Travel Log: The Great Midwestern Road Trip #4

[From June 4th to June 13th my family piled into a rental car and drove through eleven states straight down the middle of the country. This is Part IV. Click here to see all parts.]

Leaving Minneapolis

It was time to sever ourselves from the Twin Cities. On the way out of town we stopped at Minnehaha Regional Park. (Minnesotans are so nice that even their parks sound like a courtesy laugh.)

But before we talk about nature’s beauty, it might be worth sharing my opinion that Minneapolis has a graffiti problem, by which I don’t mean there is a lot of graffiti. Rather, the graffiti there tends to be low quality.

To the person who wrote “love,” try showing instead of telling.

What, the vandals in Minneapolis can only shoplift one color of paint at a time?

I guess the city council probably has a lot on their plate with on-fire Targets, police reform, and skyway litter, but when all of that is settled, I hope they’ll send some of their taggers for residencies in Chicago, New York, or L.A.

Back to Minnehaha…

Even on a scorching day, the park was lovely. Not long after getting out of our car we saw people renting adorable bikes and an old couple holding hands. (Is there anything sweeter than the power of not giving up?)

If Maria seems happy here it’s because those old, horn dogs were right in front of her.

We pushed past the cute vendors and old lovers, and headed toward Minnehaha Falls, which is super easy to get to if you don’t mind stairs.

If you’re not capable of stairs, or really just not that impressed by nature, you can see the falls from up on the paved walkway.

Pro tip: If you’re from Utah traveling out of town, try wearing a Jazz jersey or BYU shirt. A few people also from Utah will say hello and everyone else will hate you.

With an unseasonable heat wave and Canada set to broil, I thought I’d dip my hand in the water and maybe splash my hair and neck. Coming from the wilds of Utah, all natural water comes from snow that melts in our mountains, so even in the hottest months all streams are (literally) damn-near freezing.

But this water was pretty warm. To my mountain-man hands, it was unnaturally warm, like the entire rest of the world that surrounded it. I made all my family touch it and they all were likewise surprised, and our dismay that things are warm in the summer must’ve impressed a lot of people watching.

As we walked away from the falls, I saw two of the most hormonally stifled people I’d seen in public. And though I know it’s not polite, I snapped a picture because you could just cut the lack of feeling with a knife. I never intended to share the image, but then something really amusing (at least to me) happened.

When going through the vacation pictures with my wife, she saw the photo of the couple and exclaimed, “I saw them too! Did you also think they were Mormons?!” I explained to me they were only noteworthy for their palpable sense of sexual repression. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to, I guess.

Above: A couple definitely enjoying not in any way enjoying being together. Below: Sometimes kids don’t know they’re having fun unless you yell at them to smile.

We did some wading and staring, but nature can only entertain you for so long. We walked back up the stairs, which were a lot harder this time around, and headed to the car.

There were some really ominous looking police men parked behind us pointing and talking in ominous ways. I was worried because we were driving a bright-orange General Lee with Texas plates, which I assume is catnip to these guys. Plus, it seemed likely that as a rookie I had somehow messed while using the Minneapolis parking app.

I thought about telling them about the terrible graffiti, but I decided to just get the hell out of there and hope they didn’t follow us. Turns out, like most everyone else on planet earth, they weren’t particularly interested in me, and we made our escape just like the Dukes of Hazard — if those guys had used turn signals and wore dad shorts with sensible running shoes.

As we left town we played “Minneapolis” by That Dog, and I’m sure my kids were really happy about my deep knowledge of obscure music and not at all bummed to be listening to stuff produced before they were born.

All in all, it was a great showing and I’d highly recommend a visit.

Fergus Falls

After a few hours of driving, napping, and yelling at cows (something I really excelled at) we pulled into Fergus Falls to meet Otto the Otter.

If you know kids, you know they love long drives. Apparently, they also love it when you wake them up by saying, “We’re here!” and make them get out of the car to see what might be the world’s largest otter.

I say might because there doesn’t seem to be any authority on the subject. If you spend enough time on Roadside America, and I do, you’ll notice lots of places are claiming to be the largest of lots of things.

As for my kids, I think they were hoping for a 600-pound-life version of an otter — an animal so big that you’d have to call the fire department when it died. After getting over their disappointment, they started to wonder if they could ride the otter. I felt like that was a natural progression, but it made me uncomfortable, so I adopted my patented parenting move of walking away, going by other adults, and loudly complaining that I wish the parents of those terrible kids were around.

Taken with the zoom lens as I was walking away.

Not far from those terrible, unsupervised kids I found this nice little memorial area. There were monuments for people who passed in various wars and then this bench, dedicated to “all children.”

Come on, bench, really? All children? If you’ve ever met more than ten kids, you probably know celebrating the memory of even the top half of children is a bit of a stretch.

We had dinner at Don Pablo’s where someone online had described the decor as “cheesy” as if that was a bad thing. It was fun, the food was good, and the only complaint was that our waiter seemed to immediately hate us, which I sort of get. I didn’t really mind. More than anything, I was impressed with his discernment.

My kid had wanted to go a hamburger place that only had outdoor dining, but since we were all dehydrated and it was still one billion degrees outside, he was overruled. To make up for his disappointment, I told him I would buy him Prime at the grocery store on our way out of town.

Prime Time

If you aren’t an adolescent boy with no sense of dignity or taste, and you don’t live with any of those boys, you may not know what Prime is. It’s a drink brand started by certified star douche Logan Paul, among others, and marketed aggressively to young boys via social media.

My kid was caught in the cross hairs and never had a chance to not want Prime with his whole heart.

He’d been begging me for the drink for months, and I wouldn’t budge. It’s bad enough to live in a world where public bro is a valid, even lucrative, career option, but damned if that truck-from-a-country-music-song-come-to-life was going to have any of my change in his pocket.

My kid was so desperate to belong that he would take Prime bottles from the trash, rinse them out, fill them with water, and take them to school. As an adult it all seemed very sad, but I have not forgotten how much I wanted that Girbaud label draped over my tackle, so I kind of understood where he was coming from.

All of this exposition is just to let you know that when I told my kid I’d buy him some Prime on the way out of town, it was a big, BIG deal.

When we got in the car after Don Pablo’s, I told him it was getting too late and we needed to get back on the road ASAP. He flipped out, at which point I made a goat holding gesture and sound, which is our family’s way of letting someone know that you are now in possession of their goat. I was just screwing with him.

It worked so well that I started to wonder how many times I could get away with it given that he’d already know I was doing so. It was a call to creativity.

So I drove to the grocery store and then I drove past the grocery store. He flipped out again, and I did my goat mime again. Two for two.

When we got out of the car, I told him I was very sorry, but I had misplaced my wallet and couldn’t buy his drinks at that time. Three for three. Now it was hilarious to me.

When we got into the store, I pretended to have a thoughtful moment and then explained it was my birthday, and I really didn’t want to be forced to buy Prime on my birthday, and told him he’d have to wait for another day. Four for four.

So relieved that I had just been teasing him, he loaded up his arms with all the different flavors. As we were walking back to the register, I told him it was too much and he’d have to go put all of them back but one bottle. Five for five.

This shouldn’t have brought me so much joy, but it did. I was basking in the glow more than an hour later and would tenderly refer to the whole experience as “my birthday miracle” for the rest of the trip.

Oh, and when we got to our hotel (with a box full of high-end chocolates my family bought in Wisconsin earlier), we discovered our room had a ridiculous out-in-the-open bath tub and that Anchorman was playing on TV, so don’t bother telling me there isn’t a God.