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.