- March 4, 2001 (Day -4)
- March 6, 2001 (Day -2)
- March 7, 2001 (Day -1)
- March 8, 2001 (Day 1)
- March 10, 2001 (Day 3)
- March 11, 2001 (Day 4)
- March 12, 2001 (Day 5)
- March 13, 2001 (Day 6)
- March 14, 2001 (Day 7)
- March 15, 2001 (Day 8)
- March 16, 2001 (Day 9)
- March 17, 2001 (Day 10)
- March 18, 2001 (Day 11)
- March 19, 2001 (Day 12)
- Time Check: Day 12
- March 20, 2001 (Day 13)
- March 21, 2001 (Day 14)
- March 22, 2001 (Day 15)
- March 23, 2001 (Day 16)
- March 24, 2001 (Day 17)
- March 25, 2001 (Day 18)
- March 26, 2001 (Day 19)
- March 27, 2001 (Day 20)
- March 28, 2001 (Day 21)
- March 29, 2001 (Day 22)
- March 30, 2001 (Day 23)
- Time Check: Day 23
- March 31, 2001 (Day 24)
- April 1, 2001 (Day 25)
- April 2, 2001 (Day 26)
- April 3, 2001 (Day 27)
- April 4, 2001 (Day 28)
- April 5, 2001 (Day 29)
- Time Check: Day 29
- April 6, 2001 (Day 30)
- April 7, 2001 (Day 31)
- April 8, 2001 (Day 32)
- April 9, 2001 (Day 33)
- April 10, 2001 (Day 34)
- April 11, 2001 (Day 35)
- Time Check: Day 35
- April 12, 2001 (Day 36)
- April 13, 2001 (Day 37)
- April 14, 2001 (Day 38)
- April 15, 2001 (Day 39)
- April 16, 2001 (Day 40)
- Time Check: Day 40
- April 17, 2001 (Day 41)
- April 18, 2001 (Day 42)
- April 19, 2001 (Day 43)
- Time Check: Day 43
- April 20, 2001 (Day 44)
- Intermission
- April 21, 2001 (Day 45)
- April 22, 2001 (Day 46)
- April 23, 2001 (Day 47)
- April 24, 2001 (Day 48)
- April 25, 2001 (Day 49)
- April 26, 2001 (Day 50)
- April 27, 2001 (Day 51)
- April 28, 2001 (Day 52)
- Time Check: Day 52
- April 29, 2001 (Day 53)
- April 30, 2001 (Day 54)
- May 1, 2001 (Day 55) – Part I
- May 1, 2001 (Day 55) – Part II
- May 2, 2001 (Day 56)
- May 3, 2001 (Day 57)
- May 4, 2001 (Day 58)
- May 5, 2001 (Day 59)
- May 6, 2001 (Day 60)
- May 7, 2001 (Day 61)
- Time Check: Day 61
- May 8, 2001 (Day 62)
- May 9, 2001 (Day 63)
- May 10, 2001 (Day 64)
- May 11, 2001 (Day 65)
- May 12, 2001 (Day 66)
- May 13, 2001 (Day 67)
- May 14, 2001 (Day 68)
- May 15, 2001 (Day 69)
- Time Check: Day 69
- May 16, 2001 (Day 70)
- Time Check: Day 70
- May 17, 2001 (Day 71)
- May 18, 2001 (Day 72)
- May 19, 2001 (Day 73)
- May 20, 2001 (Day 74)
- May 21, 2001 (Day 75)
- May 22, 2001 (Day 76)
- May 23, 2001 (Day 77)
- May 24, 2001 (Day 78)
- May 25, 2001 (Day 79)
- Intermission – Part II
- May 27, 2001 (Epilogue)
May 13, 2001 (Day 67): St. Paul, Minnesota – 10pm
Fat and happy. I don’t think I have stopped eating.
It was another stunning morning. Spring is such a fantastic time to visit the Midwest. The bright sun made it easy to appreciate all the flowering trees in their peak. The pinks and maroons were fabulous. Even the lilacs were blooming.
Today was Mother’s Day. We had a low-key bagel-oriented family get-together for the occasion. My nephew is in the habit of telling jokes where the relation of joke to punch line is understood only by him. Between bursts of his own laughter, he suffixes his material with a “Get it?” There seems to be a fairly uniform opinion that, no, none of us gets it. After a couple of his own, he turns to me and earnestly asked if I knew any jokes that I could tell him. I was happy to be able to respond swiftly and accurately; I told him, “No.” That got a laugh from everyone except my perplexed nephew.
My niece is quite communicative despite speaking few words. She supplements the sign language that my sister has taught her with a few gestures and an “umm umm umm” sound to indicate an item she wants and a rasping “ohhh” sound to demonstrate her excitement. My favorite trick of hers is that, if you wink at her, she will explicitly blink back at you. She is very even-handed about this. If you wink at her, she will blink back at everyone at the table.
Afterwards, we went to visit my grandmother. My cousin and her two boys were there. Between chats with my grandmother, I learned great details about dump trucks, cherry pickers, and belly dumpers from the eldest.
At the Caribou Coffee shop, the have a daily trivia question which, if answered correctly, gets you 10 cents off of your coffee. Today’s question was: Which city had the world’s first public zoo? The winning answer was “London”. I am awesome.
Tomorrow will be a very early morning. The boy-genius at Amtrak said that the train to Chicago will leave on time. While I do not believe him, we can ill-afford to call his bluff.
The evening was spent finishing laundry, re-packing, and just hanging out (and eating). My parents, bless them, are letting us drop two bags of our “plunder” here. We will leave one duffel bag and one Russian shopping bag full of gifts, postcards, winter hats, maps, phrase books, and guidebooks. When we depart the Twin Cities, we will carry the same pieces of luggage we originally began this trip with. To our credit, we did manage to haul all of this stuff by ourselves. However, it does weigh a ton.
In the news today, the execution of Timothy McVeigh, the person convicted of the Oklahoma City bombing, has been postponed. Some new FBI files on the bombing investigation have “surfaced”. It is not expected that this will delay the execution for long.
Excerpts from Anna’s journal included
This entry was posted in Around the World
