Roadtrip! Part 1

This year's family road trip was to Monticello, Minnesota for the tri-annual (is that a word?) family reunion.

We left on Thursday afternoon and hoped to be there by Friday evening, so there wasn't too much excitement on the first day. This pretty much sums it up:



We spent the night at a motor lodge in Keokuk, Iowa and ate Burger King for dinner at 11pm out of necessity. It was not awesome, but better (?) than our breakfast choice, which turned out to be a grocery store. Here's how the monkeys chose to start their day:



Things must have been pretty bad for Warren and I to authorize those purchases! When we left the grocery we discovered they were grilling hot dogs outside, so Warren and Satchel each got one of those too.

We all had higher hopes for lunch.



Lunch was in Waterloo, Iowa and was good enough that I'll eventually tell you about in over on Dining with Monkeys.

We rolled into Minneapolis just in time for rush hour traffic, but managed to make it to Monticello before nightfall. The kids were super excited about seeing some of their cousins and their grandfather, Oji.



Friday night was a family potluck, lots of mingling, swimming at the hotel,a nd Olympic opening ceremonies. Saturday we were free to roam, so we went to Quarry Park in St. Cloud. It was amazing.



The water was cool and clear and the boys were all fearless. Afterwards, we found a skatepark and a funky Mexican place.





Saturday night we had a fancy family dinner at the hotel, the traditional raffle, and more mingling and swimming.



Sunday we had breakfast with family, took a few more photos, and then hit the road. We promised the monkeys a trip to the Mall of America. They LOVED Nickelodean World, which is basically an amusement park in the middle of the mall.



After letting them ride the rides to their hearts content, we went to visit Warren's old co-worker, Mark, and his lovely family.



We hung out at their house, played in a park, did some sight seeing, and then had and amazing dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. (You'll hear more about that later.)

The only other thing of note in Minneapolis is that I was fired as navigator and Satchel started his training.