REAXblog

I woke up this morning fairly early, and decided I would head up to my other aunt Jean’s cabin up north early. I wanted to catch some ultimate action beforehand, but didn’t want to arrive late.My cousin Sam had already left, apparently, and I got out the door pretty quietly at about 8:30am. It would take 30+ minutes to get to Blaine for YCC [Youth Club Championships, top high school ulty players in the country all at one field] so I’d probably be a little late, but that was okay. Ultimate time and all.

About three or four blocks up York Avenue, something stupid happened. I was slowing down for a red light, when I accidentally bumped a guy in a Cadillac in front of me, pushing him forward into the intersection. Damnit! I had been glancing at my map trying to determine the best route. I sat there dumbly for a second, then followed the Caddy into a nearby parking lot to exchange info.

I asked the guy if he was hurt, and he responded by asking if I was “on my cellphone or something.” I wasn’t. I said that we should exchange information, but he asked me to call the police on my cellphone (which he hadn’t seen yet…). I could see this was going badly, so I called the police, and someone was dispatched to take an incident report.

I looked at the guy’s car, no damage I could see. Phew. He pointed out there was a few millimeters difference in the alignment of the trunk hatch. Damn, how’d he see that? As we waited, we exchanged info - the guy was named Manzar, and was from Ritchfield. He didn’t seem to take any pleasure that we had similar names. He asked what I was doing out from Oregon, and I told him about the family reunion. He said he wanted to call the police because he’d been burned before.

So, we sat there, and about fifteen minutes later an Edina police officer arrived. I was worried about this, because I’d heard that Edina police officers don’t look favorably on out-of-towners. We both handed over our license and insurance information. In my experience, this process takes about half an hour while the run your card, but it only took a few minutes. Maybe the don’t get as much info on out-of-state licenses, so it was quicker, or maybe the officer wanted to get out of there quickly. I could tell she was perturbed about having to visit the scene of a no-damage accident. She gave us case cards, reminded us that Minnesota was a no-fault state, and took off.

I wandered over to the nearby Caribou Coffee. I needed some. The girl working the counter was exceptionally pretty, I immediately had visions of picking her up and getting her to drive the rest of the way across country with me on a whim. Tall, blond, with a big bright smile. A real Minnesota girl. I made an effort to flash my Oregon ID as I paid for my coffee, which she dutifully noticed. “You’re here from Oregon?” she asked. Yup. Driving to Chicago on Sunday. “Well, I hope you have fun,” she said as she handed me my mug back. Alas, a quickie elopement and subsequent happily ever after life were not in the cards.

I headed north, and ran into construction near downtown. Man, what kind of place does weekend construction in the middle of their main freeway. Oh, it was for that bridge that collapsed about a year ago. Huh. I detoured.

After starting late, and getting into the accident, I got to Blaine right around 1030, as the first round games were finishing up. Seattle girls had won 15-0. I ran into CVH, my former college coach from the 1990’s. He said the Seattle girls looked “vulnerable” or something. I saw the Seattle boys finish off a 14-13 win in the hard cap against a dejected looking Colorado team. I stopped by and watched Luke’s mixed Eugene team a bit. As it turns out, each of those teams would win the tournament convincingly.

I was getting around noon, probably a bit late for the reunion, so I headed north again. I gassed up in Hinckley, got some Dairy Queen - a blizzard, a favorite yet frequently disappointing. I called Lisa Snodderly, her family was in Duluth for vacation, to tell them I was nearby, and “hi” and such. I made the turn at Finlayson and decided that Finley or Findlay would be a good baby name. I followed Jean’s subjective directions (you’ll pass two lakes, then a trail…) and after a few wrong turns, made it to the cabin.

It was much nicer than I expected. Toilet, shower, electricity, everything. My uncle Dave had just pulled up on his Motorcycle, I said hello to him. Rob, Izzy, Deb, Jon, a few others were sitting talking around the fire pit. Mandy and Barry and there new son was there. I wandered inside, Jean and Troy, along with Barb and Harjinder, my mother, Gulu, Kim and the other kids (Isabelle, Ella, Drew Ellen) were there playing. I hugged my mom, hugged Jean, shook Troy’s hand. Troy was shipping out to Iraq the next day, which was insane, but it sounded like quite an adventure. Troy is in his late forties now, so I doubted he’d be much in harms way, so it was okay. He’d be gone for a long while, however.

Jon and I went and grabbed this chair my mom had asked me to haul cross country to give to Jean. I was pretty sure Jean would appreciate it, and then wonder why we didn’t take it to her house in Minneapolis. This mattered because otherwise I would have left Van Go at Barbs and rode up and down with them, avoiding the entire Manzar incident. It turns out, Jean freaked out, saying that she had wanted the chair for years and years. That felt nice, the trip definitely worth it.

We just hung out the rest of the day and evening. We went swimming in the afternoon, a warm Minnesota lake. I swam way out, 100 yards or something, until the cold heart of the lake grabbed me and convinced me to swim back in before it was too late. Isabelle told me my hair looked better down, like when it was wet. What does she know!?

Later that night, Jon and I went in to town to grab some beer. The general store didn’t carry any, but they directed us to the bar around the corner. We walked in, it was pretty much the bar from Beautiful Girls, except less pretty. The bartender asked if we wanted a drink, and we said we wanted to buy some beer to go. She took us to a back room with a glass window where you could buy beer by the case. Some dudes walked in, the bartender lady got suspicious. Jon had to step outside and look as if he was waiting for someone. Strange, but we paid our money and had a twelver of PBR. We drove back to the cabin in Dave’s roadkill machine, his overhauled Chevy truck that was twice or three times the size of Van Go, had a 50-gallon drum in the tunneau as a gas tank and was painted in dark forest camo. That was Dave. We sat by the fire and drank some beers, I eventually retired and slept on the couch. I think there were dreams that evening, but who knows these things. I was out in the Minnesota wilderness, a place where people from small towns in that country think is a long way out.

This was the midpoint of my journey, a little over 2,000 miles at this point. Sleep.

I made the turn oat Finlayson