Coming into Minneapolis felt like coming home for some odd reason. I recalled Frisbee in the park, supermarkets with carpeting, making love to ex-Jason in some airport hotel his company arranged him to stay in during his move – one without windows, healthy dinners and midnight visits for those high sugar Midwest donuts and things in that category for Jason that I was “afraid” to even touch, flying in his 1946 Beechcraft Bonanza over Minnesota and Wisconsin lakes, canoeing down remote streams and rivers, massages in Old Town, Alveda skin treatments and funky bands in funky neighborhoods.
Ah yes, and chats with Vivian in her St. Paul pad and long stretches of spending money in the tacky but almighty Mall of America, now a talked about post 9/11 terrorism risk.
I wasn’t even completely a third of the way there, and Hamilton needed supplemental maintenance – a new radar detector and a new CD player. Nothing a visit and a credit card to Circuit City can’t fix.
Unlike a Boston-area Circuit City, the service was fabulous, sales reps had a sense of humor and looked in your eyes when they spoke to you. There was no wait despite the fact that it was a weekend and I had four handsome guys in their early twenties run around after me – a nice welcome to Minneapolis.
I had been to the infamous Mall of America (did Jason really take me there on a date?) before, however I decided to kill a couple of hours there waiting for Paul’s flight to come in from Dallas. CampSnoopy sits inside the mall, which is a large indoor amusement park that includes 25 rides and a rollercoaster. I beelined straight for the crepe stand before the entrance reminding myself how dangerous it was for me to be wandering around America’s largest mall unsupervised.
I didn’t realize that Minneapolis had two airports, the smaller one Humphrey takes incoming flights from airline names I had never heard of, like Sun Country. When I saw Paul with his three bags and a sleeping bag, I thought of poor Hamilton and two mechanics warnings at how overloaded the car was…..and this was before I left Boston. Fortunately, that although I had two crates of CDs, one of Paul’s bags was filled with kitch 1980s tunes that kept us wired through the Plains of South Dakota.
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
