Minnesota nice

Whitewater State Park is a beautiful spot down in the Mississippi River valley, which we've been to before and wanted to revisit. We left the Twin Cities after work on Friday and took I-35 South through the 'burbs and into Minnesota farm country. It was a beautiful summer evening and as the sky turned pink, we chatted idly. We're rarely short of things to talk about, Wamby and I, as we both do like the sound of our own voices.

I was playing navigator and had my trusty Google Map directions clutched firmly in my little hands. By American standards, this was a stone's throw; spitting distance, a hop, skip and a jump from the Cities. A two and a half hour drive - hell, we've driven further for dinner. We'd both had a hard week and this journey we didn't even have any driver/passenger arguments, not even when we missed our turn and ended up in a small town called Chatfield about eight miles South of our destination.

So we took the scenic route. We arrived at Whitewater around 8pm, with the sun setting slowly in the sky, only to find the campground full. Not a problem, we thought; there's bound to be another State Park nearby. In fact, the nearest one was also full, the next one along was John Latsch Park - merely a clearing in the woods with no facilities, just a walk-in pitch with no running water or toilets. As it was starting to get dark, we drove the 43 miles to John Latsch and pulled off the highway up the driveway the led into the woods. It didn't occur to me to be scared until Wamby asked if I was sure I would be OK on my own while he drove to get firewood. I looked around the clearing and suddenly realised that I felt very much like a sitting duck. Aware that there could be a hundred pairs of eyes that I could not see locked on me at that very second, I decided we should both go for firewood.

'There should be a gas station any minute now....somewhere just around the next bend...maybe in that town up ahead?' We kept stating things like this to each other, only to be disappointed that the next 'town' or strip of civilisation we came to consisted of nothing more than a bait shop and a bar. Around 30 miles later, we stumbled across a 'Kum & Go' petrol station. Wamby has affectionately nicknamed the chain 'conceive and leave' and 'pump and dump', which I can honestly say, just never gets old.

As we pulled in, we were well aware that we had just driven North for about half an hour past John Latsch Park, and that perhaps if we drove another half hour, we could reach Red Wing State Park, which had hot showers and more flush toilets than you could shake a stick at. The risk being that we may arrive at Red Wing to find that was full too and have an hour drive back to the clearing in the woods, or an hour drive back to the city to sleep in our own bed, having done a totally pointless five hour drive around Southern Minnesota.

We entered the petrol station and asked the charmless woman behind the counter if they sold firewood. She had a face like a dropped meat pie and a slight stoop which made her look older than she was. Through a slew of 'Aww gees' and other colloquialisms, we gathered that they did not sell firewood, but that there was a wagon-full in front of a house four miles up a dirt road on the other side of the highway, where we could drop a donation into a tin by the gate. Well, we'd come this far - we were going to buy firewood if it was the last thing we ever did....and it almost was.

We drove up the desolate winding track with our headlights on full beam and eventually saw a farmhouse with three or four outbuildings and a wagon - just as pie-face had said there would be - stacked high with firewood. We eased into the driveway, dipping the headlights and as I searched in my bag for change, we heard them.

They were in the distance at first, well up the driveway near the house. A scrabbling sound on gravel and barking that got louder, and louder. Two dogs came hurtling towards the car - picked up at first in the headlights - teeth bared and eyes wide.

We looked at each other, not really knowing what to do. They were small, but they seemed vicious and we weren't sure what breed they were. They calmed for a few seconds, so W tried to open his door. They barked ferociously and the headlights picked up more and more of them. Within seconds there were eight or nine dogs around the car, all barking and growling, one even jumped up at my window and was scratching at the glass. I laughed nervously, sure that at any moment the owners would come down the driveway, round them up and apologise. They never came.

We sat on the driveway for five minutes or so, waiting for them to get bored and go away but they never did, so we reversed without checking the mirror, hoping to hit one of the little bastards, confident in the knowledge that an unleashed dog is fair game in any US state.

