The Leech Lake Trip

Hey guys, I just got back from Cass Lake, Minnesota. The Social Services Outreach & Training Dept. brought me in to entertain their social workers on a weekend work retreat.

Wow, what an amazing show! There were with me from the beginning, middle, to the end. One of the best compliments I got was from this one lady, she said, "I've always known the lady sitting next to me to be very reserved but man, you had her laughing really good" . That made me feel great.

This was my very first trip to MN and I always get nervous, scared, & excited whenever I visit a new place for the very first time.

My first impression of flying into St. Paul/Minneapolis, I noticed there were a lot of tree's and it was very green.

I picked up my car rental and had a 3 hr. drive up North to the Leech Lake Ojibwe Indian reservation. I probably could've flown in closer but I wanted to see some country on the drive up. That probably wasn't the greatest idea on my part, I was soooooo tired when I got there. I started my day @ 5:30am and didn't arrive at the resort until 10pm. This is how tired I was, when I finally got there I parked close to the lodge entrance, Gordon came out to greet me and after we were done exchanging hello's, he walked me back to my car rental to help me upload my bags. So now remember, this is a fancy outdoor resort and there weren't a lot of lights, so the campgrounds were very dark. Anyhoo, when we got to my car, I was standing there in the dark trying to open the trunk with my key and gosh darn it, the trunk would just not open. So I asked Gordon to hold up his cellphone to see if I was putting the key in the right hole, and then I was like, well wait a minute, maybe there's a trunk button on the car rental keys, so when I pressed the button, the lights came on to the car next to us. I mean hello, like I said, it was dark, and apparently I was trying to open somebody else's trunk. Gordon busted up laughing because he was wondering why I was trying to open a car rental with tribal tags.

And oh, check this out, on the way there, I saw this huge turtle crossing the road on the highway. A friend told me once if you're from the turtle clan, you're supposed to stop and help them cross the road so they don't get ran over. That happened to me a while back in Michigan and I didn't stop in time to help a turtle, so that time it got crushed by a semi-truck. I didn't want that to happen this time so I immediately u-turned on the medium to see what I could do. So I pulled up right behind the turtle and tried to help it cross. The only problem was that the turtle wasn't having it, it crawled back into's shell like it was protecting itself. I tried to grab the big turtle by it's sides but then it came out and started snapping at me and that's when I realized this was a snapping turtle and if I wasn't careful I could lose a finger. I'm glad that turtle didn't bite me because I probably would've killed that turtle myself. I know, see what happens when you try to do a good deed. So, I was having no luck trying to get that turtle to cross the highway, everytime I moved to try and grab it, it moved in a circle just like I did. I tried using my some banana peels to lure him over but that didn't work either. That turtle probably just thought, "why are you trying to lure me in with banana peels, what in the hell happened to the banana's inside the peels you dummy" ? I know right. So to make a long story short, this pick up truck stopped and helped me move the snapper. They asked me if I had a crow bar and I said no. So they busted out with this rope, partnered up, held the rope under the turtle from both sides and proceeded to flip it over until it was off the highway. I was scared they would've hurt the turtle but then that lady said, "these turtles have been known to flip over big rigs" . Wow, are you serious? So I guess that turtle was ready to do some serious damage. Maybe I just prevented a accident? I don't know but the next time I see a turtle on the road I'm going to make sure I have a crow bar unless of course it's a baby turtle because then I'll probably just use a toothpick to flip it over, just kidding.

Let's see, yeah, that was my trip in a nut shell. I got to visit the Mystic Lake Casino on my way back to the airport. The Shakapee Sioux have the 3rd biggest grossing Indian casino in the U.S. and I wanted to see if it was all that, it was alright. I liked the layout but I thought the Northern Lights Casino in Walker had a better motif. I was probably there for 20 minutes playing pull tabs, yup, gotta keep it real.

Did I forget to mention I went to the Mall of America while I was there? The Mall of America is the 2nd biggest mall on the North American continent, 2nd to the one in Edmonton, Canada. Anyhoo, yeah that sucker was big. I did my lap around the horse shoe to check it out. They had every store you could think of inside. I took some really great pictures in the Butterfly exhibit and I'll load those pics later.

All and all, this was a great trip. The landscape was beautiful and the 10,000 Lakes of Minnesota lived up to it's name, the lakes that I saw were very beautiful and every bit breathtaking. My only regret from this trip is that I didn't get a chance to purify myself in Lake Minnetonka, next time for sure!

Alright, I made it home safe and now it's time to pay some bills, finally.

xoxo