World United States Minnesota Minneapolis

Welcome to Jim and Liz's "Excellent Adventure 2005"

Scheduled Maintenance in Minneapolis, MN (Aug 21 - 24) Aug 21, 2005

Enroute to our scheduled maintenance in Minneapolis, we stopped at St. Croix Falls which right is on the border of WI and MN. What a beautiful area to hike! In addition to the spectacular cliffs (looked like a smaller version of pictured rocks to us) and the beautiful river, the glacial "pot holes" are amazing. Like the glacial grooves of Kelley's Island, these glacial pot holes are remnants of glacial movement on this continent. You look down into what were once pools of water (and some still are); some are deep - 60 feet and more while others are quite shallow. Hiking up the cliffs to see the potholes was a blast, and coming down the Railway Trail on the other side of the road was fun as well. We won't mention that one of us couldn't understand why Jim wanted to hike to see pot holes... We'll have been on the road for 1 month tomorrow, so our visit to our friends Sue and Dave Hamre in Minneapolis, MN couldn't have been better timed. Sue was also in sales at META Group (she's now with Gartner) and Dave works at Target and is the guy responsible for every color on every item (e.g., clothes, advertising, paint). This sounds like the coolest job. He told us a funny story about how one very well-known designer who has a line with Target (probably shouldn't mention his name) came in for a meeting with the designers to discuss his next season line ideas. The designer brought with him bottles of colored Gatorade, threw them down on the conference room table and said, "THIS is my palette." It's Dave's job to translate those colors into reality. Sue and Dave's home is absolutely gorgeous - it's a multi-level contemporary that is so open and airy you'd think you were actually outside. We stayed in Sue's "guest suite" with a fabulous bed, never-ending hot water for the shower and screaming fast wireless internet access. The Hamre kids (Dylan, 3 and Sydney, 9 months) are absolutely scrumptious! We had a great time playing on the swing set and taking walks with Dylan while snuggling with Sydney. She's the spitting image of Sue when Sue was that age! So about scheduled maintenance: We dropped the car off at Jim Lupient Infiniti, and much to our delight, Connie hooked us up with a loaner car so we could go to the Mall of America. We spent the entire day walking all 4 floors of that enormous mall, and I managed to re-outfit myself for the next few months of our trip. Sue hooked me up with Roxanne of Salon Rox for a haircut. If you're ever in the Minneapolis area and need a cut or color, give Jeffrey a call and have him get you in to see Roxanne or any of the other great stylists there. But be careful; while he doesn't tolerate ding dongs, an occasional "blond moment" is permitted... Thank you Sue, Dave, Dylan and Sydney. We had a great time!

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