The feeling that we may well be in a Stephen King novel was starting to dawn on us and we headed straight back through the cornfields to the highway, aiming for the town of Wabasha - home of the film Grumpy Old Men. Shining like a beacon was a BP garage with a stack of firewood outside. We stopped and bought the wood and a $2 scratch card. I scratched it off and checked it twice: we had won $12!

Wamby went back in and asked for our winnings in one dollar bills and made it rain through the sunroof like an NFL player in a strip club. Our luck had changed. This was going to be a good night after all! We decided to head back to Latsch Park for the night rather than risk being turned away from Red Wing, and look for somewhere else to camp the next day as it was now 10pm. As we drove back the way we had come, we saw a brown sign for 'Richard J. Dorer State Forest'. We could hardly believe our luck as we drove up the hillside into Kruger Campground, where there were other campers staying too. We marvelled that we had never found this little nugget before. We found a site and began unpacking the car. That's when we heard them.

'Yo, where the party at?!' 'Not here', I'm thinking, leave us alone. 'Man, why you pulling up so late?' Leave us alone. 'Dude, where you from?' Leave us alone. Three guys bowled straight into our site, drinking neat J.D. from bottles clothed in paper bags. We said as little as possible to try to persuade them to leave us alone, but they insisted on inviting us over for drinks. We politely said we were tired and were just going to bed. After hot dogs and a beer to unwind, we hit the hay, praying for an easier journey tomorrow.

"Left my niggaz house paid
Picked up a girl been tryin to fuck since the twelve grade
Its ironic, I had the brew she had the chronic
The lakers beat the supersonics
I felt on the big fat fanny
Pulled out the jammy, and killed the punanny
And my dick runs deep so deep so deep
Put her ass to sleep"

Are you kidding me? I'm in the middle of a state park, it's midnight, I just want to sleep and you're gonna play Ice Cube so loud the bass bins shake in your ugly Lincoln Navigator? And so we laid in our tent for a while. Maybe they'll just listen to one song? Maybe three? Maybe a ranger will come along? I did the very British thing of moaning about them and clenching my fists, but ultimately laying there not actually doing anything about it. W did the very American thing of going to unzip the tent saying 'I'm going to tell those jack-asses to knock it off!' I talked him out of it with the flawless logic that we are in the middle of the woods with no cell-phone reception; going to confront three drunken hoods is not a good idea. Around 3am, the music died down and I drifted into a shallow sleep.

Two hours later, I woke with a feeling in my stomach that I prayed would go away. I looked over at W and he was sound asleep. I felt like my stomach was being put through a mangle. It was the unmistakable gripe of food-poisoning, and I knew it wouldn't go away. I woke Wamby and he said he would walk me down to the pit-toilets, which were about 50 yards from our site. For any of you who have never camped, pit toilets are essentially a hole in the ground with a toilet fixture attached, which is usually peppered with blue bottles, there is no flush. They are unappealing at the best of times, but the idea of possibly having to hug one whilst heaving my dinner into it from one of my orifices was considerably unpleasant.

I crawled out of the tent and took perhaps three steps before I collapsed. My knees went weak under me and I was seeing black and white fuzz, like static on a TV. I made it to the picnic bench and rested for a few moments while W unlocked the car. He carried me to it and delivered me to the toilet hut by rolling down the hill with the handbrake off. I barely made it the ten feet inside before almost collapsing again and I saw my arm shaking uncontrollably from side to side as I reached out for the torch Wamby was holding out to me. I will spare you the details as to what took place inside that shed, suffice to say it has now been declared a toxic waste site.

We don't talk about that night. It was a glitch in the matrix that saw all our bad luck and dangerous encounters for the next two years rain down on us in one evening. Knowing that we have officially used this up, we have begun playing the lottery, buying pull tabs and attending meat raffles at the Uptown VFW on a regular basis. So far we're up $7 and a turkey crown. To infinity...and BEYOND!

