Fourth of July Weekend
Ah, the 4th of July weekend. Nothing says "summer" to me quite like that particular holiday. It always seems to me like the rest of summer just evaporates once that weekend has passed. (Well, for all intents and purposes, my summer, or at least the break part of it, is over this Sunday! I'm excited to be starting my new internship, but I'm sure going to miss rolling out of bed around 9:00 most mornings...) All the barbecues, parades, parties, and fireworks displays seem to invite a carefree summertime feeling. That enthusiasm was somewhat squelched by the fact that I worked a long 10-hour day on the 4th, but I still had a great weekend.
After working and a batchelorette party on Saturday, I headed up to Duluth with my girls for a night in the wilderness. I historically have not been the most valuable member of any camping trip, as I really know nothing about building fires or pitching tents despite my obscene number of years as a Girl Scout. I did, however, discover a few things I am good at. First, I can make fantastic scrambled eggs. I spent a good hour over the portable Coleman stove whipping up a dozen and a half, and they may have been my finest effort ever. (Somehow, everything tastes better when you have to cook it outside.) Second, I can provide even and thorough sunscreen coverage to people's backs. I'm not sure if this qualifies as a skill, but I did it alot, and I will take what I can get. Third, I managed to dump the chunky dirty dishwater down the toilet without gagging or vomiting. This may not seem like a huge accomplishment, but after years of making other people wash my dishes because I couldn't stand the water, this is a large step in the right direction.
Besides cooking, applying liberal amounts of sunscreen, and getting poured on overnight, we also went "hiking" around Gooseberry Falls. We saw some beautiful scenery, but our wilderness experience was somewhat interrupted by the fact that we kept losing the trail and ending up in parking lots. I'm not certain how this happened, as I was not even in charge of the navigation. Perhaps the area is getting too camper friendly and no longer provides the out-of-doors adventure that it once did.
After returning home about 24 hours later, I spent all day working at Sunrise. Very little actually happened during my 10 hours there, so I made a game of doing my job as inefficiently as possible. Why make one trip back to the kitchen with a tray of coffee cups when you can carry each one individually? What is the point of quickly jotting down a phone message when you can laboriously script each letter in your finest penmanship? Why locate a different paper shredder when you can spend a total of two and a half hours unclogging the first one with only a scissors, a pen, and a paperclip? (For the record, I did eventually get the paper shredder to work, but I'm not sure the scissors fared quite as well.) You too could be embarking on these activities, should you ever get a job that does not allow you the luxury of a computer on your desk.
What Fourth of July celebration would be complete without fireworks? Several friends and I decided that the St. Paul fireworks were the way to go, and for some reason I was nominated to drive down there to the Taste of Minnesota. (I just learned from a friend this weekend that all of my friends were afraid to ride with me throughout the duration of high school! Honestly, I didn't think I was ever that bad!) The trip there was fairly uneventful, aside from a slight misinterpretation of the word "Yield." We found a ramp that was a mere 1o (ok, maybe 4) blocks from our approximate destination, and cleverly parked near the entrance for a quick getaway. Our first snafu came as we tried to enter the Taste of MN. Our ability to get onto the grounds was somewhat inhibited by what appeared to be some kind of gang fight halfway down the block. We decided to retreat in the opposite direction. Fortunately, we encountered a group of policemen downing corn dogs nearby, as some young Taste of MN volunteer with a whistle that could shatter glass roared by on her golf cart to break up the fight. Hmm.
The fireworks were spectacular! We could have gone without the somewhat cheesy narration in the background, but the display was worth it. The entire half hour was comparable to the finale of the fireworks show that I'd seen growing up. After it was over, we made our way through the two bazillion people to our primo spot in the parking ramp. As it turns out, we were just a little bit too late. There was already a ginormous line of cars waiting to get out, and none of them seemed to be willing to take pity on a poor little Corolla and let me into the line. We spent 45 minutes in the parking ramp, trying to find the right moment to aggressively pull out into the line. We smiled and gestured at the people around us, hoping that one of them would befriend us and let us in. We played the honking game with at least a dozen other cars. After a while, people started getting out of their vehicles. One drunk-looking man pounded on our window and demanded that we roll it down. We tried our best to ignore him and looked very engrossed in my car's owner's manual. One friend tried to convince me that although the "Fuel empty" light had recently come on, I still had another 60 miles to go. The manual failed to weigh in on this argument, although it did tell me that the fuel tank is either 13.2 gallons or 11 "Imp. gallons." I'm fairly sure that we measure in Imp. gallons around these parts, meaning that I had literally no gas left. Running out of gas would have only added to the night's adventure.
