We left Saturday morning around 7:00 am. I drove so that Scott could try to get a little nap in after his late night shooting a wedding on Friday. Since we were going straight to the Albertville outlets, I took highways instead of the interstate. There were a couple of weird detours, but nothing major. We were about 15 miles from Albertvile (on the interstate at this point) when we saw an interstate sign telling us that there was a crash ahead and to expect delays. Well, about 8 miles from our destination the traffic came to a halt- all 3 lanes. We crept very slowly ahead for about a mile and came up to an accident. Nope, not the one that was causing the issue, one caused by the congestion due to the issue. The next 2 miles took us almost an hour. At this point we saw an exit and escaped! This is when we discovered our new best friend on vacation- VZ Navigator on our cell phone! What a wonderful little application! It got us to the outlet malls without having to get back on the interstate- I think we might still be there otherwise! We had a great afternoon wandering around the outlet malls, the kids were even really good!
We went to our hotel- no major issues on that trip- thank goodness. We spent a couple hours in the hotel waterpark. They had a couple of waterslides. The girls and I went running up the stairs very excited to go down the slides. The girls each took a slide so I had to wait at the top. When it was my turn, I get in the slide and as soon as I started down the slide I started to panic. It was an enclosed slide and had I been 10 pounds heavier I think I would have gotten stuck it was soooooo small. Add to that the fact that it was pitch dark and the water was constatly rushing over my face- for a kid or even most adults that might be a great rush- for me who is claustrophobic- not fun at all! I was swearing within the first 2 seconds, praying by the next 2 and wishing to pass out by the end. Needless to say,I only went down the slides once. The girls loved them! Go figure!
Tucked the kids in about 8:45. At 9:00 the hotel staff was ushering people to the ground floor hallway. There was a tornado headed right for Maple Grove- yippee! Will and Hannah were already dead to the world, so it was great fun getting them up. The hotel was still standing 15 minutes later and we were all able to go back to bed!
This morning we used our favorite new application to get to Minnehaha park in Minneapolis. I did another feeble attempt at getting a picture of all 3 kids- some day it might work! I did get a picture of the sweetest little boy on earth, though! He was such a trooper- lots of walking this weekend but he did great!
I took this picture cuz Scott was making fun of Hannah for having a statue of herself at the park!We went to the Mall of America for a couple hours. Will was so amazed by all of the rides in the park. We didn't go on any of them, but I think he could have just sat and watched them all day!
Hoping for an easy, uneventful ride home proved pointless. We were no more than 15 minutes down the road and we were at a standstill. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Turns out this one was due to road construction and one lane traffic. Once again we found a random exit and escaped. Seems MN likes their detours, cuz the highway we took had about 4 of them. We lost about an hour on the interstate waiting to find an exit so poor Scott was not taking any detour that did not head in the correct general direction.
Then we get to I90 headed west and we see this:
Now, I am sure it was just a "water spout" but after the 2 days we have had I was just sure we were headed towards a tornado!
We found our way home, the kids were all great all weekend. We had some trivia question books that kept the car ride entertaining and we are now home and happy!
Sometimes vacations seem like more work than they are worth, but we spent 2 whole days together as a family, no work interferences, no laundry, no cleaning, no errands. I don't care if we had been stranded on the interstate for hours, it was worth it!
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