Reasons to be cheerful: 1, 2....er

Well, it's official: the grass is always greener on the other side. You had to listen to me whine for 6 months about not having a job and now that I have one, you're going to have to listen to me whine that I do. It irritates me on so many levels, which I shall proceed to list for you in an orderly fashion:

1) It's retail. Just the word prompts an involuntary eye-roll from me.
2) I have to ride the chav-wagon to work, which invariably results in me having to smell or hear something emanating from another passenger which is offensive.
3) I'm expected to smile...a lot (which is discrimination as I have a naturally down-turned mouth).
4) I am currently on a worse wage than when I was working for Asda at the age of 17.
5) I work very early sometimes, and I'm not a morning person.
6) I work very late sometimes, and that means I miss Letterman.
7) I work that awkward, middle of the day shift sometimes, which means you can't do anything in the morning and your evening's ruined too.
8) I get spoken to maybe 12 times a day like a crusty polyp on the sole of any given customer's kitten heel.
9) I don't know that I'm cut out for selling clothes as I don't think I'm a very convincing liar in the fitting rooms. While colleagues are able to tactfully suggest an alternative colour or size, I have been known to do the plumber's whistle (through the teeth, whilst simultaneously shaking my head), followed by closing the fitting room door and walking away laughing.
10) It's retail. *eye roll*

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not being a snob about people who choose retail as a career. If you don't mind working unsociable hours on pay that blows, good on you. I just don't have the patience or desire to massage the egos of high-maintenance American women who have a vocabulary of precisely one phrase, which is applied to seemingly every item in the store, "Oh my god, that ... is so cute!" Seriously, poor old Roget would rotate in his resting place.

I am looking for alternative employment, but currently there is little out there in the events industry. I guess there are always the fail-safe options of being a cleaner, and/or sex-line operator. After all, people always need clean houses and apparently the novelty of a British accent still just doesn't wear thin. Maybe I could combine them into some kind of slutty Mary Poppins character? I kid, of course - it would be wholly inappropriate to utilise a Disney character in the sex industry, except for Jessica Rabbit and The Little Mermaid - everyone knows they've been around the block a few times.

One piece of good news is that I am now officially a Legal Permanent Resident of the USA. All my paperwork is complete and I am free to travel as I please with no more waterboarding from Bertha in a side room at the DHS. OK, so I wasn't actually exposed to waterboarding, but I always thought it sounded kind of fun; like boogie-boarding, or skateboarding - and what's more fun than water sports?

So I leave you - little ray of effing sunshine that I am - and will resume my job search with renewed vigour, having offloaded all my negative energy onto you, my faithful reader. Cheers for that.

In loving memory of Andrew Matthews, 1951 - 2009

Dad was a man far too complex to be summed up in a few words, and this is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to write, but I felt I had to at least try and return the favour for the amazing speech he gave at my wedding a few months back, which he made look easy.

Regardless of how you knew him, one of the things most people will remember about him is his sense of humour. He had an acerbic wit that was not always politically correct, sometimes inappropriate and at other times just plain rude, but I’ll smile every time I think of him laughing, even if I disapproved of the joke.

I learned a huge amount from dad, one of the first things was never to judge a book by its cover. In the 80’s, he’d go into pubs in the city in his biker’s leathers, with his long hair and piercings and strike up conversations with the stock traders at the bar. They were always amazed when dad chipped in with information about recent trading and offered his opinion on the state of the economy, and after a frosty start, welcomed him as part of the group. What he didn’t tell them, was that he used to memorise a few paragraphs of that day’s Financial Times and drop them casually into the conversation, to make them think he knew what they were all talking about.

Dad’s ability to retain facts like that was second to none; whether you needed to know who played drums on a Bob Dylan B-side or the quickest route between two London landmarks and the name of each pub along the way, Dad was your go-to guy. Fantastic if you were on his team in a pub quiz, but a total nightmare to play Trivial Pursuit against.

