Opportunity knocks once, let's reach out and grab it!

" I spy, with my little eye, something brown....and flat."
"is it Minnesota?"
"yes! Cam wins! Your turn Cam!"
"no Leigh, that's ok, I think you covered it"

Today we crossed the Mississippi in some spectacular scenery that made even  outdoor-o-phobe cam sit up and go "wow". We also narrowly avoided visiting the spam museum. Really narrowly. I mean, we're still technically in the same town as it, we could conceivably go. What town is that? Albert Lea, MN. When we pulled in to the McDonald's, the locals commented on our strange choice of stopping place, which would seem to be a bad sign, but in fact we have a wonderful deal on a hotel. We are staying at an Americ Inn (no joke, folks) and this is how the wheeling and dealing went.

" hi, we need a room for four adults and two cats, do you have a pet friendly room?"
" ah, yes, but there's a $25 fee per animal....how big are they?"
"oh very small cats, two little ones."
"hmm...well, let's just say two small ones is one normal sized one and we'll just do $25. Ok, so, every 2 people is...84 dollars. So the total with taxes is...$189."
"wow, ok, well, thank you for your time"
" well wait, let's see...how big are the people?"
"really small, like practically midgets."
"ok, well, why don't we just call them kids, we'll just do 84 for the room. "

"excuse me, could you pass the Grey Poupon?"

The day started with an actual kid, we had brunchy type thing with Dan and

Family Brunch

MORE awesome harbor!

Look, our hotel!

The magnificent harbor.

Such a beautiful church!

Downtown Port Washington

Michael's favorite spot in Port Washington

Roxy and Teagan, in Port Washington (pictured here) followed by...well, driving. And driving. I fell asleep around 2 and woke again around 5, catching up on that aforementioned missed sleep. According to Cam, I didn't miss much. Dinah is still horrendously unhappy with the whole situation, but Emma has taken to traveling and enjoys hotels. In particular, she enjoys playing fetch in hotels, where she can leap from bed to bed chasing her mouse.

Dinner was also quite an adventure. Theres not much here in Albert Lea, particularly since the Applebee's is closed for renovation, which was a particular disappointment to me because I was craving a solid meal after road food consisting mostly of mom's (admittedly awesome) cookies and gas station pop tarts. So we talked to the concierge cum desk attendant,who informed us that "well, there's the mall. You might find something there. In fact,you could try pizza ranch. They do a pizza bar, but they have broiled chicken too."

I saw this, and I had to take a picture for you Dad.

I was naturally exceedingly skeptical. My skepticism grew when we passed this shop on the way to pizza ranch. The decor and ambiance of pizza ranch was also not encouraging. But,to my extreme joy, and not a little bouncing like a small child, there WAS solid food! I had an enormous chicken breast with mashed potatoes and corn and a big salad. Everyone else was also pretty thrilled, particularly when the Canadians discovered that the drink machine featured mellow yellow, which was akin to the holy grail of carbonated beverages.

Now it is 8:15 local time, we have just eaten a really tasty waffle bar breakfast here at the Americ Inn (which I can now highly recommend....at least the one in Albert lea Minnesota) and we are preparing to hit the road. We're hoping to make it across south dakota and into Montana today, and hopefully stop early enough to catch a movie.

It has been suggested by an avid reader that we do a traveller profile each day, and I agree. If you can post some absurd, or perhaps even genuine questions for our intrepid travelers, I will be happy to oblige with interviews.

More writing later, but for now, more pictures!