Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Perhaps I am insane

Or I'm not hearing things and the piped in music in the Ramada Inn lobby is actually some jazzy version of "The Little Drummer Boy."

Seriously. I just had to check the date. It is May 7th. Christmas is not for many, many months. Who plays Christmas music in May?

And then, I swear to all that is Holy (such as the night), it then turned into this jazzy rendition of "At Last." WTF? Are you kidding me? Not that it wasn't good but it was a duet. Very strange.

I also got to hear a conversation between some English guy and the male clerk at the front desk about how the English guy usually scores pretty well because he's English. Apparently we foolish American women are turned on by an accent and overlook the fact that he a) is married and b) seems to have no personality. Apparently both he and male clerk are on their 3rd wives. Male clerk looks to be about 35. Also, English guy got married for the 1st time when he was 16. Apparently that's legal in England.

In case you are wondering, the lobby has computers with free internet so I can catch up on my blogs and email. And eavesdrop on interesting conversations between the clerk and random people. The Ramada Inn, by the way, features a Belgium waffle breakfast. I've heard that approximately 6 times. I have also heard "Rockin' Robin" and "Little Bitty Pretty One" twice within the last hour so apparently the music played here is odder than I thought.

The vacation is going well. On Friday Keem and I went to the zoo (the Minnesota Zoo, it's bigger than the Como Zoo in Saint Paul but the Como Zoo will always be my favorite) and the worst Mexican restaurant in the world (Tequila's in LaCrosse with Keem's mom Kathy and her niece Kylee (a mini version of Keem - silly and sarcastic. At the age of 9. I thought sarcasm wasn't something you learned until you were a teenager)).

We spent two nights in LaCrosse and went to visit my favorite store in the world, Shopko. I don't know why Shopko is my favorite. I have loved it ever since I lived in Madison, many, many years ago. Perhaps because it was cheap but also had cool stuff. Saturday, Keem, Kathy and I drove to Marquette, Iowa to the Isle of Capri (a river boat casino. Not as exciting as I thought but I did manage to walk out with money left in my pocket and only lost 5 dollars. In my book, that counts as winning). The drive was very pretty and I have many pictures.

Keem, Kathy and I drove to Wisconsin Dells on Sunday (after I called my sister and wished her a happy Mother's Day. And then everyone laughed at me because apparently Mother's Day is this Sunday, not last Sunday). We stayed at the Ho-Chunk Casino because Keem and I stayed there last year and enjoyed it. The hotel is very nice. We decided to only stay there for two days because it is expensive and also, the temptation to gamble is removed if you're not actually staying in the casino.

On Monday, we took the upper Dells boat trip. Very fun, would have been better if not for the two screaming little girls that sat in front of us. Apparently they were tired, which you would think the parents would notice before taking the kids on a two hour boat ride. After awhile, you could just turn them out and they did stop the screaming for most of the trip. Their older brother was a perfect angel during the entire trip and amused me greatly when he turned to his dad and asked "Can't we just throw them off the boat?" His dad responded with "I think I'm going to jump off the boat."

Keem and I got rather sunburned so we decided to take another boat trip the other day and compound the sunburn. This was on the lower Dells and was only an hour.

Today was kind of rainy. Kathy left earlier this morning and it is now just Keem and I. So we decided to go to the movies. We saw "Made of Honor" with Patrick Dempsey (I've liked him ever since "Can't Buy Me Love" and "Lover Boy" and that other one he was in where he was a pizza delivery boy who began to supplement his income by providing other services besides pizza (can't remember the name, too tired to go to IMDB) and "Iron Man" with Robert Downey Jr.

Liked them both. For different reasons, of course. "Made of Honor" was cute, funny and had some gorgeous scenery (parts of it is filmed in the UK). "Iron Man" had things that blew up, an awesome plane chase and Robert Downey Jr.

Tomorrow we are off to Mount Horeb for the second annual visit to the Mustard Museum. So looking forward to that. NPW, not sure if they have post cards but if they do, you will receive one. If not, I'll find another one for you somewhere.

Pictures when we get home. Have a great week, guys!