Are We Really Doing This?

Or: Des Moines to Green Bay via St Paul...



We woke up quite early in Des Moines to prepare for all of the driving we had ahead of us. We had been up quite late at the bar the night before so it was quite a struggle. Thank DW for track suits! No one talked much on the way back to St Paul. It had been a long couple of days. And I was afraid that if I spoke it would be trying to convince Kim that we didn't NEED to go to Green Bay. I was a tired little girl. We all were and the thought of getting back into a car to drive another 5 hours made me ill. So, I kept my mouth shut. Kim offered a consolation prize by suggesting that maybe we didn't NEED to go to Lily Allen that Saturday. I conceded and within a few hours our tickets were re-allocated via some FaceBooking.

We pulled into my driveway and began the task of unloading everyone's stuff from the mini-van. It was really hard to take my stuff out of the mini-van and put it into Kim's car when my bed was so close. I didn't even go into my house for fear that I wouldn't leave. Lisa and Tiffany took the van back to the airport and Kim and I headed out for Green Bay.

On our way we stopped at Taco John's for lunch. Normally, we wouldn't tell you what we had for lunch (because who really cares) but I had been craving potato ole's for the entire trip and it had become quite an obsession. Thanks Kim for letting me pick our lunch spot, although I am sure it was only to make me shut up.

After lunch we hit the road again. The drive wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be. We took turns driving and sleeping and before we knew it we were in Green Bay. It was the first time for both of us visiting the lovely green city. We did not see a bay anywhere although our travels were quite limited to the block surrounding our inn. The illustrious Lambeau Field Days Inn. It was as beautiful as you would expect.

We met up with our friends at The Bar (actual name). It was good to see Kim, Melissa and Nicole who had also driven from the Twin Cities for the show. They stayed with Trisha, who lives nearby.



The clock was ticking near show time so Kim took off to start getting ready. She always goes first because her beauty regime takes much longer than mine. She has more hair. I stayed behind and had another cocktail. After I got ready we headed out for the show.

Keeping with our new tradition of eating dinner, we ate Wisconsin bratwurst and sweet potato fries for dinner at the venue. We felt fancy eating sweet potato fries instead of regular fries standing next to a trash can. We loaded up with one more malternative beverage (in a paper cup, with a lid and a straw) and went and found our seats. Loaded with magnets and stickers we headed out into the crowd to pimp our wares. As usual, we met a lot of awesome people. Some of which are here:















The show was awesome (duh). Photos are here

Highlights:







Hi, hand!






Our friend Kim T. got her Cheesehead hat onto the stage.



I tried to get it back at the end of the show but our friend Chris told me that Jon wanted to keep it. Kim was ok with that.

Hi, smoke machine!




Donnie is "one smoooove fella"

to make that look good.



The Pose-Off (part 1)


Part 2 ("Jordan's left thumb went up Donnie's ass")








We are so cute in this picture


After the show, we headed back to The Bar to try and meet up with our friends Chrissy and Jenny who we spent time with in LA but we were too tired to do much but sit and stare at each other. We do that a lot. They were playing vintage 1990 music videos (including Step By Step) on the televisions which entertained us for a little bit.

We called it a night, and went back to the hotel. I laid out of all the tour-themed gear that I had in my bed. Not pictured are the ILAA NKOTB hat, the Face Time Skull (actually alien) wristlet, the charm bracelets (Project NKOTB and the ILAA version), the Face Time tote bag and the Face Time camp chair.


We went to bed, woke up, ate gas station ice cream for breakfast and headed back home.

Somewhere during our travels we started talking about grain explosions. We were talking about it the previous day with Becky, who has been to the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis. We're not quite sure how we landed on the topic again, but we were intrigued about how mills have a tendency to explode. I Googled it (holla at the iPhone) and we learned that grains are actually very flammable. This was illustrated by the example of a burning marshmallow. Pudding mix is also quite flammable, per the internets. And now you know.

We finally made it back to St. Paul and this journey ended. We were exhausted. We are freaking old. 1600 miles and three shows in three nights is stretching our limits. It was fun though!!!

xoxo HOLLA!