He was like this until the end, even from his hospital bed he would open his eyes and pipe up to correct our conversation about music when we thought he was asleep. He loved holding court with all his visitors and chimed in regularly with little nuggets of hilarity, like only he could. On one visit, dad was speaking slowly and deliberately, with the precision of a man trying articulate his final wishes. He told me; “Hayley, I’ve got to......I’ve got to.....” and I waited, enthralled, for the sage advice that my father was to pass down in his final days. He finally finished: “I’ve got to....give you your Christmas present, it’s in the cupboard at home.”

Thankfully, not all of his conversations dealt with issues like where he’d stashed our Christmas presents and Laura and I both had the opportunity to spend time with him alone before he passed away. I think this is one of the few benefits of having an illness like dad’s and I’m thankful for every minute we got together. What’s important to me now is to celebrate dad’s life, not mourn his death and to remember the immense love and unshakable commitment he had to my sister and I. Finally, and most importantly; his motto: Illegitimis nil carborundum, or in English: don’t let the bastards grind you down.

I wanna have a J-O-B in the M-S-P

104 days. That’s how long I’ve not worked for, and I have probably another 50 or so to go. The first two weeks are great fun; you can lie-in everyday, watch daytime TV, stay up late on a school night. Then the rot sets in; you realise that daytime TV only teaches you how to sue people, file for bankruptcy and buy insurance. American TV in particular I find, instils a feeling of entitlement amongst the viewers: the car accident was not your fault, your debts should be minimised, you deserve to spend your tax refund on financing a new car, the list is endless.

Times are tight for Wamby and me, but we’re by no means on the breadline. We have plenty of things to hawk before we get evicted from our apartment. I firmly believe that anyone who bangs on about how broke they are when they have a Wii console and a gym membership deserves a good slap on the noggin. It’s all relative, and I have to say that we’re not doing too badly for getting by on one income. Apparently Minneapolis is also the easiest city to get wealthy in the USA (admittedly according to the Minnesota tourist authority), so once I’m allowed to work, we should have it pretty cushty here.

Minneapolis is great, it’s Chicago-lite, and I have to say that I’m actually really enjoying the current recession - it’s an amazing time to be a consumer. Macy’s had an 80% off sale last week, you can buy a 2 bedroom house with a garden for $50k and Toyota Tundra are offering buy one, get one free on trucks - I kid you not! As long as I can make it through the rest of my enforced unemployment without going gouging out my own eyeballs with a spoon just for something to do, my prospects are rosy.

I recently had my biometrics appointment, where they photographed me and took my fingerprints for my moustachioed friends at the Department of Homeland Security. The lady commented on how soft my hands are and I can only credit this to not working. I didn’t realise they were distinctly smooth and may consider adding it to my resume: ‘Detail oriented, strong interpersonal skills, hands like a baby’s bum’.

I looked around the waiting room at my fellow fingerprintees, wondering if me and my digits were really distinctive or if perhaps it was a chat-up line from Ms Mullet. In a crowd of 50 or so, there was only one other white woman (I would guess Canadian because of the polar fleece and orthopaedic shoes).

The Twin Cities of Minneapolis, St Paul have the second largest Hmong (pronounced ‘mung’) population outside of Laos at 17,000 -behind Fresno, California. Bizarrely, the state of Minnesota also has the largest Somali population anywhere outside of Somalia at 50,000, mostly in the Twin Cities, according to the 2000 census. The Hmong were allocated housing in Minnesota in return for helping US forces during the Vietnam war, but I believe the Somali community has simply grown as it has established itself here. I think the only state less like Somalia they could have chosen to relocate to would be Alaska, with our record low temperature being minus 42 degrees.

These were the two major groups who filled the waiting room and yet I knew that I would never be subject to the same branding they would be as a foreigner. As a Brit, or any kind of European in the US, you are a charming oddity and an accepted minority. The term ‘them immigrants’ for whatever reason does not include me. I’ll be able to pick up my career where I left it in London after the upheaval and disruption that is the immigration process and hopefully won’t have to work long hours in a job I’m overqualified for purely because my qualifications are not recognised in the land of opportunity, and for that I am well aware how lucky I am.

