Ah, I need to keep up here folks, and I'm so sorry! I just checked my blog stats, which I haven't done in probably six months and I'm embarrassed. In the past 24 hours I have had not one, but FOUR BIG names in scrapbooking stop by my blog per my little tracky-thingy, and they've seen....not much.
I just don't seem to be able to muster the energy to record my thoughts here unless they are snap happy and S/H has been in short supply here, just little bursts now and then.
So.
And so.
Anyway, tomorrow Erin, Andrew and I leave for our big trip to Minot, ND. All 518 or 548 miles of it, depending on which route my dad recommends...we are eagerly awaiting his superior advice.
Erin and I, being the big night owls that we are, are leaving at 9pm tomorrow so we arrive just in time for morning coffee on Thanksgiving Day.
Because my dear hearts Danielle, Don and the girls were leaving for Texas, California and then Uganda today, I haven't really put much thought into my Minot trip details. Of course its been weighing on my mind: The whole visit is about my grandmother, and the possibility this is our last visit to her as her heart condition is becoming difficult to manage.
Anyway, as a way to IMMEDIATELY distract me from missing the heck out of D&D I started my internet based research on what's gonna be what in Minot. Saints preserve us.
- The weather will bounce between the frigid 30 and the frigid-er 14.
- Snow is expected on Saturday only at this point.
- The nearest WIFI appears to be at the Wild Things Gallery about 2 miles away...problem is their website is gone and it seems that maybe they have gone out of business.
- Oh and I thought I'd look into the coffee options. Did a yahoo maps search...and...
- The nearest coffee shop appears as Kum & Go, a gas station about 3 miles to the NE of my grandmas place...
Nope, I don't make this stuff up, I speak the truth. But wait, I thought, that can't be right! My grandma lives less than a mile from the "new" mall. Surely there is a coffee shop there! According to the directory for the Dakota Square Mall there is a Taco Johns (eat your heart out cousin Josh!) but no coffee shop. Not even a kiosk! But that cannot be! I cannot except this defeat! Surely there must be a Starbucks SOMEWHERE in Minot! So I type in Starbucks and Get driving directions and sure enough, I am right, ALL THE WAY ACROSS TOWN, a total of 2.6 miles to the north is the lone Starbucks. Yes, I do mean lone. I searched the Starbucks site for all of North Dakota and there are FIVE Starbucks in Bismarck and 1 in Minot. And that is it folks. Now I can't remember how far it is to Bismarck from Minot, I think a couple hundred miles, but I'm too lazy to look it up right now. I wasn't too lazy to look up the flights between Minot and Bismarck, which would run me upwards of $800 and take 5 hours, as they connect through Minneapolis airport...talk about your end arounds.
Anyway! I'm stubborn, so I kept at it, doggedly searching for coffee that wasn't made by a truck driver or a gas station attendant and (insert heavenly voices singing here) I found that the mall DOES have coffee. Not Starbucks, not Caribou, not Seattles Best, oh no, none of that is good enough for Dakota Square Mall. They have (more heavenly voices) Bellissimo Caffe Casa. Waaa? (insert needle scratching a record album here)
Okay these are Italian words. (well, not exclusively Italian, casa is also commonly used in Spanish, French and Portugese...) Bellissimo is actually not used often in Italy, but roughly it translates as Very Beautiful. Caffe' is also Italian and it means coffee. Casa of course means house. So they are trying to tell me that not only can I have coffee at the mall next door (which of course will be open BRIGHT AND EARLY on Black Friday!) but I will be getting that coffee at a very beautiful coffee house. Sounds divine, yes? Why do I feel a coffee nightmare story of DUNKIN DONUTS proportion coming on? Hmm?? Is it the fact that I spent many years of my life living in Minot? Is it that Minot is proud of being the 4th largest city in North Dakota (there ARE four cities in North Dakota?) Is it that at the age of 43 I have come to discover that my purpose in being brought to Minnesota in the first place was so that I could grow fat and happy off the FABU, unparalleled coffee available right here in the good old Minneapolis of Minnesota?
And I wonder if Dunkin Donuts has a foothold in Minot...brb...whew! I am relieved to report that there are NO DDs within 50 miles of Minot.
So, a report on Bellissimo Caffe will be forthcoming...if I don't find WIFI in Minot, it will be reported upon my return.
And hey, I just noticed...the Starbucks at 2.6 miles is actually CLOSER than the Kum & Go at 3 miles...hmmm...is there some sort of an anti corporate coffee klatch going on here? In collusion with Yahoo Maps? Dear, dear....
Hey- watch what you say about Dunkin' Donuts! :)
Hope your trip went well and that you got the necessary caffeine.
Posted by: Chris | November 23, 2007 at 07:17 PM
Hi I think you're wrong. I'm sure. I can prove it.
Posted by: TuhSheflySill | July 28, 2011 at 11:22 PM