Of vacations and weddings…

So, we went up to Wisconsin/Minnesota for a little vacation last week, largely because we needed to be in St. Paul, MN on Saturday for Adam Waudby’s wedding. Brooke and I left last Tuesday for Hannibal so we could leave Edie with Brooke’s parents (thanks!) and then continued up to Madeline Island, on Lake Superior, off the shore of Bayfield, WI…and it was a 12 hour drive…a lovely way to spend my 25th birthday, but whatever… We got up there and took a ferry to reach the island, arriving in the 7:00 pm hour or so… We camped at Big Bay State Park, about 7 mi from the ferry landing (big island!), which is nice and far from anything resembling a tourist trap. We made some awesome steaks that night (there’s a picture included at my Google Photos site) and were well-rested for the next day…

Thursday was spent largely exploring the island, walking on the “boardwalk” (as in, a walkway made of boards…clever name, eh?), and then kayaking out in the lake…where I got a lovely sunburn, despite the 70 F weather and partial cloudiness… It got rather cold that night (45 F or so), even though the high was supposed to be ~90 F with a low around 60 F. Moral of the story: never trust the forecast, ’cause if you’re going to northern Wisconsin, it’ll be cold anyway.

Friday we went to Minneapolis-St. Paul for the wedding rehearsal (another 5 hr drive) and a brief stop at the Mall of America. Saturday was spent at the wedding, of course (congrats, kids!), and then we went to Ikea and the Mall (again…) with Mom and Dad. We got a coffee table, a TV stand (of sorts), a wine rack, and a few other small items at Ikea (thankfully, all of which fit in the car with everything else we had…) and didn’t get too much at the Mall.

Now, briefly…the idea of this Mall… For those that haven’t been there, it’s huge. It’s kinda like St. Louis Mills mall, but has four stories (only 3 with stores) and an amusement park (which was pretty impressive). The real downside is the store selection though, I think. As in, I saw at least 3 Starbucks’, 3 Caribou Coffee shops, 2 Claire’s, a two-story Old Navy, and 3 Lids’ hat shops. Now. If you’re going to the mall, do you really need that much coffee? What can you find at one Claire’s that isn’t at the other one (in the same building)? I guess that I was a bit underwhelmed, ’cause while they had plenty of shopping opportunities, it was either the same store multiple times, or all clothing stores… I saw one Radio Shack, no Best Buy/Circuit City, nothing that really interested me (personally). Then again, Mom and Brooke had a good time… 😛

Anyway, we got back Sunday night around 7:00 pm, after picking up Edie in Hannibal. It was a good trip, overall, and we came back pretty well rested and ready to go for work Monday morning…for the most part…

I’ve got pictures of the vacation up, as well as general wedding pictures from the weddings we’ve attended thus far this summer. Check ’em out if you’re curious…