I have actually considered doing TV voice overs, such is the US love affair with the English accent. Minnesota has a particularly jarring twang, with one local landmark, the St Croix River being pronounced Croy, to rhyme with Troy, NYARRGGHH! It’s French - what’s so hard?! Another favourite is New Prague being pronounced New Praig, to rhyme with plague. It’s like fingernails scraping across a blackboard to me every time I hear it!

Anyway, everyday a new advert pops up with a British voice over, and I have already been asked to be the talking tree of a friend’s engineering company phone system. You know the kind; ‘If you hate these answer phone systems and just want to speak to a human being that may have some interest in and/or capability of answering your very simple query, please press one’; ‘To speak to an operator who has a distinctly thick Indian accent and calls himself Ian, when you really wouldn’t mind just addressing him by his real name so long as he can help you, please press two’ and so on. My friend seems to think that people would be less irritated by my dulcet tones guiding them through the labyrinthine phone system than the current voice, provided by his South Carolinian receptionist. I know which I’d prefer to hear, but if he’s willing to pay, I’m willing to take his money - and what could be more American than that?

Holidazzle fo' shizzle!

'Tis the season to be jolly! 'Tis also the season to eat your body weight in poultry and puddings and spend excessive amounts of money on gifts for people (that you may or may not like) out of a sense of obligation and in an attempt to not look like the only cheap-ass Scrooge at the family get together or office party. No matter what your financial situation in these trying times, 'Can we not do presents this year?' just never seems to be a viable option.

Part of the reason this maybe never works for me is that I tend to go along quite blinkered until about December 15th over the fact that it is Christmas at all, by which point other more organised acquaintances have shopped for, wrapped and presented me with a gift. I'm not sure quite how I manage to be so unaware of the festivities unfolding around me; Noddy Holder on the radio, trolley rage, shop staff wearing stupid Santa hats - or if they're really cutesy, a bit of tinsel instead of a scrunchie! It's not that I don't hear or see any of this, it's more like I'm coasting along in neutral, let's make that cruise-control since I'm in the States, and I don't actually seem to get into gear and drive until Mid-December. Being overseas this year has caused a few problems with gifting the folks back home. Who knew there were International Shipping Deadlines?! What do you mean the postman won't collect my parcel and get on a plane and take it to my Mum's house?! It could get there in 9 hours if the stupid postman wasn't so lazy! So I've had to be creative: Mum, Dad, sorry but this year you're just going to have to accept an email from me in festive red and green font as a present. It's the gift that keeps on giving - unless you're colourblind, because then it would just look like any other email.

So what do they do in Minneapolis to celebrate 'The Holidays'? Well, it all kicks off at 12.01am on 1st November when I imagine they use some kind of crane/wrecking ball/street-hoover contraption to clear the aisles of Halloween merchandise, possibly aided by a gaggle of tinsel-scrunchie clad shop assistants heaving it all into bin liners. Out come the candy canes, front door wreaths and bad American chocolates (the leading brand of which smells like feet!) and away we go! But Minneapolis has an extra special something to give at this time of year.....

Holidazzle!!!!!! A Minneapolis tradition, people drive all the way from Iowa to come and see it (in fairness, people from Iowa will drive across state lines to see pretty much anything if it gets them out of Iowa for the day). It's the non-denominational November/December parade consisting of lots of jubilant Minnesotans dressed in LED-powered costumes on the theme of fairytales. They march enthusiastically up and down Nicolette Mall every night Thursday through Sunday between Thanksgiving and Christmas in what I can only really describe as an inverse of Las Vegas Blvd....stick with me on this....In Vegas, you move up and down the strip while the flashing neon remains stationary. At holidazzle, it's, well, the opposite of that. Ok, so that was a rubbish comparison, but it's fun! I love the way all the participants remain jolly despite temperatures below-freezing and not getting paid. Can you really imagine that happening in London? It's like the Notting Hill Carnival, only in a marginally colder climate and with less stabbings. I'd imagine they have whatever the US equivalent of St. John's ambulance on hand to treat cases of frost bite and hypothermia. I can see the headlines now: 'And in local news, little Johnny Pizowski's nose fell off this year as a result of being strapped to a float every Thursday through Sunday for two months - "but he looked SO ADORABLE in his gingerbread man costume!" said his mother Lynette.' Perhaps next year he'll have a prosthetic one and be cast as Pinocchio?

