Here & There : Here from There

Fall here is unlike Fall there. The palms have yet to yellow. I wear my freckles outside. Southern California is worlds apart from North Dakota. Except it's not. Or at least it's not entirely.

Both places have parking lots, soccer moms and artists. They are both American in their sensibilities and city structure. And neither thinks much about the other.

We left the Midwest before the sun rose on a July morning. We drove through Mankato Minnesota, Winterest Iowa, Dallas Texas and Dewey Arizona.

I sobbed during a 4 am thunderstorm somewhere outside of St. Louis.  We downed twelve 4-hour energy bottles, each. I had my first ever "Whataburger" with my long-lost cousins.

We took pictures but they came blurry. We promised to never-ever drive across country again.

We are miles away from Downtown's Christmas Parade and snowy road conditions. And that is both nice and not-nice.

Mid-West Points

Leaving North Dakota = - 4,958,008.249 Midwest Points

Life Points

Moving to North Dakota = 24 Life Points 

Making a Life in Fargo = 651 Life Points

Surviving the Polar Vortex = 85 Life Points

Saying Goodbye = 17 Life Points

Returning Home from an Strange Land = 10,000 Life Points

Winnipeg: A photographic Journey

A Lookie-Loo View

Canadia, or North of the Wall

Mini Break Holiday Strikes Back

Neatly printed on a folded up sheet of lined paper are the words, Visit Canada. The paper is dated 2006 and labeled "Life Goals".  Learn how to make coffee and Own an Irish Wolf Hound (which is an odd breed, seeing as how I have never even had a chihuahua, I guess live big, right?) are other aspirations that my sixteen year old self wished to achieve. Memorial Day weekend's trip to Winnipeg earned a check mark on the list.

Yes & of course, we totally ate Smoke 'N Bob's

Overseas Plans

Our rendezvous to Winnipeg has been in the works for over a year. During a rainy night in Laos' capitol city Vientiane Preston and I cruised our favorite travel agent, Google. We dreamed up a vacation so very different from our sweaty South East Asian reality. And a year later we made it to the land of the North.

Clearly enjoying the Buddha Park

An Obsession

As conditions of the Mini-Break Holiday we made sure to find plenty of items banned from Whole Foods to snack on. There were street vendor hot dogs, beer for breakfast and most importantly donuts.

Anyone who has read three posts from this blog may have found that a large portion of my midwest musings are about the lack of donuts here. I never even realized how much I loved donuts. I am really more of a pizza person, or a waffle girl. And yet the absence of the glazed morning glories has been deeply felt in my heart. Lucky for us Canada freakin' loves donuts! Seriously there was a donut place every fifty yards.

Preston likes donuts too. 

Our Kind of Travelin'

I really have no idea what other people do when they visit cities.We always end up doing the same thing. We walk. I think this hobby stems from our time as Dickens-poor backpackers living in Sydney. Too impoverished for nightlife or haunted ghost tours, our idea of cross cultural fun was touring around on our own two feet. 

In Sydney's Hyde Park

After wandering uptown, downtown, in Chinatown and across the river Preston described our day as urban hiking. In the evening we loosened up to Bluegrass at the Texas-themed bar just around the corner. And then we may or may not have stayed up way too late watching HGTV in our air conditioned hotel room. But that's okay, because on a Mini-Break Holiday you can do whatever you want.

In conclusion Canada is pretty awesome. 

This post is sponsored by my Padres, who generously paid for our accommodations.

Midwest Points

Going to Canada = 17 MIDWEST POINTS

Not getting in a fight with any Canadians = -13 MIDWEST POINTS