The Utahn in Minnesota

It took a marriage for it to happen, but I finally traveled farther east than Grand Junction, Colorado, and farther north than Pocatello, Idaho. For a few days I escaped my arid desert box of the West into the green, lush land of the North.

As this journey was a big step for this little Utahn, I’ll spare no details, which means a lengthy but intriguing post to follow.

Minnesota—Before I was Enlightened

Clayton was my first buddy from the land of way too many lakes. Before him, I only cared for Minnesota’s existence because of my favorite sci-fi TV show, Stargate SG-1. Both the lead actor, Richard Dean Anderson, and his quick-witted character Colonel Jack O’Neill, are from Minnesota. O’Neill, like most Minnesotans I’ve met, is very passionate about the place. Whenever he’s not saving the world from aliens, he’s at his cozy little cabin, fishing on a Minnesotan lake that has no fish. (For most of the series.)

Being my favorite TV show, I just have to quote O’Neill, just a tiny bit:

Referring to their alien enemies:

“You know what the Goa'uld really want from us? Minnesota, that's what. For the fishing, mostly.”

 “Land of sky-blue waters, loofas, ya sure ya betcha', snookums, mosquitoes, home of the loon.”

I never caught everything he said in this line, but even Clayton doesn’t recognize some of the terms like “snookum and “loofa.” Maybe those were misquoted, but the rest of the stuff is right on. Especially the mosquitoes.

After Stargate, I met Clayton and his team of awesome Minnesotans, and now these people are everywhere. When we went there a couple weeks ago, for our much belated Open House to celebrate being married again, it was about time I saw the place for myself.

Minnesota from the Airplane

Ironically, the most defining features of Minnesota’s landscape are trees and lakes, but you can’t see the scope of both at the same time. On the ground, it takes a native to know where the secret passageways are that lead through the endless walls of trees to some hidden lake. Trees hide lakes, houses, parks, and probably even Minneapolis itself. The highway system to get from Coon Rapids where Clayton’s family lives, to the main city, is the most bizarre I have ever traveled on. It’s not a matter of one I-15 with one exit to take; it’s exit after exit after exit, with the highways splitting from each other in every direction all the time and winding around trees and lakes and ducks and HOLY COW! I didn’t drive most of the time, but I know that without a GPS I would have gone crazy and driven my car into a lake. (If I could even find one.) I blame the trees and lakes for all that winding nonsense.

In the air, trees are nothing but flat green squares, and there’s a zillion lakes. They say Minnesota is the “Land of 10,000 Lakes,” and only from a plane could I see that they’re completely not kidding. Clayton remarked that it actually made sense to colonize a place like this, as opposed to Utah. I didn’t have to think about it long. Poor Utah, he’s right. Water’s definitely not a problem up north. They like their water, too—I couldn’t help but ask if they ever filled in a lake to have more land. Clayton looked at me like I was crazy.

In the fading light of dusk our plane glided over hundreds of glimmering lakes. Before we landed, I couldn’t help but notice how flat the landscape was. I felt the opposite of suffocated, like, too open. Too infinite. Everywhere I could see, the land rolled on and on and on and on…they have their luxurious lakes, but we have our majestic mountains.  

Behold Minneapolis!
Flat, green, and every blue spot you see on the ground is probably a lake.

 Minnesota with the Watts

Clayton’s family lives in one of those houses surrounded by trees and squirrels. All I had to do was look out the kitchen window to see one of the furry critters scurry by. The trees offer a ton of shade that I wish I could have taken back to Utah with me. I mean, of course Utah does have trees, especially in the northern cities. But Minnesota trees could eat those trees for breakfast.

The Watts backyard

Still the Watts backyard

In addition to trees and squirrels, Clayton’s family lives on a lake. It’s funny because so does mine; probably one of the few to claim that in Utah. There are some differences though…like, his lake is natural, allows speedboats and tubing, and the people on the lake have garages right by the shore for their boats. My lake strikes out on all of those.

For example, no lake in Utah looks like this:

Or this:

We are approaching the Watts backyard

I did enjoy being with the Watts for more reasons than their shady green land. Although we did relish that part:

The Watts are awesome people. They’re all musical, and sing and play at least 2 or more instruments. They love games. In one sitting Clayton and I played Boggle, Settlers of Catan, and the card game 7-Up. Meanwhile everyone else, and a group of young single adults, played Killer Bunnies, Ticket to Ride, Mao, and others. Gaming is a great time. I mean, Clayton and I can entertain ourselves perfectly playing nothing but Battleship. Who could ask for more?