Eventually, (about 1 hour later) we made it to the Holiday station, where we filled my car with approximately 10.8 Imp gallons of gas. We made it home around 1 am without too much more ado. It was definitely a memorable evening! Maybe next year we will find a less cosmopolitan location at which to view the fireworks. Of course, what would be the fun in that?
After working and a batchelorette party on Saturday, I headed up to Duluth with my girls for a night in the wilderness. I historically have not been the most valuable member of any camping trip, as I really know nothing about building fires or pitching tents despite my obscene number of years as a Girl Scout. I did, however, discover a few things I am good at. First, I can make fantastic scrambled eggs. I spent a good hour over the portable Coleman stove whipping up a dozen and a half, and they may have been my finest effort ever. (Somehow, everything tastes better when you have to cook it outside.) Second, I can provide even and thorough sunscreen coverage to people's backs. I'm not sure if this qualifies as a skill, but I did it alot, and I will take what I can get. Third, I managed to dump the chunky dirty dishwater down the toilet without gagging or vomiting. This may not seem like a huge accomplishment, but after years of making other people wash my dishes because I couldn't stand the water, this is a large step in the right direction.
Besides cooking, applying liberal amounts of sunscreen, and getting poured on overnight, we also went "hiking" around Gooseberry Falls. We saw some beautiful scenery, but our wilderness experience was somewhat interrupted by the fact that we kept losing the trail and ending up in parking lots. I'm not certain how this happened, as I was not even in charge of the navigation. Perhaps the area is getting too camper friendly and no longer provides the out-of-doors adventure that it once did.
After returning home about 24 hours later, I spent all day working at Sunrise. Very little actually happened during my 10 hours there, so I made a game of doing my job as inefficiently as possible. Why make one trip back to the kitchen with a tray of coffee cups when you can carry each one individually? What is the point of quickly jotting down a phone message when you can laboriously script each letter in your finest penmanship? Why locate a different paper shredder when you can spend a total of two and a half hours unclogging the first one with only a scissors, a pen, and a paperclip? (For the record, I did eventually get the paper shredder to work, but I'm not sure the scissors fared quite as well.) You too could be embarking on these activities, should you ever get a job that does not allow you the luxury of a computer on your desk.
What Fourth of July celebration would be complete without fireworks? Several friends and I decided that the St. Paul fireworks were the way to go, and for some reason I was nominated to drive down there to the Taste of Minnesota. (I just learned from a friend this weekend that all of my friends were afraid to ride with me throughout the duration of high school! Honestly, I didn't think I was ever that bad!) The trip there was fairly uneventful, aside from a slight misinterpretation of the word "Yield." We found a ramp that was a mere 1o (ok, maybe 4) blocks from our approximate destination, and cleverly parked near the entrance for a quick getaway. Our first snafu came as we tried to enter the Taste of MN. Our ability to get onto the grounds was somewhat inhibited by what appeared to be some kind of gang fight halfway down the block. We decided to retreat in the opposite direction. Fortunately, we encountered a group of policemen downing corn dogs nearby, as some young Taste of MN volunteer with a whistle that could shatter glass roared by on her golf cart to break up the fight. Hmm.
The fireworks were spectacular! We could have gone without the somewhat cheesy narration in the background, but the display was worth it. The entire half hour was comparable to the finale of the fireworks show that I'd seen growing up. After it was over, we made our way through the two bazillion people to our primo spot in the parking ramp. As it turns out, we were just a little bit too late. There was already a ginormous line of cars waiting to get out, and none of them seemed to be willing to take pity on a poor little Corolla and let me into the line. We spent 45 minutes in the parking ramp, trying to find the right moment to aggressively pull out into the line. We smiled and gestured at the people around us, hoping that one of them would befriend us and let us in. We played the honking game with at least a dozen other cars. After a while, people started getting out of their vehicles. One drunk-looking man pounded on our window and demanded that we roll it down. We tried our best to ignore him and looked very engrossed in my car's owner's manual. One friend tried to convince me that although the "Fuel empty" light had recently come on, I still had another 60 miles to go. The manual failed to weigh in on this argument, although it did tell me that the fuel tank is either 13.2 gallons or 11 "Imp. gallons." I'm fairly sure that we measure in Imp. gallons around these parts, meaning that I had literally no gas left. Running out of gas would have only added to the night's adventure.
Eventually, (about 1 hour later) we made it to the Holiday station, where we filled my car with approximately 10.8 Imp gallons of gas. We made it home around 1 am without too much more ado. It was definitely a memorable evening! Maybe next year we will find a less cosmopolitan location at which to view the fireworks. Of course, what would be the fun in that?
posted by Erinn @ 9:23 PM
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