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To alter an In The Heights lyric, ahem. :) Yes, I've been cutting countryloose again. This time it was a 39th birthday trip for me and a why the heck not trip for the other two, planned for several months, with my mother and one of my aunts. I've gotten along with this particular aunt since childhood, and have openly said, more than once, that I'm trying to be something of my generation's equivalent. We're less alike now we're both adults, but as a kid, I very much looked up to her. Anyway.
I took much of this past week off work, which is a rarity for me. We drove up via International Falls, Minnesota, spent the night there, headed west on Wednesday and crossed the border into some truly rural parts of Manitoba, then made for Winnipeg, geocaching all the way. This was in the plans from the start. One of us wanted a couple pairs of earrings, one wanted to make several specific geocache finds, and the third was after donating blood in Winnipeg. We all, for the record, got our wishes!
Yep, Aunt L bought some frankly fantastic earrings at a local shop, Mom got the trio of cache finds she'd been hoping to make, and I was poked in the arm for the betterment of the planet in a country other than my own. :D! I will be warm and fuzzy over that one for a long, long time. I was worried the thing wouldn't come off - either my iron would be too low, or my difficult veins wouldn't cooperate, or my high platelet count would do its thing and I'd clot off early, or my temperature would be too high, or... but it went without a hitch! Everyone was so incredibly kind, too. Not one person batted an eye at the fact that, of the three women standing together at check-in, the one with the white cane was the donor. I absolutely ended up chatting with the person who did the stick, too. Surprise. :) The actual donation went with remarkable speed; my aunt was bemused! The whole event felt a little pleasantly unreal.
I will be talking about one aspect of that donation in my friendslocked post. It has absolutely nothing to do with events as they happened, and everything to do with my reasoning and my brain and who I am.
After a night in Winnipeg, we aimed west again. We were aiming for the border with Saskatchewan (I've gotten so used to calling it Sask, thanks CBC, that my relatives were also doing it by trip's end, though they may have been gently teasing me) but decided to hit the brakes before getting entirely there. We ended up spending Wednesday night in a city I was aware of due to it being a reasonably good DX catch on mediumwave. Brandon, Manitoba has an AM station that can, if conditions are right, be heard underneath WCBS's flamethrower of a signal on 880kHz. I was rather pleased that's where we spent a night! Quite a nice hotel, too. We made the vicinity of Boisevain, another DX catch, the next day, and yes, I absolutely texted a radio pal and told him where we were. His response was, wow!
We didn't go far into Saskatchewan, just enough to find a few geocaches and pick up a cup of... ehh, fair coffee, but I can now say I've been there. Got the faceful of prairie dust from a passing truck, too - a-splutter! From there, it was back over the border (booooo) and then a looooong haul through some fairly desolate parts of North Dakota. We were in Grand Forks on Friday night, and I truly thought we had a much worse day ahead of us, travel-wise, on Saturday, but we actually returned to Wisconsin by mid afternoon on Saturday. I spent Saturday night in the house I grew up in before returning to the isthmus the next day and, given I don't do well with hotel linens (I admit to a little paranoia on the subject of various bugs, specifically those that prefer hair, ugh, eww, I am grossing myself out and yes, I got a visual assist to make sure I had picked up absolutely none of those during our travels) I *zonked* out asleep fairly early that night.
It was a whirlwind, it was a mostly good time, and I'm both glad I went and grateful to be back in my own home, sleeping in my own bed, brushing my teeth at my own sink, and using my own facilities. And, wow, that was a metric crud ton of driving. It's fortunate my aunt actively prefers to drive and volunteered to be the one at the wheel, but my goodness. That was a whole lot of car travel.
Not sure I'll manage the friendslocked post tonight. I've got a fairly decent mellow mood going, and I'd rather keep it than lose it. I thought this glass of wine would facilitate uncorking of the details I'd rather babble about behind a filter, but apparently not. Not really objecting all that strenuously. I'll take a mellow state of mind.
