So the long anticipated and impatiently awaited Girls Roadie 2010 has finally come and gone. This post is probably going to have to separated into a few different ones because it's going to be long. I have a lot to say about this trip, because it was one of the best I've been on. Plus, I want to devote an entire post to the actual concert itself. It was most certainly a stand-alone.
So, we kicked off on Sunday July 25th. Picked up some coffee and bagels and timbits and began the journey to Minneapolis. We had already discussed taking our time and checking things out along the way, so we were really in no hurry at all. Border crossing was pretty basic, no hard times given which was nice. The only thing that I've never experienced was having two guards crossing you through at one time, and the second one just opened up my back passenger door and rolled down the window. I wasn't expecting that at all, but it makes sense since we did have a passenger in the back.
Back on the road we got. Our first stop was in Grand Portage, we stopped at this gorgeous look out spot and took some pictures there. Then we moved a bit further down to the Grand Portage Casino, both to exchange our money and to gamble for a little bit. I normally am not a fan of gambling whatsoever, but hey, when on vacation....I put in $20 and ended up losing it. As this is typically what happens, I wasn't too shocked. Kyla and Brandi didn't do too bad though, they both ended up a bit more than what they started at. Back to the road....
We stopped at a Holiday in Grand Marais to pick up some more coffee and some snacks, and I made the discovery of our trip- Jalapeno Cheddar Combos! Fantastic snack. Grabbed an iced coffee for the road and continued on. We stopped a while later at a roadside flea market, Kyla found some stuff and then we moved along from there.
A few hours later, our tummies were getting rumbly, so we stopped at a Perkins for all day breakfast (I think this was in or around Duluth). My cheese and tomato omellette with breakfast potatos was fabulous. So was our server, Alissa. Her boss did not seem so fabulous; in fact, he looked like the typical boss who just tries to make himself look busy so he doesn't have to do any work. He spent about 20 minutes straightening menus, in fact. We had a good laugh at his expense and left Alissa a good tip and a good review on their scorecard to make up for the fact that she has to deal with him on a daily basis.
We made a stop for some more gambling at Black Bear Casino, where I didn't win, but didn't lose. Completely broke even so I was alright with that. I was somewhat disgusted by the indoor smoking though-- as a non smoker who isn't often near smoking environments, it's a lot to handle, and I was started to feel gross as we were leaving. Some fresh air fixed that right up!
A while later, I was thinking we better stop for some gas just to be on the safe side. We weren't far from Minneapolis, but better to be safe than sorry, right? We saw an exit for gas, so I pulled off and pulled into a gas pump. Well, we get out of the vehicle and there's an awful hissing noise. We didn't think it was the tire, maybe just the air conditioning or something cooling off in the engine? So I filled up and paid and it was still hissing, so Kyla had me move my truck to a parking spot so we could look around the vehicle and see if we could tell where the noise was coming from...and at some point in our journey (and we're not sure where) I had run over a big fat nail! It became clearly visible when I moved the vehicle. Fackkk. Luckily, Kyla was pretty well versed in changing tires, and my dad has gone over it with me, so we felt we could tackle this inconvenience ourselves. Plus, no one seemed to want to come over to help us...So we go to town on loosing the bolts and trying to jack up the truck. After losing some hydraulic fluid from the jack (we loosened the pressure thingy too much!) we mostly figured out how to work it. But, we were struggling on where was a safe area to jack up the vehicle. This is when a very very sweet man (whose name we didn't get, but we decided he looked like a Mark, so he'll be forever known as Mark now) came over to help us. Mark figured out the jack and figured out a place that was good to jack up the vehicle on, and we got it up and ready to change the tire. Then it was a breeze to get the spare on! He only had to help me lift the tire onto the bolts and we were golden. Mark was such a blessing...we removed the nail from the tire with hammer I had in the back and it was huge. It was threaded more like a screw. Bastard. I wish we would have kept it but we don't know where it ended up. It would have been good scrapbooking material!
So we are finally back on the road, and everything was smooth sailing from there. We arrived at our hotel around 8pm Minni time and our roadtrip from Thunder Bay ended up totalling 13 hours! It is important to note that it normally only takes about 6. So we checked in, chatted with the front desk attendant (and we also didn't get his name, which is a shame because he was wonderful), got up to our room, and tried to decide what to do with our first evening in Minneapolis. Since we were right downtown, we got ready and decided to look for a karaoke bar that was supposed to be somewhere near to our hotel. We had a good long walk through the downtown area and explored. The city is beautiful. I've never seen such a clean downtown area. There was no garbage anywhere, the streets were completely clean. It was very impressive. And never for a minute did we feel unsafe. So we walked and walked and walked some more, until we finally decided we couldn't wait any longer for a drink. Since we couldn't find the karaoke bar, we ended up at The Ugly Mug. It didn't look entirely busy and had a little patio, so it did the trick. Was the bartender the friendliest guy at first? Um, not really...but there was a really cute patron there and he made sure to make us feel welcome. We got three beers and sat down near the back. The beer was not fabulous! haha I'm not sure what Kyla ordered, but Brandi was pretty correct in saying it tasted like there were pennies corroding at the bottom of the glass. However, we still drank them, and then we had the bartender make Brandi and I a surprise mixed drink while Kyla had another beer. Not sure what our mixed drink was, but it was a delight! There was definitely cranberry juice for colour, but it was a strong mix of booze. Loved it.
We ended up leaving to head back to the hotel, but along the way, we ended up finding O'Donovans Irish Pub, which is what we were looking for in the first place. Faced with the prospect of karaoke, Kyla and I just had to go in. I should mention that I LOVE karaoke. This place was by far the best karaoke bar I've ever been to. We immediately settled down with drinks and the song book and signed up to be added to the rotation. The other patrons were maybe not so very good, but they were hilarious and no one cared how good or how bad they were. That is to me what makes a good karaoke place. People were just there to have fun. We met a crazy cast of characters there: Mel and Josh (who were both in the bar barefoot and completely trashed), Ian (who was also trashed and was making out with his knee while he was singing? haha) and Blue Jersey dude, who apparently loved Kyla. I had chosen a couple songs before Kyla so I was up first out of the two of us. The first song I had written down was "I Want You To Want Me" by Cheap Trick, but since I like the Letters to Cleo version better, I was styling it more that way. First off, let me preface this by saying I'm normally very nervous to sing in front of people. I have a pretty decent voice, but I am really shy about it. I was totally cool and comfortable singing at O'Donovans based on the people there. In fact, when the DJ announced me and what I was singing, Mel started cheering for me and saying that she loves Cheap Trick! So I start the song off and I am literally loving life. I felt like a total rockstar in that place! People were dancing and singing along and it was just so much fun. Kyla did "Something Like That" by Tim McGraw and didn't use the stage, just wandered around the floor and sang to people. Super funny and we actually have a video of that. Then at the end of the night, Kyla got up with Ian and a new German friend and sang something...at this point I'm not sure what, we'll have to go back over the video. But we had an amazing time and are literally planning a trip back to Minneapolis just to go back to this bar. I wrote a comment in their guestbook on their website and the president even emailed me back to tell me to let him know when I was coming back and he'd buy me a pint...super cool. Really can't say enough about O'Donovans at this point, other than to urge people to go there. You won't be disappointed.
So that is where I'm going to end off for now, and I'll continue this a bit later....
