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Look! A Tilt-A-Whirl!
Jul. 24th, 2004 11:35 pmSo this morning I went to the hotel water park: "Central Minnesota's largest indoor water park!" (This claim is printed on signs all over the lobby, and it makes me giggle and wonder exactly how many indoor water parks there are in Central Minnesota vying for this title.) Let me just state here how incredibly in favor of indoor water parks I am. See, I am exceedingly fond of water. Lakes, oceans, rivers, swimming pools, two-inch-deep creeks, bathtubs-- I am not very discriminating. I just like water. (Actually, I'm not that keen on swimming in the ocean due to having seen Jaws at an early age, but in general I'm pro-water.) I love water parks even more than I love just water. Waterslides, in my opinion, are the greatest invention in the history of mankind (with passenger trains coming in at a close second). However, I am very pale and very blonde and very blue-eyed, and thus am about as prone to sunburn and eventual skin cancer as it is possible to be. Give me a waterslide indoors and free of sunlight, and I will love you forever. This hotel has done so and thus acquired my eternal loyalty. Tell all your friends: the Arrowwood Resort & Conference Center, in Alexandria, Minnesota. It's got Central Minnesota's largest indoor water park, ya know.
The real excitement for today, though, was going to the county fair. I feel like I've had an unusually American week up here. I've gone to American history museums, to baseball games, to county fairs. I took a road trip with my family and sat in the backseat keeping an eye out for cows the whole way from Houston to Alexandria. We stayed in the first motel we saw along the road when we got tired. The only thing about rural Minnesota that doesn't match up with what Americans like to think of as the positive characteristics of America is the whole ethnic diversity issue, unless you count "white, whiter, and whitest" as ethnic diversity; it's been sort of weird spending a week in the Land O' White Folks. There were white folks at the museum, white folks at the ballgame, white folks at the county fair. It is a very white place, rural Minnesota.
But I was going to write about the county fair. Everybody figured my cousins were my brothers, which is okay by me because I'd like them to be my brothers as long as it's basically the same situation as our cousin relationship-- they live out of state and I only have to deal with them every once in a while, and usually when they're in a good mood because they're already on vacation having fun. We went on that giant slide thing, which I hated hated hated but went on three times anyway; Alex won a stuffed mouse basically by being 7 and cute; I went on a few different sorts of rides that fling you around and around in circles and enjoyed being flung past Andy every few seconds and hearing "AaaaaaAAAaaaaaah!" Dopplering around on a repeating loop combined with the constant soundtrack from behind me of Alex shrieking with giggles. We wandered over and checked out the various 4-H stuff, mostly focusing on livestock; Alex objected to the smell of the pigs but was very keen on the bunny rabbits. Then we went on the Tilt-A-Whirl about a half-dozen times, then back to the midway, where Alex and Andy both won stuffed kitties by throwing darts at balloons, and Andy won a toy seal, and Alex won a goldfish, and the only thing I won was at the duck pond where everyone wins, no matter what, and even there I only won the smallest prize. It's a lovely little stuffed fish, though, and Alex helped me out by naming it Beautiful Shiny. Once again, back to the Tilt-A-Whirl for one last fling around; I was seated next to a little Minnesotan girl and instinctively addressed her as "sweetheart," upon which she looked at me like I was a child molester. Apparently calling strange little girls "sweetheart" is Not Done in Minnesota. Then, to finish out the evening, we went on something called the Casino, which is supposed to resemble a giant roulette wheel but doesn't. I climbed aboard the Casino, sat a few rows behind my cousins, and cheerfully, unthinkingly, addressed them as "y'all." The carnie running the ride looked at me like I was a freak.
Let me repeat that. The carnie-- the carnie-- looked at me like I was a freak. Because I said "y'all."
It's time to go home.
The real excitement for today, though, was going to the county fair. I feel like I've had an unusually American week up here. I've gone to American history museums, to baseball games, to county fairs. I took a road trip with my family and sat in the backseat keeping an eye out for cows the whole way from Houston to Alexandria. We stayed in the first motel we saw along the road when we got tired. The only thing about rural Minnesota that doesn't match up with what Americans like to think of as the positive characteristics of America is the whole ethnic diversity issue, unless you count "white, whiter, and whitest" as ethnic diversity; it's been sort of weird spending a week in the Land O' White Folks. There were white folks at the museum, white folks at the ballgame, white folks at the county fair. It is a very white place, rural Minnesota.
But I was going to write about the county fair. Everybody figured my cousins were my brothers, which is okay by me because I'd like them to be my brothers as long as it's basically the same situation as our cousin relationship-- they live out of state and I only have to deal with them every once in a while, and usually when they're in a good mood because they're already on vacation having fun. We went on that giant slide thing, which I hated hated hated but went on three times anyway; Alex won a stuffed mouse basically by being 7 and cute; I went on a few different sorts of rides that fling you around and around in circles and enjoyed being flung past Andy every few seconds and hearing "AaaaaaAAAaaaaaah!" Dopplering around on a repeating loop combined with the constant soundtrack from behind me of Alex shrieking with giggles. We wandered over and checked out the various 4-H stuff, mostly focusing on livestock; Alex objected to the smell of the pigs but was very keen on the bunny rabbits. Then we went on the Tilt-A-Whirl about a half-dozen times, then back to the midway, where Alex and Andy both won stuffed kitties by throwing darts at balloons, and Andy won a toy seal, and Alex won a goldfish, and the only thing I won was at the duck pond where everyone wins, no matter what, and even there I only won the smallest prize. It's a lovely little stuffed fish, though, and Alex helped me out by naming it Beautiful Shiny. Once again, back to the Tilt-A-Whirl for one last fling around; I was seated next to a little Minnesotan girl and instinctively addressed her as "sweetheart," upon which she looked at me like I was a child molester. Apparently calling strange little girls "sweetheart" is Not Done in Minnesota. Then, to finish out the evening, we went on something called the Casino, which is supposed to resemble a giant roulette wheel but doesn't. I climbed aboard the Casino, sat a few rows behind my cousins, and cheerfully, unthinkingly, addressed them as "y'all." The carnie running the ride looked at me like I was a freak.
Let me repeat that. The carnie-- the carnie-- looked at me like I was a freak. Because I said "y'all."
It's time to go home.
