Tag Archives for family

Road trip to Minnesota

Point A: St. Joseph, Mich.

Point B: Hopkins, Minn.

Transport: Elderly Honda Civic.

Purpose: Visiting family, showing Scott the ol’ homestead, eating on the parents’ dime, general relaxing and carousing. Also, repeatedly trying out the Instagram app, to the annoyance of said family.

Chicago, Ill. I fell asleep a half hour out of St. Joseph and woke up in bumper to bumper traffic. I treated it as a prime opportunity for trying out cellphone’s filtering capabilities. Verdict: Filtering capabilities are indeed functional.

Somewhere in Wisconsin. Let this white farmhouse stand in for the hundreds of adorable farms that we passed.

At the Indian motorcycle shop in St. Paul. Taken while Scott was trying to wheedle information out of the owner about any new Indian bikes coming out. The owner was being secretive/actually didn’t know about any new stuff. The mystery remains unsolved.

The movie theater in my lovely hometown. Playing that night were Salmon Fishing in Yemen and 21 Jump Street. What the theater lacks in timeliness it makes up for in being so very cheap – only $2 per movie. And $1 on Tuesdays!

Here’s Minneapolis, shown Monday morning, right before we had to make the decision to head east back to St. Joseph, or strike out west to parts unknown.

We chose east for two reasons. 1. Our jobs, which expected us back, bright-eyed and well-rested, Tuesday morning. 2. The Wisconsin Dells, which sits far southeast of Hopkins and has something called a deer farm. Where you feed special deer crackers to deer. From your hand. Photos to follow!

Visiting home

Location: Como Park Zoo and Conservatory in St. Paul, Minn.

Event type: Mother’s Day

Conditions: Packed to the friggin’ gills.

I flew home to Minnesota last weekend to visit my family and for Mother’s Day we stopped by Como Zoo, an idea that everyone else in the Twin Cities happened to also have.

I live in a small town now. I’m not used to crowds or, you know, traffic. There were people yelling at bicycle riders. It was un-Minnesotan, I tell you.

I took some pictures, but you will not see the crush of the crowd illustrated in said pictures. That’s because, while there, I observed everyone following the same photographic rules. 1. Take extreme close-ups of flowers, 2. Take pictures of animals zoomed in as far as you can, but still be too far away for the photos to ever be worth looking at again, and 3. Take pictures of your family members sitting on benches.

I call this one Autumnal Space Alien:

This one is Koi Pond with the Backs of Children’s Heads Cropped Out, Because Who Wants to See Their Heads Anyway:

Here is Tilt-Shifted Photo of a Bonsai, So It Looks Like An Even Tinier Tree:

These are photos from my parent’s backyard. Zoomed in photos of flowers just never go out of style (never. Ever).

Tiny things must be photographed is such a way that they appear tinier, part two.

And, photo from my airplane after they let us turn on our electronics, which also came after the plane turned away from the spectacular sunset I wanted a picture of.

That was my photographic tour of Minnesota. If you found it lacking, well, that’s because I didn’t get any pictures of Timber Wolves, which all comprehensive photo tours of Minnesota are required to have.

[Update]

My dad contributed this photo saying, “It was very crowded. But a trip worth making nonetheless.” So true!