Great Escape

When the Austins plan a mini-vacation, we take it seriously -- packing in as much as we can in our 36 hours away from the house!

Friday went as planned. Met my sister for lunch in Hudson, checked into our hotel on the south side of the cities, then headed up to the Dome. Got there early enough to get the promotional lanyard and ticket holder, watch some batting practice and walk around a bit.

It was all good until I was suddenly hit with a killer headache. Of course I wasn't carrying my purse with me so I went to customer service, who helped me find the First Aid ladies, who thankfully had some ibuprofen. All this before game time!

I'm sure the pills were full strength but they had some tough competition. I got stuck sitting next to the world's loudest Cleveland Indians fan. Swear to God. When he clapped his hands, it was so loud it was like another hammer to my temple. Not good. Eventually, he had so little to cheer about (tee hee), he quieted and my headache subsided.

Yes, it was my perfect last game at the Metrodome. The Twins were on fire! And they crushed Cleveland 11-0. Awesome! Had pretty decent seats (despite my neighbor to the left) so I'll have to post some pictures Sunday.

Today we checked out of the hotel early and took the Mall of America by storm. Not really. Didn't do a ton of shopping (got to my scrapbook store) but had expensive fun at Nickelodeon Universe amusement park and the Underwater Adventures Aquarium. (Did you know I have pictures of that, too?) It's a pricey place, but neat to visit and walk around. A bonus for us is that we saw hundreds of Twins t-shirts, plenty of Viking ones, too, but not a Packer one in sight. Nice.

Left the Cities in the late afternoon. Made a pit stop at the DQ in Osseo. The guys felt I deserved a Thin Mint Blizzard for my pain and suffering with Mr. Cleveland on Friday night. Fine by me.

Then we took a little detour to Marshfield on the way home so we could watch our nephew Colin race. He dominated the super stocks division again, qualifying with fast time, winning the heat and the feature. Seeing him go from the last starting position and work his way to the front in just 3 laps is quite amazing to watch! It's easy to forget he's only 15! Jim's parent were also there so we had a good show of support for our points leader.

When it started sprinkling, we took our cue to head home. It feels like we've been gone for days!

I will enjoy sleeping with my own comfy pillow tonight. With any luck, I'll sleep in but do look forward to sorting through the dozens of snapshots captured during our little getaway.

I imagine you'll get a glimpse of a few, too.