MALL OF AMERICA

Any true tourist in the vicinity of Minneapolis has to see the Mall of America. My dad was excited already when we passed the power tools in Sears, but that was nothing compared to the indoor amusement park or the giant Lego statues.

The view as I was eating my pizza

The pirate, globe, chopper and big dude are all made of Legos

Sort of intimidating, isn't it?

Everything costs money in this world, so we chose the least expensive entertainment that the mall had to offer: minigolf. I guess minigolf tries to give the golfer a theme they don’t usually see, like Hawaii or the jungle; in this case, the theme was mountains. Must be how Minnesotans fulfill their mountain quota for the year.  

The golfers were me, Clayton, and my parents. My father, injured in a motorcycle accident some weeks earlier, was in a wheelchair. That didn’t stop him from golfing.

That also didn’t stop him from winning.

I was somewhat ashamed of myself for losing to a man who hopped on one foot across each hole.

OPEN HOUSE

We came to Minnesota to celebrate being married again. We held it in a church gym. It was a casual and friendly occasion, where I got to meet people who had known Clayton a lot longer than me and eagerly validated my choice of a husband. Plus he got to dress snazzier than usual. So did I, but in my opinion he’s much nicer to stare at.

I got also got to hear people sing, people from Clayton’s ward from church and his family. His parents played the guitar and sang, and his sister and her fiancé sang together. After some prodding, we all finally got Clayton to sing a solo. His voice, ahh, his voice makes me melt! He’s more comfortable in choirs, but he can fly solo very nicely too. I love singing next to him in church and listen to him cycle through all the parts. My favorite is when he sings the low, rumbling bass.

After the Open House Clayton and I escaped to a fast-food restaurant. It wasn’t a true escape, since we borrowed both the car and money and had to return them. When we came back to the gym, my dad was balancing on one foot and crutches and shooting free-throws with one hand. I couldn’t resist, and took my turn after him. I made it on the third try, though my shot looks pretty ugly. Then Clayton, his parents, my mom, and eventually Clayton’s brother all took a turn. Basketball has a contagious nature about it, and soon we split into teams—me, my mom, and Clayton’s mom against the two dads and the brothers. We played a game.

In our suits and dresses.

I had to take off my heels, so I lost another two inches against the mighty Watts giants. But for some reason I was shooting well anyway—maybe I had this giddy false idea that I could fly after I took those heels off—and in any event, it was a blast to play with everyone. The men were nice to me, being tiny and all, and the women were nice to my hobbling father. I didn’t steal from him until he stole from me!

It wasn’t until after our game that we tried to figure out if our clothes would be easy to wash. In most cases, not really. Ah well, the memory was well worth it.

THE LAST DAY

Before going to the airport, Clayton’s mom was kind enough to take us to Sculpture Park, along with his youngest brother. We had some fun there:

I'd hate to meet the guy who uses this spoon for breakfast

A glass fish

 Then we boarded the plane and flew home. I said, Good-bye, Minnesota. Only Minnesota didn’t say good-bye to me until several days later, after all the mosquito bites vanished. I counted at least 12 bites on my left leg, and 5 bites on my apparently less desirable right leg. I’ve never been such mosquito fodder in my life.

Despite the mosquitoes, the trip was awesome. The lakes, trees, and Watts of Minnesota were totally wonderful to experience.

Motorcycle Mishap

I’m sure there’s a law of physics somewhere that decrees a motorcycle’s doom when its tires strike oil on the road. Here’s the scary thing: if this law states that your motorcycle will slide on oil and launch you over the handlebars, there’s nothing you can do about it. Humanity is powerless against the laws of physics.

Tuesday, July 31^st

On this sunshiny morning, Clayton and I were on our way to the Jordan River temple where my mom’s stepmom, baptized just over a year ago into the LDS church, was going through the temple for her first time. Totally awesome! We were nearly there when my Daddy called. I was driving, so Clayton answered, and soon I heard him say unnerving things like “Ohh, man” and “Are you okay?” and repeatedly “Okay, we’ll tell her.” What the…? Confused and concerned, I tried to picture what might have happened. An accident? Dad’s voice sounded too normal for someone in dire condition. Lost in thought, I missed our next turn.

Clayton “hung up” the cell and I made him regurgitate the conversation back to me. Well, Dad’s motorcycle slipped on oil on his way to the temple; he wasn’t going very fast; he had a gash in his ankle; and he was in an ambulance. It was a little shocking. Things like ambulances and motorcycle crashes usually suggest far worse results than a gash in the ankle, and Dad seemed alright. I spoke my thoughts aloud, reflecting especially on the fact that Dad would be alone in a hospital for more than two hours. That idea didn’t sit well with either of us, and before we got out of the car we decided to visit him.