In all seriousness, I do mock my fellow countrymen for their excessive enthusiasm for absolutely everything, but I think there are lessons to be learnt for us Brits who do tend to be somewhat, well, cynical. Try this out: Next time someone asks you a question, instead of your usual response of a sharp intake of breath, a shaking of the head and the phrase 'Oh I don't know if I can do that, it's more than my job's worth', try just saying: 'Awesome! Uh-huh!'. Admittedly this may get you into a few awkward conversations*, but generally I find it to be a pretty good response to most things.

So, we are now gearing up to Christmas proper. I am preparing to co-cook my second turkey dinner in a month and cope with the ensuing 'meat sweats'. I found after Thanksgiving that the only way to deal with having eaten more food than I had eaten in the previous week was to adopt what I like to call 'The Starfish' pose on a flat surface (the floor works best), be covered with a blanket and simply remain in that state for the next 36 hours or until you are able to see your own toes again, whichever is sooner. I believe I am now ready; my festive emails will be sent this week in place of presents, the tree is up, I have a tray of mixed nuts and a bottle of Bailey's on the sideboard and I have discarded all of my usual hair accessories and replaced them with scraps of tinsel. Bring it!

*Not to be used in conversations about death, disease, redundancies at work or natural disasters**
** By natural disasters, I of course only mean those occurring in English-speaking countries, all others are natural predicaments.

Back on the radar

Things have been quiet on the blogging front recently. There is a reason for this; I have not had writer's block or lost interest. I've not been isolated from the world because of the black hole that is dial-up. I have been angry, and I'm not sure that it's good to write when angry as I think people have enough misery in their own lives without having to deal with mine too. Suffice to say, visa woes, separation from Mr Hayley just a month after our wedding and illness in the family have all contributed to a pretty shoddy 6 weeks since my last post. But enough of that! I have been in London, fabulous London, whilst waiting for the embassy to get it's act together - oh how I missed it!

Give me Waterloo Station at 5.30pm; weaving in and out of your fellow commuters while the tannoy blares. Give me Westminster Bridge and its views of Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, the gherkin and St Paul's. Give me wonky streets and wonkier teeth. Give me Oyster and the Tube, cheese and pickle, Fern and Phil, drum and bass! Coming back to all this from some time in the States gives me a new-found appreciation for all things Londinium. I've filled my days with working back at ODI and spent my evenings on opposite ends of the free-time spectrum, either frolicking with friends in various drinking haunts in and around the city, or staying at home and knitting. That's right, knitting. With wool. Previously not the hobby of anyone without a freedom pass, knitting has seen a revival of late and I have happily jumped on the bandwagon. Inspired by a friend at work who was talking about it, I thought 'well if 70 year olds can do it, why can't I?', I mean, how hard can it be?

Well, I would say on the scale of ease - with Rebecca Loos at one end and Stephen Hawking's Brief History of Time at the other - this is about level with playing Stephen Fry at Scrabble. Knit one, purl one, increase, decrease, yarn forward, cast off....who knew it was so complex?! The patterns look like binary code, I keep tangling the wool and have so far managed to knit maybe 11 stitches with no holes or knots. I tried getting expert advice from the lady in 'I Knit' on Lower Marsh, a veritable hub of all things woolly - there's even a knitting club where you go and drink booze, and talk about erm...knitting current affairs I guess, with like-minded individuals. She was fantastic, very knowledgable, and I was most impressed by the fact that she was donning the knitting-equivalent of a hip flask, that is a kind of wool-exuding utility belt, if you can imagine such a thing. She did her best, bless her, but I honestly don't know that I'll ever really understand it. Maybe it's like languages where if I did join a knitting club where you could drink alcohol, my skills would (or at least I would believe) improve. I would have the confidence to knit without fear, with gay abandon, even. Who knows what kind of woolly wonders I could produce?!

