood as our Call To Service from Obama for MLK day. Well Kevin and Jonny got turned down because of the archaic rule that gay men can't give blood. I somehow had enough Iron in my blood for them to take it but I didn't weigh enough for a full pint. So Margo, Dave, Lindsay, and I all ended up giving blood and Margo Dave and I didn't do so well with it. It made me a little feverish and the double shows the next day were ROUGH!!
Then we were off to Arnold, MO for a night. We were staying in Suites so we each had like a single studio apartment with kitchen and couches and such. So that night I made dinner for a group of us and then we watched some more LOST.
Yesterday we drove here to Meridian, MS. It is warm... that's about all the good I can say about it. I am not a fan of the south in general. We have two shows tomorrow then the next day it's off to Memphis.
Thanks for reading!!
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