Back from Minneapolis -- miss me?

[radfringe]

We left at 4am Thursday morning for Minneapolis - drove out from PA for my parents 50th wedding anniversary.

We were making good time until we hit Chicago - the traffic tacked on another 3 hours to our trek bringing the trip out there to 20 hours straight...

had a good time -- my parents did not want a big party, so we celebrated their 50 years with a small dinner at a restaurant with about 15 people

Left Minneapolis around 7 am on Sunday morning and pulled into our back yard by 2:30am - figuring in the time change - this part of the drive only took 17 1/2 hours..

We did a little "bumper sticker" poll on the drive out and back. We were surprised we didn't see all that many cars sporting bumper stickers.

Of the cars with bumper stickers: 14 had Kerry-Edwards, 4 had anti-bush*, and 5 had pro-bush*

my brother, my partner and I all got on my sister's case when we found out she wasn't registered to vote. It was "total shock" -- "WHAT!!!??? You aren't registered???"

Took care of that in short order -- dragged her down to the computer, and got her on the internet, pulled up the MN webpage and downloaded the form. We stood over her while she filled it out -- my brother grabbed it, slammed a stamp on the envelope and ran out to the mailbox.

Household poll indicates: My dad - holding his nose but voting for bush*, my mother doesn't know (she likes neither), my brother is voting for Kerry, and my sister was TOLD ( :evilgrin: ) to vote for Kerry...

[SmileyBoy]

1. I got my Kerry sticker in Minneapolis.

(My family lives there) I still have my sticker on my car in Fargo, and I feel pretty safe about it not being keyed by a freeper. I saw two other cars here with Kerry stickers, and only one with a * sticker.

Did you have a good time in The Cities? (We call it "The Cities" round these parts) I can't stand Minneapolis myself (I lived there for 12 years, and didn't like it at all), but I hope you enjoyed it.

[radfringe]

2. we had a good time

hadn't seen the family since March 2003 -- wish we could have spent more time there but we have limited vacation time to use

we drove because it was cheaper than flying -- was going to cost around $700 for the two of us to fly round trip, and we still would have had to drive 2-1/2 hours to Philadelphia and find a place to park the car -- so when you add in the gas for that and parking costs --- well it was just plan cheaper to drive out $200 for the rental car and another $120-$150 for gas