Alas, for now I am working on finishing a rather drafty scarf, which I intend to patch up with bijou buttons that I will claim to be part of the original design. I'm also persevering with the baby jumper I have started that was intended to be a gift but I fear would be an insult, and may actually be finished around the time I decide to have El Segundo with him indoors (that would be year six of my new ten-year plan, before you ask). Provided we have a baby with some kind of disproportionately large left arm and hunch back, who looks fab in lilac, we'll be good to go.

Which brings me full circle. The reason I am no longer angry and felt I should write something is that I finally got my visa today and will be flying home to Minneapolis tomorrow. Provided I don't get turned away by my friends at Homeland Security this should be the start of everything. It's a huge weight to be lifted, and though we still have a way to go in terms of getting my work permit, social security number etc, I will at least be a 'permanent resident with conditions' which is far better than 'alien spouse', I believe. Any amount of paperwork, form filling, fee paying and waiting is fine by me as long as I can be with Casey, everything else just seems quite immaterial. So, I am back and will update you in due course on the triumphs and trivialities of my banal existence just so long as I don't get angry again. In the words of The Incredible Hulk "You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Fall colours

I have found the place where I want to die. Not anytime soon; after I have founded my multi million pound empire based on my secret salad dressing recipe, of course. I've seen the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, the Nevada Desert, the Florida Keys and most major landmarks on 41 states in between, but nowhere is as beautiful as Northern Minnesota. Now, I know most people outside of the US are unfamiliar with this little gem, and I know that within the US it's only really famous for fishing and brutal winters (the record low here is minus -41 degrees!), but I think that this may just be a clever conspiracy by Minnesotans to prevent their state becoming overrun with tourists. I'll tell you a few little nuggets about how beautiful it is, as long as you promise to not tell anyone else and to not visit...oh and this blog will self-destruct in five minutes, so read quick.

I've done my fair share of road trips across this great nation and driving through here at this time of year is one of the most scenic, colourful backdrops I have seen. We are just reaching peak time for 'fall colours', and the leaves are turning luminous shades of russet, orange and flame red, others are a deep cherry red and some have a graduated colour change from top to bottom that make the trees look like they're on fire. The air has suddenly turned cold within the past two weeks but the days are crisp and sunny. It's my favourite time of year, I love walking down the street crunching on leaves while smelling a bonfire in the neighbourhood, it reminds me of the hymn we used to sing in school assembly:

"Autumn days, when the grass is jewelled
And the silk in a chestnut shell
Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled
All these things I love so well
So I mustn't forget
No, I mustn't forget
To say a great big thank you,
I mustn't forget..."

Remember that one?







Plus, Autumn fashion is my favourite, nothing quite like knee high boots and knitted jumpers to ring in the change of season is there?! Anyway, we drove up to Lake Superior for a weekend of camping using our fabulous new tent and camping stove (which incidentally came without a name from our wedding registry, so if you bought it for us please let me know as we don't know who to thank). The radio on the car journey up t'north is one of the few things which is inferior to driving south - part of the 'Minnesota Conspiracy'...?

When we drive south, we have started to tune into what we have christened 'redneck radio'. These are AM talk-radio stations providing discussion forums on a variety of topics from the Video Music Awards to the nomination of Sarah Palin as VP candidate. A good forty minutes of Kansas plains passed by on the way to our wedding, as Casey and I listened to the likes of Marla from Bowlegs, Oklahoma (pop. 371), voice her horror that Russell Brand - a foreigner, no less!! - had made a pro-Obama statement when hosting the VMA's. It was at that point that she had deemed it inappropriate viewing for her teenage daughter and switched it off. I kid you not, poor little Bobbie-Sue was made to spend the rest of the night sans TV because of the mere mention of 'that Socialist', a word which I never realised was an insult until I moved here.

