Girls Weekend 2024, North Dakota. Friday, October 11

Friday, October 11, 2024

After a great night's sleep for both of us, we enjoyed a gloriously typical GW morning. We had not yet tossed the states because we were just too stinkin’ tired to do them last night. So we decided that was how we would start our day. There are only 13 states total left! In case you need an accounting of why that is/how this works, let me remind you (or tell you for the first time for any new folks).

Our first trip was in 1998. We both had small children and felt like we couldn’t be gone too long, but Lori and I really wanted to get away together because since we live so far apart, we never got to see each other. We had no idea where we wanted to go, but we needed it to be relatively inexpensive. We started brainstorming and decided that neither of us had been to Minneapolis but would like to. Enter Joey Babay (see GW travelogue from yesterday), whom I had met about 15 years before through a friend; all of us were doing the amusement park show circuit in different theme parks and we visited each other to support. Joey and I had kept somewhat in touch and I knew he had moved to Minneapolis. We were certainly not bosom buddies, but we were theatre people and therefore both impulsive and fearless. So I called him and asked if we could stay with him for a long weekend, from Thursday night to Monday morning. He said “sure!” and that was that. Lori and I flew in from our respective cities, met at the airport where Joey had left his car for us to use (that is another story – you’d have to read the GW from 1998! or Lori’s Girls Weekend Blog https://girlsweekendmemories.blogspot.com), drove to his house to wait for him to get home from work. We proceeded to have the BEST. TIME. EVER. Joey was working as a tour guide and knew his city like no one else. He was a fantastic host and we were two tired Mommies who needed this trip desperately. Halfway through the weekend, Lori and I made a pact that we would do this every year and would let nothing stop us from doing so. The pact morphed into a mission to visit every single state and Washington DC, which leads us to now, and GW #27!

So . . . where was I? Oh yes – tossing the states. 50 states and DC to start = 51; minus Indiana and Oregon because we counted those two as done from the beginning, so that’s 49. We have strict rules about doubling and checking off two states in one trip, but have managed to successfully accomplish that 7 times, and even tripled in 2022. So that’s 14 + 3 and now we’re at 49-17 which is 32. This is trip #27. So 27 minus the 8 multi-state trips = 19 single state trips. Gotta subtract those single states now, so 32-19, which is 13! Did you follow the math? The wooden puzzle pieces representing those 13 states went into a bowl. I tossed them into the air, and they slammed onto the hardwood and scattered everywhere! The states landing face up were Texas, Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, Nebraska. I want next year to be Texas (‘cos of my friend Paula's place), and Lori wants Georgia because she has wanted to go to Savannah for a long time. Of course, our desires do not matter in the slightest. I just like to note our preferences only to prove the puzzle's power over us!

 

After tossing the states we enjoyed a typical hangout morning- hallelujah! We exhausted ourselves last year ripping and racing all over Charleston. We had a great time, but all those early mornings with little chill out time took a toll. So this morning we luxuriated in enjoying our coffee, eating breakfast when we wanted (I made bacon, Lori made her yummy cheesy eggs), and surrounded ourselves with all our devices doing puzzles, catching up on news, journalling, and in my case, slogging through a few emails and doing a bit of work on a project I want to move forward even on vacation. Don’t judge me!

Eventually we got dressed and left to go to the grocery store around 1:00 PM in Dickinson, which is about 30 minutes away and is the closest town with a grocery! They actually have three, but one of them is a Walmart. Lori has been boycotting Walmart for over 20 years. She used to work for them as a pharmacist, but their insurance wouldn’t cover her son’s special food, which he literally needed to be able to live and thrive. So, she quit and will only go there if it’s her only chance to eat. We ended up at Family Fare grocery. Soon after walking in it was clear that something strange was going on. We walked through produce and as soon as we reached the deli area only cleared cooler counters and shelves greeted us. We asked the woman wiping down all the deli coolers what was going on and she told us that in the middle of the night the majority of the refrigerated coolers in the store had  gone out.  The staff had been there all morning clearing and throwing out almost all of their refrigerated items—all meat, cheese, milk, yogurt, you name it. They even threw out the coffee creamers and that crap isn’t even real food. It could survive anything, but out it went. The freezers were OK for some reason, and two to three coolers that were on another system. Miraculously, those two coolers had most cold items we needed and we able to purchase everything except for half-and-half and bacon. We felt so bad for that store and their poor employees, who were working like crazy.

I keep thermal shopping bags in my car, so we put everything in the trunk and went to find somewhere to take a nice walk. Courtesy of all trails, we found and enjoyed a lovely trail at Patterson Lake in Dickinson. It was a gorgeous day, although the wind was whipping a bit which definitely put a chill in the air. The lake trail was beautifully maintained, and included a park with lots of trees, a frisbee golf course, and at least two outdoor workout stations. I decided to do a quick 10 minutes on the elliptical machine.

Yesterday, on our way back from the Enchanted Highway, we had driven down a 15-mile unpaved country road rather than going directly back to I-94. My car had become absolutely filthy with caked-on dust and dirt, and I was hyper-focused on finding a car wash. The first one we tried was closed. On the way to find a different one, we saw another grocery store and stopped to purchase the last two items that we were missing. We finally found an open and pretty good car wash and were able to get the car relatively clean.

We aimed the newly clean(ish) car back toward the Airbnb, where we put away the groceries and settled into our evening routine . . . which remarkably resembles our morning one! Lori made a delicious Hello Fresh dinner (she had redirected her weekly order to come to us here, leaving her husband back in Oregon in a happy heavenly cloud of fast food binging). After dinner we decided we’d watch some TV. We like to start a show neither of us has seen and binge it throughout GW. I had just seen a great interview with Kate Winslet, whom I love, and had also just gone to see her in the movie Lee, which is out now, and is fabulous! Make sure you see it. Anyway, she apparently also has a new miniseries called The Regime. I told Lori that was gonna be our show, and I was excited. I mean, Kate Winslet stars in it – what else do you need? As it turns out, a lot. You need a lot of things, but mostly, you need an understandable plot. This was one of the most bizarre things ever seen on television. It did star Kate Winslet, and she is amazing, but that was not enough to convince us to watch anymore of the series. It’s ridiculous. So at 10:30, we opted to go to bed. Stupid show.