All I'm going to say in closing is that my aster is blooming. :) My lovely little rare variety that I've been looking after all summer has rewarded me with leetle tiny lavender flowers. :)
Good night!
I took much of this past week off work, which is a rarity for me. We drove up via International Falls, Minnesota, spent the night there, headed west on Wednesday and crossed the border into some truly rural parts of Manitoba, then made for Winnipeg, geocaching all the way. This was in the plans from the start. One of us wanted a couple pairs of earrings, one wanted to make several specific geocache finds, and the third was after donating blood in Winnipeg. We all, for the record, got our wishes!
Yep, Aunt L bought some frankly fantastic earrings at a local shop, Mom got the trio of cache finds she'd been hoping to make, and I was poked in the arm for the betterment of the planet in a country other than my own. :D! I will be warm and fuzzy over that one for a long, long time. I was worried the thing wouldn't come off - either my iron would be too low, or my difficult veins wouldn't cooperate, or my high platelet count would do its thing and I'd clot off early, or my temperature would be too high, or... but it went without a hitch! Everyone was so incredibly kind, too. Not one person batted an eye at the fact that, of the three women standing together at check-in, the one with the white cane was the donor. I absolutely ended up chatting with the person who did the stick, too. Surprise. :) The actual donation went with remarkable speed; my aunt was bemused! The whole event felt a little pleasantly unreal.
I will be talking about one aspect of that donation in my friendslocked post. It has absolutely nothing to do with events as they happened, and everything to do with my reasoning and my brain and who I am.
After a night in Winnipeg, we aimed west again. We were aiming for the border with Saskatchewan (I've gotten so used to calling it Sask, thanks CBC, that my relatives were also doing it by trip's end, though they may have been gently teasing me) but decided to hit the brakes before getting entirely there. We ended up spending Wednesday night in a city I was aware of due to it being a reasonably good DX catch on mediumwave. Brandon, Manitoba has an AM station that can, if conditions are right, be heard underneath WCBS's flamethrower of a signal on 880kHz. I was rather pleased that's where we spent a night! Quite a nice hotel, too. We made the vicinity of Boisevain, another DX catch, the next day, and yes, I absolutely texted a radio pal and told him where we were. His response was, wow!
We didn't go far into Saskatchewan, just enough to find a few geocaches and pick up a cup of... ehh, fair coffee, but I can now say I've been there. Got the faceful of prairie dust from a passing truck, too - a-splutter! From there, it was back over the border (booooo) and then a looooong haul through some fairly desolate parts of North Dakota. We were in Grand Forks on Friday night, and I truly thought we had a much worse day ahead of us, travel-wise, on Saturday, but we actually returned to Wisconsin by mid afternoon on Saturday. I spent Saturday night in the house I grew up in before returning to the isthmus the next day and, given I don't do well with hotel linens (I admit to a little paranoia on the subject of various bugs, specifically those that prefer hair, ugh, eww, I am grossing myself out and yes, I got a visual assist to make sure I had picked up absolutely none of those during our travels) I *zonked* out asleep fairly early that night.
It was a whirlwind, it was a mostly good time, and I'm both glad I went and grateful to be back in my own home, sleeping in my own bed, brushing my teeth at my own sink, and using my own facilities. And, wow, that was a metric crud ton of driving. It's fortunate my aunt actively prefers to drive and volunteered to be the one at the wheel, but my goodness. That was a whole lot of car travel.
Not sure I'll manage the friendslocked post tonight. I've got a fairly decent mellow mood going, and I'd rather keep it than lose it. I thought this glass of wine would facilitate uncorking of the details I'd rather babble about behind a filter, but apparently not. Not really objecting all that strenuously. I'll take a mellow state of mind.
All I'm going to say in closing is that my aster is blooming. :) My lovely little rare variety that I've been looking after all summer has rewarded me with leetle tiny lavender flowers. :)
Good night!