I have actually developed a curious fondness for country music when driving south, because of how absurdly literal the lyrics are. I'm not sure if this is because the songwriters lack the creativity to grasp metaphor and simile, or if it's because poetry is just seen as 'queer', and that penning a song without a hint of flowery or remotely abstract lyrics directly increases the size of your straight-talking, cattle-rustling, shoot-from-the-hip manhood? For those of you whose experience of country music is limited to Shania Twain and Cotton Eye Joe, here are some actual lyrics that I wrote down while driving through Iowa:

"I'm investing in my neighbourhood, friends and family livin' pretty good,
Trailer parks full of Cadillacs, we're upper-middle class white trash."

Can you imagine my horror when we drove north and found nothing but classic rock stations and the odd high school football game on the radio? Our socialist asses had to engage in a crossword puzzle book and some Def Leppard to pass the time.



We stayed at Cascade River State Park on the north shore of Lake Superior, which is around 45 miles from the Canadian Border. I had absolutely no comprehension of the size of the Lake. I know it's the largest lake in the world bla bla blah, but until you're confronted with what you assume is the ocean (I ditched Geography in year 9 to study Drama) and you're told that, in fact the body of water before you is merely a lake, you have no appreciation for its size. When you stand on the shore, it stretches fully left and right and then out to the horizon. You really have to see it to believe it, but don't come here or the Minnesotans will hate me. I looked it up on the atlas we have pinned up in our toilet, (I believe a bathroom should be both sanitary AND educational), and it is approximately the size of Ireland...Ireland! That's like a real country!





We hiked the Lookout Trail in the park and it's dotted with beautiful cascades and waterfalls, framed by the turning leaves. Every so often you reach a lookout point from which you can see for miles across the blanket of treetops and marvel at the shades of orange, red, green and brown, like the carpet in Abigail's Party.



Property here can be found pretty cheaply if you move a little inland from Lake Superior or onto one of the thousands of other smaller lakes. We're giving serious consideration to buying a cabin to rent out in the summer and use in the autumn and winter ourselves. The idea is that I have somewhere to paint and Casey has somewhere to write, and we'll spend winter months in front of the fire chortling smugly at how wonderfully artistic we both are while sipping port from tin cups. Then, come spring, we'll emerge from our chrysalis laden with the fruits of our winter creativity, ready to hit the press junket, private views and book signings before holing up again the following autumn, and repeating it. In reality, we'd probably get cabin fever and one of us would end up smashing through the toilet door with an axe, or we'd get snowed in and our heating would break down and we'd freeze to death, but it's good to have a dream.

One last marvellous feature of this area, well two actually, is the food: Betty's Pies and World's Best Donuts. I won't go into too much detail as you'll only want to taste it and book the next flight to Minnesota. I'll just say that we queued for forty minutes in Betty's for a slice of 5 Layer Chocolate Pie and took home a whole Rhubarb & Raspberry crunch-top pie, which aside from the time spent listening to Marla from Bowlegs, was one of the hardest forty minutes of my life. World's Best Donuts was exactly that; just a little sugary piece of heaven. I'm officially a convert to a cream-filled Long John (insert witticism here...).



I'm starting to spot a theme to my blogs and am worried that I've only been here 6 weeks and have already turned into a pie-eating, cheese-snuffing, donut-munching hog, but I no longer have a wedding dress to work towards, I have a ring on my finger, I can officially let myself go can't I? I may try to write it off as a foodie feature: as I get to know the country, I get to know a different food type in each area, something like that. All I have to do is sex it up, a la Nigella, and I can have the blogging equivalent of the Marks and Spencer's food-porn ads; (Cue Fleetwood Mac's Albatross) "This is not just a blog, this is Hayley's, all English, home grown, hand-typed, html blog..."