From Pathetic To VIP

Ron and I are on vacation!

We are now in the cool and breezy vacation wonderland of Minneapolis MN. Yes, Minneapolis MN. You vacation your way, we'll vacation ours! Actually, the daughter of a very good friend of Ron's got married today. We came to town for the wedding and for Ron to get some family time here. Let me tell you, so far it's been a whirlwind!

Friday we flew out of Cleveland on a regional jet that is the kind of plane I always seem to fly. Since I am the one that made the reservations, I got to pick out our seats on the plane. I happen to love the last seat on the plane so that's where we sat. This is however, the very first time I've been in a plane that was this empty.

The plane seats about 50 people and I don't think we had 20 on this flight. While I may love the last seat in the plane, it seemed that no one else liked to sit back that far. We had the entire back of the plane to ourselves. To the flight attendant, we were affectionately called "the trouble makers in zone five"! I love it when I am recognized and accounted for! Well, she was joking, sort of. Yes, we were in zone 5 but aside from her having to walk all the way to the back of the plane to check on us, we were pretty quiet. Then again, I tried to make an agreement with her that if she just stayed in the front of the plane, we'd try to be REAL quiet in the back of the plane! ;-) Yes, she caught my drift and wondered to the back of the plane as often as she could. Oh well, I went to plan B in which I napped all the way over here.

We left the airport in our rental car and headed over to the Mall of America. The biggest damn mall I've ever seen! Aside from the usual mall type stores and kiosks and stuff, this mall has a huge amusement park right smack dab in the middle. This is complete with at least two different roller coasters, plus a Ferris Wheel and a ton of other rides. We did sit for awhile to watch the faces of the riders of one ride. This coaster type ride started by going straight up to the glass ceiling. The ride then went over the crest and came screaming straight down almost to the floor before it went upside down through the loop da loop. All that inside of a mall. Crazy!

We also went to a few stores in the mall. One of the most amazing was Lego Land. This ain't your mama's legos. They sold all sorts of shapes, sizes and colors of legos. They had dinosaurs built from legos, they had people built from legos. The lego pirate ship and bi plane were indescribable! They also had a kit for you to build a scale model of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars! For a mere $499.99 the pieces needed and the instructions were yours with a wish good luck! Regardless, to see what they've built with legos and to see all of the possibilities and the kits, it was an amazing store.

Ron then called his son, Derick to let him know we made it to town. Derick asked if we had plans for the evening. As we were pretty much playing everything by ear Friday, we said we were free should he have something in mind. Boy, did he have something in mind! For the first time in my life, I can say I actually had connections! I finally knew people! Big time score for us!

Derick happens to be the manager of Acme Comedy Club! This club has been featured on last year's season of Last Comic Standing and will also be featured on this season of the show as well. Since Ron and I are both big fans of comedy, we definitely took Derick up on his offer. Not only did Derick give us free tickets to the show, but we got VIP seats (that means right next to the stage!) and free drinks for the night. Can you believe it? VIP treatment! Too bad our timing wasn't a day sooner since the Comedy Club hosted Robin Williams the night before. While we didn't get to see Robin Williams, we did get to see Greg Warren who still had us rolling in the aisles. It was a great night.

Today was another stellar day. We had a great time at the wedding, but that will be the next blog.

For now, rest and relaxation time. After all, I AM on vacation!