Fun Fun Fun

There is something very special about a special hotel. We've got six hours to kill before we leave for the Amtrak station in St. Paul, the car has been returned, we've seen everything we wish to see and now there's finally time to sit and talk about it. The people at Hotel Minneapolis are happy to let us lounge on their comfortable couches, use their wireless and kick our shoes off until it's time to go.

Minnesota is fun but frigid winter is always coming. Living here makes you like a squirrel, enjoying the warmth but secreting away those acorns. How can you stop thinking about it?

Ducknk's cousins are lifelong Minnesotans but they've done 60+ winters and they're tired of it. They're going to sell their beautiful home in Mineapolis, move up to their other house, on a lake two hours north of here, spend six months there and head to a warm climate for the other six months. 

Minnesota is very cool, but it's the freaking Midwest, no matter how you slice it. People are like blonde Japanese. You'll never know how they really feel, only what they think you want to know. Polite? Oh my yes. Helpful? Kind? The best. 

There is never enough time. When you travel you have to remember that others see you as an interloper, someone who comes in and goes away, a person to smile at but not to be involved with in any meaningful way. That's part of the package. We all do it.

Unless you are family. This morning we drove out to say goodbye to Aunt Alice. Ducknik really loves her last Auntie and it's easy to see why. At almost 94 she is sharp and positive, smiling and interested in everything. She is the last living link to the grandparent generation, sons and daughters in this instance of immigrants from Wales, mostly, as well as northern Europe. Alice is terrific and lives in a fine retirement complex.

Ah, but no matter how you slice one of those places, they are still filled with sickly older women, the majority behind walkers or sitting in wheel chairs, their faces nearly covered by huge dark glasses, mumbling and shuffling down the immaculate hallways whose walls are covered with cutesy little paintings of animals and angels, on their way to early lunches and dinners, perhaps followed by a game of shuffleboard.

This is not to criticize where Alice lives, nor to blame family for putting her there. It's simply The Great Plotnik flailing his fists in the air as he recognizes the truth in Ducknik's comment today in the car: "The end game is never pretty."

But having all of Grandpa Joe Jenkins's direct family together in one place was really fun. Three children - Ducknik, Joe and JJ-aka-PP, two spouses, Plot and Auntie Pat, and four grandchildren, The Greats PD, BZWZ, Diecie Niecie and Kazakh Desert Princess, two grand-spouses, 5Head and Chris, one great grandchild, Isabella, and also one on the way, currently known as Plus One.

So maybe there's never enough time to talk but there is always time to have fun, especially when next door to the hotel is the roaringest bar in town, where, when you order a beer, you get two.