But first we had to tell Mom.

In the temple, cell phones are off or on silent. Mom had gotten there earlier with Grandma and was already inside. I showed the temple workers my recommend for the sole purpose of retrieving Mom. After a worker left to get her I realized I’d mentioned only that Dad was in an accident. I feared that Mom would think he was seriously hurt or worse. Soon as she arrived, I burst out “He’s okay, Mom! He’s okay!” and the worker said, “I didn’t tell her anything.” Oh.

I gave her the details. The worker asked if Mom was going to stay, and she said quietly, “I probably…should.” Mom would be a big support for Grandma, and plus I could go to Dad. She was torn, but chose to stay. Clayton and I tried to imagine what it would be like to picture your spouse injured in a hospital for two hours without you there. But we felt she couldn’t have been in a more peaceful place to wait to see him than the temple.

At the Hospital

After wandering around lost among 2 buildings of the wrong hospital and 9 buildings of the right one (and I in my 3-inch heels), we finally found Dad. He called right before we found him, wondering if someone was coming to see him, and lit up when we stepped into his room. It was hard to miss the wide and bleeding laceration on his left ankle. His foot was covered in dry blood. We hugged and he told his tale, of how he took an exit from Salt Lake City onto I-15 that he’d never taken before on his bike. He was stopped at a red light before the on-ramp; then the light went green, he turned, and suddenly he and his bike went separate ways.

The first blessing in all this was that he wasn’t going very fast, maybe 10-15 mph, as he was informed from the second blessing in all this—the ambulance sitting across from him at the light who saw it all happen. They estimated his speed, and also said that he’d flown over his handlebars. He had no idea about that. When your body flies, there’s no up and down. Just adrenaline and a panicky sensation that comes from your body moving too fast in directions that your brain didn’t tell it to move. HazMat arrived quickly and speculated that it might be a diesel spill. Dad stood up, aware of a pain in his calf, and thought he’d be able to get his bike up. Of course the medics asked if he was alright. He was, until he noticed the blood seeping out of his shoe. Things got a little different after that.

What hit me the most was when my Daddy told us how it felt, the swinging of his motorcycle’s back end, the sudden launching of his body through the air. He was still shaken, and it brought tears to both our eyes. The left side of his helmet was scratched up. For a helmet, it didn’t look so bad. But then you have to imagine your head sliding on the ground fast enough for it to get that scratched, and that’s plum scary. Then you have to imagine psychos who ride motorcycles without helmets in the first place, whose faces would not have fared as well as the helmet when grated against the ground. Fortunately, Dad is no psycho. In fact, his feet were normally protected too with boots, but on this fateful ride, he wore his Sunday shoes instead.

All this…at no more than 15 mph. Makes it seem a little ridiculous that his ankle got so mangled, but that’s how it goes. Powerless against physics. My thoughts wandered to what might have happened if he was going faster, and I choked up. This was a time when I turned to my beliefs, my religion. Believing that when I lost a loved one, I would see them again when I died. The ultimate and only comfort when loved ones are lost.

A Side Note on Passing Out

I learned about myself that I don’t get queasy from the sight of blood. Or needles. Or needles with blood. If Dad was in pain, I would not have been able to watch. But laying there on his stomach, speaking with me calmly with his foot propped up, I was able to watch them pry the injury apart, clean it with saline, and sew the tendon up.

Clayton, however, had left long before then. After the needle took Dad’s blood, actually. Dad had borrowed my health insurance card, and as he was giving it back to me, I noticed that Clayton was leaned forward in the seat beside me, face in his hands. I was about to ask if he was alright, when his breathing changed, like he was snoring. I put my hands on his back and said his name, but no response. He’d passed out. The nurse guy came over, sat him up, and rubbed his chest, all the while saying his name until he woke up. Poor Clayton felt sick and clammy, and escaped to the lobby to sleep it off.

Apparently passing out is no fun, but I find it to be such a phenomenon. Such crazy physical changes that happen for no conscious reason. What a day to reflect on how special, and how fragile, our bodies are. Anyway, they stitched Dad up, bandaged him, and Mom took him home. He’s doing great. He feels sorest from the crutches.

No pictures for this post...not because none were taken, but because I’m sure not everyone wants to see what a bloodied, cut-open ankle looks like.