Vacation Photos!

Sunday our day was filled with being tourists and family fun.

We started by going to the parents of the bride from the wedding the day before for a housewarming party. We had a nice visit with everyone without everyone rushing around like at the wedding. Aside from two dogs in the house which had me cowering in a corner, the visit was wonderful!

After the housewarming, Ron and I headed to Coon Rapids Dam. We got to walk over the dam, right across the Mississippi River! Here is a serene picture looking upstream at the Mississippi River:

I really can't tell you how beautiful this spot was. It has quickly become one of my favorite spots to see. Here is the actual dam:

And, then of course, the picture downstream after all that:

I truly couldn't capture the magnificence of this site in these pictures. It was just awe inspiring to see the power of the water rushing through the dam. Here's a picture of Ron! Hey, I was the photographer which means I'm allowed to take pictures of anything I want to! Hi, honey:

After a great walk all over the dam, we headed to pick up Ron's youngest son Vince, for some family time. We started with a late lunch then on to Taylors Falls which is half in Minnesota and half in Wisconsin. I wish I would have taken a picture of the sign at Taylors Falls explaining the lava flows and the potholes because this place is really hard to describe. To start with, the gorgeous St. Croix River runs through this park. The park is formed from lava flows from years and years ago. Somehow, the water sitting on the lava has through the years, formed "potholes". These are almost perfectly circular holes in the lava rocks that really are hard to believe are not man made. The largest one there that has been explored is 63' deep and about 20' across. It's absolutely massive. Here are pictures of some of the smaller ones.

We hit the site late in the afternoon so sometimes the light was against me in taking pictures of some of the potholes. These two came out the best.

The fun though was climbing all over the rocks. What the hell do I think I am? A kid? Well, I found out really fast just how much of a grown up I was when Vince was standing on the edge of some rocks and instead of just freaking out on him, I quickly snapped a picture and then climbed down so I wouldn't have to see him perched so precariously on the edge! (I know, I am a wuss.)

This area was again, some of the most gorgeous land around. Here are some pictures of the St. Croix River going up and down stream:

Some of the rock formations here at Taylors Falls also are popular with real rock climbers. In this first one, you can see the girl climbing and at this point she is maybe 20 feet up. You can see her towards the top right of the picture:

We walked away for what I thought was a few minutes, 15 at the most, and when we came back down the trail, the girl was off of the rocks and this guy was taking his turn. Again, he is in the top right corner:

Keep in mind, he is close to the top which I'm guessing is about 80 feet up. It was scaring the crap out of me watching them too! There were a few groups of rock climbers out on that path, practicing their hobby. It takes all kinds, I guess.

We left Taylors Falls and hooked up with Ron's middle son, Derick and his wife Amanda. Here is a nice partial family photo:

Yeah, I'm not the greatest photographer and I was even using a flash.

Ron's oldest son, Alex, had to work. Since he is a server at one of the nicer chain restaurants, Mother's Day was a day he definitely could not take off from work. He was stuck there until closing, so the group of us headed to that restaurant to see him! Since it was late by the time we showed up, we were his last table for the night. The good thing about that is, Alex then had a chance to sit and relax with us a bit after taking care of the last of his customers. It was nice that all of us could be together around the table. Here is a picture of Ron and Alex:

After the late dinner, and after an extremely busy day, Alex begged off of more festivities that night as he did have other plans. So, Ron, Vince, Derick, Amanda and I headed out for fun. What fun you ask? Why midnight bowling of course!

Now, I haven't been bowling since I lived in Texas and even back then I was never that good! Since then I've had back surgery so I was a little apprehensive about this undertaking. But, since none of us were out for blood, heck, none of us were particularly good at bowling, I gave it the ol' heave ho down the lane. I ended up with a 108 and a 95 for my efforts! I don't think that's too bad for someone that doesn't know what they are doing! So as not to be embarrassed alone, Ron's scores were 105 and 95! Yeah, we both sucked! But we had a ball. While we are obviously a lot older than his kids, we were both showing our age when all was said and done. I don't know who was hobbling more out of there.

We almost need a vacation to get over a vacation trying to keep up with the kids!

It was all worth it though. We really did have a great time.

Monday was going home day; always a sad day. All of us met up one more time for lunch at Rose Garden. What a blast! I know I'm definitely going to miss the food there. We finished lunch and still had time before we had to head to the airport for the ride home. We decided just to be able to spend more time together, we all headed back to the Mall of America which is basically right next door to the airport.

We walked, we shopped, we gabbed, we laughed. Then it was time to head out. We all walked out to the parking lot and hugs were passed around.

It was a strange event at the airport. There were two scheduled flights from Minneapolis to Cleveland. Our flight which was scheduled to depart at 4:55 pm and the next flight was scheduled to depart at 6:30 pm.

When we checked in at the airport, they told us our flight was going to be delayed but not to worry, they'd get us home. That did not make me feel the warm fuzzies! When we made our way back to the gate, all it said was our flight was delayed.

Finally, a gate agent came and filled us in on the scoop. Our plane due to depart at 4:55 pm was coming from somewhere on the east coast and had gotten stuck in bad weather. The weather delayed it so much that now it wasn't due in until after the 6:30 flight departed! Since our flight and the 6:30 flight were both light on passengers, they ended up cancelling our original flight and put all of us on the 6:30 flight, which did leave on time. The sad thing is, with two flights now combined, we had only about 20 passengers on a 50 passenger plane. We had a lot of stretching out room! It was definitely a quiet flight back, especially since I slept most of the way home.

It's a good thing Ron and I took yesterday off as a recuperation day since we sure did need it. Like I said, the kids had us running and gunning the whole time and I wouldn't have had it any other way!

Today was back to work. Ugh. Vacation is definitely over.