My Adventures to "The Cities"

Just a little background story: I hate to drive. In fact, I loathe it. I didn't own a car until I was 23. I didn't have my license until after I could legally drink. I drive to work and that's about it. Any time I can walk, I will. My longest "road trip" has been to home about 45 minutes away. After Taylor was no longer my date for my friend's wedding in Minneapolis, I started to freak out. Surely, I couldn't get there by myself. I sent text messages, I posted facebook messages and status updates begging for a ride. Nada. Then my best friend from college (who has been in Korea for the last year and a half) called to let me know that she was in Chi-town at her mom's and was going to bus up for the wedding. My new mantra in my new chapter of life is: Fearless. I decided to be fearless and go by myself. EEEEK!!!!

Friday night was spent reuniting with the college gang and college bestie over some Italian style pizza and beers followed by a dive bar where another college alum's band was playing. Unfortunately, both myself and Megan forgot our cameras at home, so no pics to document the evening.

Saturday we woke up and set out for a run along the river. My college buddy Rhode led the way, and I fell. in. love. Seriously, I am not putting it out of the question to movie to Minneapolis in the near future. And I am almost positive that I'm going to do the Twin Cities 10 mile next October, because I think 10 miles would be a fun racing distance. Again, I wished I'd had my camera because it was just a beautiful run, and I rarely get to have my friends come as running buddies. Imagine sweet bridges, sweaty smiles, and lots of catching up on each other's lives.

We did 4 miles in 36:37. Rhode was super obsessed with our mile times (obviously he fell in love with the Garmin a bit). We were pretty crazy consistent with the pace.

1. 9:09
2. 9:09

3. 9:16

4. 9:00

After the run we hauled our sweaty butts (literally in my case, light green shorts SHOW SWEAT, eew) to Chipotle. Eh, not that great. I think I prefer Qdoba. Then it was on to get beautified for our beautiful friend, Kathryn's wedding. Us three chicas were pretty much a packaged deal our senior year of college (randomly we didn't really meet/become friends til then). We did manage to miss the wedding, because of poor directions on how to get from the restaurant we ate dinner at to the wedding. I logged at least 10 miles (or what felt like it) in hooker-high high heels. At least they were cute I guess.

See? Tres cute shoes. :)

We did get disposable cameras, so hopefully I'll get some good ones to turn out, but in the meantime, we took full advantage of the photobooth that they had at the reception. Please enjoy. :)

It was easily the most fun I've ever had at a wedding, and it was a blast to be reunited with my college pals. My feet did NOT have nearly as good of a time as I spent most of the night carrying my heels and walking barefoot. Poor bruised foot pads. :( Totally worth it though.

Sunday was spent lying on the couch watch the Vikes game (boo!! Go Pack Go!) as Rhode is a huge fan, and procrastinating the trip home. I finally decided to get ready to go at 1. I started off for home and within a few minutes was confused as to why the speed limit signs were slowly waaaaay down, and then there were the random stop lights. Hmm...not sure why there would be stop lights on the freeway.... And then I realized a street marker indicating that I was NOT on the road I had thought I was and must have exited accidentally (who knows how long ago). No problem, I can just turn around and take the exit to get back on the free way, right? Wrong. I ended up in a residential area, in some quaint downtown looking area, all over the place.

I tried to use my Spidey-sense to figure out which direction I had come from and somehow made it back to the freeway, but the one that runs east-west instead of the north-south one that I was looking for. Something brilliant in side of me reminded me that the two must connect at some point. So I drove on. Eventually I ended up in St. Paul (ie: the WRONG way) and finally asked for directions. I stopped at a gas station, and after some heckling from the people inside (yes I was wearing a Packers shirt, it is Sunday for goodness sakes, I don't care if I AM in Minnesota, fools!) was finally turned in the right direction. After an hour detour, I was finally back on track and headed for home. :) Despite the detour, I still managed to make it home in 4 1/2 hours, and the way up was 4 hours, so not too bad. Hahah. I think I've put in my driving miles for 2009, I think I'll stick to my running miles now. :)