Fourth of July in Minnesota.

Wow. I just returned from a whirlwind trip to Minnesota for a long holiday weekend. I didn't manage to get a picture of the entire group, but most everyone is represented in the pictures at http://matthew.schrenk.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=19. I am happy to report that I now have a place to post all my pictures as can be seen by the previous link. I hope to do some more work on matthew.schrenk.org, because right now there is nothing there but the gallery.

I was going to fly out of San Jose, CA to Minneapolis, MN at 6:35 AM Saturday July 1, and so I woke up at 4:30 and was at the airport at 5:45 to catch my plane. I approached the gate to the announcement that the flight was overbooked and they were offering a free round trip ticket voucher for anyone willing to give up their seat. I established that the next flight left at 12:10 and decided to take that offer. So with a $100 voucher and a round trip voucher on Northwest I got back in my car and drove back home. This made me five hours later that I had planned and I missed some of the first day activites.

You can find another view on the trip over at Tifani's blog.

Ben Dill picked me up from the airport and he headed over to join everyone at Minnehaha park, but we passed them as they left, so we just headed back to the Dill's house for a cookout dinner of brauts and hotdogs. I think we sang everyday for at least 30 minutes, sometimes twice a day. Patriotic songs were high on the list, and I found out how many of those songs have a strong christian theme. Our founding fathers (and also our founding composers) had a great deal to say about what made this country great, and it was God.

That night we played some four and a couch, occupation, and telephone pictionary with the whole group. The group consisted of UofI people (Katrina stoller, Brent Sauder, Eric Zimmerman, and Loren Mogle), some sister from Kansas (Stephanie, Tifani, and Chelsie Bahr), and the Minni YG (Krissa Skoglund, Cheryl Luthi, Zena Davila, Ben Moser, Jeff Rienhardt, Braden Mogler, Meg Dill, and Ben Dill). I think that telephone pictionary is one of the best group games with more then six people, it really helps you get to know each other in a fun way. Braden Mogler's family invited me into their home for the weekend and I thank them. Sunday was my first time at Minneapolis church and I found it welcoming. It was small enough to get around to everyone and have some conversation with a few. After church the rest of the UofI group left. I was sorry to see them go so soon. We relaxed Sunday afternoon then headed to see some Shakespeare in the park ("The Merchent of Venice"). We had a picnic dinner, played some frisbee, and walked around the park.

Monday was a late start to do 17 miles of canoeing on the St. Croix river between Minnesota and Wisconsin. We had a blast and just got a little wet, OK my canoe did tip over for no reason, but we still had fun. That night we had to say goodbye to the Kansas group who was driving out in the morning. On the fourth we visited Historic Fort Snelling and saw some historical reenactors showing how the fort was back in the early 1800's. We also visited St. Paul to spend some time at the Taste of Minnesota. The longest game of the Settlers of Catan that I have ever played was between dinner and the fireworks.

I was so sad to say goodbye to everyone as I flew out the next morning, I hope to see them all soon, and perhaps will need to visit Minnesota in the future.