I’m kinda bored, and since I don’t have anything real insightful to post about, other than “why do things manage to grow just fine where you don’t want them, and not grow where you want them, water, fertilize, etc. I thought instead, I’d give a few more details on the past trip.

Friday (9th) after work, Tim kindly dropped me by the airport. I enjoyed the free wifi that Phoenix Sky Harbor offers after checking my bag and making it thru security. Although I haven’t flown in quite a while, I did some checking on what not to bring, and made sure things would go smoothly… I don’t like being the one who is slowing down the security line. I wore what I have started to think of as my “traveling pants”, i.e. cargo pants, as they have no metal on them at all. Anyway, no problems on the flight… sat next to a younger kid, and another guy next to him. I always go for the window seats when I can… that way I don’t have to be bothered during the flight in case someone else wants to get up for the bathroom or whatever. The movie was Wild Hogs, which was pretty bad. Otherwise, flight was pretty boring… the kid next to me was kinda weird, but, slept and ipoded most of the way so no worries. naomi was very kind and picked me up at MSP rather later that night. It was pretty much midnight by the time we arrived “home” in maple grove.

Slept Saturday night with the window open, with the nice cool air. That was about the end of the cool temperatures. By the time I woke up, which I managed to get up pretty early given the 2 hour time change, I already missed Tim’s mom who had left for work. Had breakfast with Tim’s dad, then after getting cleaned up Naomi & I went to work getting her computer back on the network. After fixing the wiring, we were still running into problems, and it ended up that we put in a brand spankin new $5 network card to get things going, which sadly meant sacrificing the sound card… the price one pays for internet access. Shortly after finishing up with that, Jenny arrived and we went to lunch and then she dropped me off just south of downtown with some folks going to the wedding where I’d meet up with Dave & Barb. Sadly not enough time relaxing, or catching up with Jenny. The trip up to Trego, WI was enjoyable thou, had some good conversation. Wedding was good, great sermon, dinner was good food, poorly executed. Oh well. It was at heartwood, a conference center owned by Thrivent. After the wedding Dave & I went down to the church in Rice Lake to setup the sound equipment for Sunday morning, then back to the conference center to sleep.

Woke up very early, showered quietly, then drove to the front of the conference center (my quarters were back a ways) to pickup Dave & Barb, then back to Rice Lake for the two church services. They went fairly smoothly, considering I’d never really used an ipod before (which we used for about half the songs). Sunday night we went to Amery, WI for a concert there. We stayed with some friends there, guy who’s big into church politics, and used to be a high up for 3M.

Monday the plan was to spend some time looking at the van and trailer, we had some problems with the lights on the trailer. We did some investigation, found a few blown fuses, but replacing those didn’t do much good. After much investigation, we gave up and went to town for lunch, followed by stopping at the chevy dealership in town and leaving the van/trailer for them to look into. We went back to the house, which was on a river, and took the pontoon boat for a brief bit, before heading back to pickup the van and head to the tiny town of Dallas, WI. This was the night we stayed at “grandma’s” house, in Dallas.

Tuesday we left for Sandstone, or more precisely Sturgeon Lake, in MN. We stayed at a lake house there, absolutely gorgeous place. We had a bit of down time, which gave me an opportunity to catch up with the family, and just relax. That night was concert in Sandstone, and then back to the lake house for the night.

Wednesday we relaxed a bit more by the lake. I took the nearly brand new jet ski out on the lake, as it was too much to resist. It only went 70mph. I must say, that was quite the machine! I really wanted to ski, but, sadly not many boats around in the middle of the week on the lake, so nobody to hit up for that. That night was concert in Frederic, then staying the night with more friends who lived near town.

Thursday started with a tour of Wilderness Fellowship, built and run primarily by relatives of the folks we stayed with. It was quite the retreat center. Then on back to Minneapolis to put our bags down at the house (read: mansion) we were staying that night, a quick nap and then on to St. Paul for that night’s concert. That one in particular was a bit of a disappointment, not many folks there. Also, that was when I discovered I had left behind the power cords for the wireless mics, so I had to make a very quick run to Radio Shack to get some replacements. That was quite the ordeal, which involved taking apart the mic receivers in order to get the replacement power cords to fit properly. I made it back just in time for the concert to start!

Friday was our day off. Slept in, and after a few errands in the afternoon, went to the airport to meet the choir flying in from Sweden (unrelated to our tour). Friday night I spent a little time fixing up some of the computer wires at the house, as they were quite a mess, as well as investigating some of their internet/network needs.

Saturday we first went down to Lake City to tour the golf course owned by the folks we were staying with (and I spent most of the trip down trying to figure out the nav sstem in the Mercedes). After the golf course (and lunch at the club house) we went out on a 52’ Yacht, on Lake Pipin. Quite an impressive boat. Concert that evening in Minnetonka, another slight disappointment, but not too bad. That night we went up (north) to Elk River, MN to setup for Sunday morning services there and stayed the night for the first time that trip in a hotel. Free wireless internet access was nice for a change (none of the folks we’d stayed with so far had wireless).

Sunday morning we had two services in Elk River, and afterwards down to Shakopee, back south of the cities. We had a brief rest there with relatives, and then on to the Catholic church in Marystown, just a few miles away. Lots of relatives were there, which was a nice way to end the tour… of course for me that meant meeting lots of folks and trying to keep relations straight! Not easy!

The next morning (Monday) we had to wake up at the crack of dawn, to head to the airport for the trip back to Phoenix. That day the prediction was for rain and a high of 78. Now that I was leaving! We had seen nothing but sunny hot humid days the entire trip. I slept the entire trip back, I was out just after we got in the air… never hearing the flight attendants coming by for drinks or headphones or captains announcements or anything. I woke up about 20 minutes before landing. Tim again picked me up, and after getting home and changing clothes, I was off to work… didn’t want to take another day of vacation!

Well, there ya have it… in a nutshell. If you read all that, I’ll be very surprised!