I arrived super late Friday night after standing-by in the Atlanta airport all day. We just went home and crashed. First thing Saturday morning we got up and headed east towards Wisconsin for a cabin visit. First, we stopped in the oldest town in Minnesota to do some sight seeing and shopping. It started out kinda gross and rainy...hence the fashionable rain coats. We happened to strike gold since there was an art festival setting up. This is us in the food truck section...near the donut truck since we instantly thought of last summer's mini donut craze. Next to the donut truck is the fried pickles truck (I had to run past so I wouldn't eat them out of business) and then the fried cheese truck.
I think this is the bridge we took to get over to Wisconsin which is just minutes away on the other side.
The town had all sorts of cute little stores so we wandered through a few. I found this gem on display in one of the store fronts.
Can you believe there is an actual Crazy Cat Lady game?!
Before we hit the road again, we made sure to stop in one of their favorite bars for happy hour and pull tabs. When in Rome, right? And no.....we didn't really win. I must be bad luck because I have yet to win more than $2 on a pull tabs ticket.
Once across the bridge, we pulled over in another small town to walk out on a looooooooooooooong pier. The sun finally decided to come out and we were taking advantage of the nice day that apparently is a myth in Minnesota after their harsh winter. This is my feeble attempt at an artsy photo.
And a fun pic of Shelbs and Dan....my hosts/babysitters/entertainment/tour guides for the week.
Through the years Shelby and I have driven to and through many a state and following in the Meloy way...we always shake hands at the border. Wisconsin was no exception and we even pleaded with Dan to pull over and snap a picture of us with the sign.
Shelbs and Dan were excited to make a slight detour to introduce me to my very first fried cheese curds. I felt squeamish last summer when we stopped at a jerkey store and bought fresh curds so now I had to try them fried, right?
They were just as delicious as promised and they went down well with a Jeremiah Weed and lemonade...my favorite summer cocktail.
We got to the cabin mid-afternoon and headed straight out in the boat to do some fishing. This apparently was set to be a trip of "firsts" for me since I've never really been fishing. Of course we got an action shot.
Sadly, the fish weren't having any part of our leech temptations. Really...we used leeches. Well, Dan used leeches while Shelbs and I kept our safe distance from the red cooler. He was kind enough to bait our hooks for us.
This was the best catch of the day!
Photo-op as we were packing up and heading in for dinner.
We got back to the cities on Sunday and headed to Pam and Dale's for dinner and cocktails...and to watch The Apprentice finale. I was pulling for Marlee Matlin.
Shelby was showing them something on her phone when I told them to smile...hence the featured pink iphone. I loved getting to see her parents and hang at their house. Funny that a house I've only been to a couple of time would have familiar smells and memories. We went over again later in the week for another dinner/drinking/laugh fest.
[Enter many day of no pictures. We fell into a daily routine during the week that didn't call for many pictures. Well, as routine as Shelby's life can be. I was blown away by her ability to multi-task not only her life and to-do list but projects for at least 4 other people at the same time. On any given day she is managing Chris's life, juggling multiple real estate deals, picking up odds and ends tasks from the country club ladies (who all live in uh-mazing houses), executing temp projects, and handling whatever goes on at her house. If I had that job my brain would explode within a week, but somehow if fits her perfectly. I was just along for the ride.]
Here's a fun pic of Shelbs changing the sale sign to SOLD on one of her properties. I had to document the moment :)
During the week we went and worked on a project for a company called Julia Knight. They are a home decor company that sells stunning bowls, picture frames, cake sets, platters, wine and cocktail accessories among other things. I checked out the website before I went and didn't think much of the different pieces, but once I had them in hand I loved every single one I touched. The colors are brilliant! This one was my absolute favorite.
They needed a few extra hands so I was able to go and work as well. Shelby and I were in charge of running inventory on their in stock items, pulling and packing it up, shipping it over to a professional photography studio and then unpacking it all. They were getting ready for the semi-annual catalog shoot. So adding to another first was getting to see a Target commercial being shot while we were unpacking our stuff.
I also got to see see a food shoot for General Mills one morning. One of the random errand ladies who call on Shelbs is a food stylist. She emailed in a panic because she left her phone at home and asked if we would bring it to her. So I got the tour of her fancy countryside home (I can't believe I didn't take a picture of it) and then rubbernecked my way in when we dropped it off at the photoshoot. There are some really cool jobs in this world.
Wednesday night, we went downtown to help out a non-profit that Shelby works with. They help mentor inner city teenagers who are wanting to go to college and further their education. They were having a fundraiser that night at a $4 million pent house condo and just so happened to need a few greeters. We jumped on the chance and got to tour the condo after our shift was over. I didn't take any pictures up there because it didn't seem to fit the wine-sipping mingling atmosphere of the guests. The view was more beautiful than the interior of the condo, but I'm still marking it as a first in my book. The first time I've ever been in a pent house. Extra fun to be there with Shelbs since we used to always speculate about the PH button on the elevator in our apartment building in WPB. Now if we could've only made it up there!
Anyway, here's a picture of the building from the parking lot. They've kept the remains of some of the old factories which gives a really cool feeling of modern and historical in the same area. The pent house we were in is in the building closest to us in the picture, so you can't actually see the top here. I just thought it was a fun angle.
Shelby had a packed schedule during the day Friday, so I thought I was going to be sitting at Caribou all day armed with my laptop, book and more mochas than one person should really have in a sitting. I was surprised to see Dan walk in and declare it Dan Day. We hopped in his car and headed in to town so I could get the full tour of Minneapolis and St. Paul. We drove through the different neighbors and around many of the 10,000 lakes (or so it seemed) and pointed out every White Castle restaurant we saw. It was fun! He gave me background and history on the areas and the houses were to.die.for. Gorgeous, old, huge and I'm sure jam packed full of ghosts. We stopped at one of his favorite Italian restaurants for lunch and then continued the tour over by where the pent house was. We got out and hiked across one of the old bridges and then went down to water level and explored.
The Stone Arch Bridge from down below.
The super spooky abandoned Pillsbury building.
Now a shot of me from the top of the bridge.
We wrapped up the tour and headed back towards home to meet up with Shelby for cocktails and dinner. Since we got to the meeting point (mall) early we went inside and wandered around. We spied a shop that was carrying the Julia Knight stuff we had just been working with all week. I knew it was expensive, but nothing on our work lists actually had the retail prices so we went in to do some "field research". The platter I showed you earlier was being sold for............$195! Holy cow. Looks like it shall live on my wish list instead of my counter top. Ha ha. Here we are posing with the window display. I'm sure the people in the mall thought we had a loose screw (or 3).
Afterwards we made a happy hour stop and then dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. Thanks to the randomness of Facebook, we found out that our friend from PBA, Josh, was in town for a wedding. So we picked him up at his hotel and went out for a quick drink and chance to catch up. Josh dated our roommate Heather so we saw him a good bit our last year in Florida. We were always "Team Josh" in the race a couple other boys were in for Heather's heart. For the record, he didn't "win" that race, but as life turns out, it's really better that way. I'm sure I haven't seen him since we left in 2003, so it was fun to reconnect and hear about his life in Colorado now.
We crashed that night and were up first thing the next morning for me to catch a flight home. I had an amazing stay and loved the chance to get out Atlanta for the week. It was the perfect mix of busy and peaceful and just what I needed in between my semesters. Shelbs, thank you for being an amazing hostess and friend. I loved getting a peek into your day to day life and also the time we got to just sit and chat whether out on the dock in Wayzata (Minnetonka?) or in our pajamas on your comfy couch. Already looking forward to the next time I get to see you face to face.
Love and cheese curds.
