Have To Travel To Minneapolis Today

[Daytona]

I WAS supposed to be on vacation this whole week but NOOOOOoooooo..... I had to come into the office today for 2 hours to take care of some crap and then in 30 minutes I am leaving to head to the airport to fly to wonderful sunny Minneapolis for work at one of our printers in Roseville. I hear it's stopped snowing out there. Now it's only mid-30's and raining through tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get to fly home relatively on time tomorrow afternoon. :(

Tonight I'll be getting in (I hope) at 4pm and then heading over to the Underwater Adventures Aquarium for a few hours as a way to kill some time. I won't have access to a computer once I leave here and don't want to post my cell phone on the site or else I'd say let's do an impromptu Aleromod gathering somewhere out there tonight.

[Youngblood77]

30's and raining huh? Be glad you're not driving man, sounds like black-ice weather to me...hella dangerous. Have a safe trip Mitch, and try to enjoy it, k? :)

[misslindseysue]

I took off the week to snowmobile. My machine broke, and it's high 40's and raining.

[Daytona]

Just got back last night. Hertz gave me a 4-dr Alero with cloth seats and what felt like the 4-cylinder engine (my stock GLS 6-cyl. is definitely much more powerful). The door jam said the car was made in Oct-03 but I couldn't figure out what model it was. It was odd that I couldn't position the seats to be like my own Alero. Something about the positioning seemed off the whole time, no matter what I tried.

The business part of the trip went okay. Ended up parking on the "wrong side" of Mall of America (by Macy's) and had to walk all the way to the opposite end to get to the Aquarium. I then wanted some Taco Bell so I ventured into Snoopyland (or whatever you call it). Walked almost all the way around the entire amusement park until I found TB. Turns out, if I had just turned left instead of right when I entered the park I would have come to it immediately. <_< Needless to see, I got tired of walking pretty quickly after all of that. The Aquarium was VERY impressive and I was there in time to see the feeding frenzy in the corral reef section. Definitely worth the money!

But I have a few questions for all of you Minnesotans...

1) Every major mall in NJ and NY has signs on the roadways telling you where to turn to get to them. Why aren't there any signs off 77 or 494 telling you which exit street to take? For a huge mall, it isn't exactly obvious, especially in the dark.

2) Why don't all rental cars in MN in the wintertime come with icescrappers? I awoke Thursday morning to my windows completely iced over and had to resort to the heater/defroster and a quarter. Yes, a 25-cent George Washington-faced American quarter. Scrapped my entire windshield clear with it. Needless to say, I was a little bent after that.

[smlzalero]

I missed this. :lol: :lol: :lol:
I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing at the situation...really.

Half my family is in MN, it always takes forever to find that stupid mall. I have no idea why there are no signs.

A quarter, that's awesome. :lol: Of, course, now that I'm laughing, it will happen to me. <_< Do the rentals in NJ come with scrapers? They don't in MO either. My guess is we'll see you sometime on TV scraping your rental's windshield with a freakin quarter. (It's all about the hidden cameras)

Glad you liked the aquarium and Camp Snoopy. :)

[Alerosince99]

Man, sorry i missed this. Would of met you for a beer or two.

You know, I've never noticed there were no signs. I guess they must figure its so damn big it hard to miss. ;)

Do they put icescrapers in cars in other states? Seems pretty logical that they should.

You are lucky you got out when you did.

New Years day brought an icestorm. Your plane certainly would of been delayed for that.

[Daytona]

^I'll be back up there again a few more times this coming year. I might be headed up there on/around the 27th.

And to answer you both, usually you do get an icescrapper as part of your rental car in the winter, regardless of where you go. Now, at least, I'll remember to bring change with me in the winter (just in case).

[smlzalero]

Haha, A quarter...that's still funny.

[alerored04]

i hope you werent complaining that 30 degrees is cold, thursday of this week minneapolis is supposed to be pretty near -20. Im back in Grand Forks for school after a long christmas break near the twin cities, it was actually pretty mild compared to here at school, thursday here should bring -40 it will be fun.

[Daytona]

^My complaints were really about it being 30's and raining. If it's going to be that cold, just let it be a little colder and be snow. I only like rain if it's warm out.

And in the winter, especially in MN, rental cars should come with ice scrapers. I shouldn't need to dig for loose change.

And I don't care how big a mall might be, you still need signs to let those who've never been there before know exactly which streets to exit off the highway with in order to get there.

And as it now turns out, I'll be back in Mpls on the 27th and 28th of this month. :rolleyes:

[Nik1128]

Minnesotians are some of the stupidist people you will ever meet. Believe me, I know from experience just about every day since I moved here... 13 years ago. :wacko:

[Daytona]

^Then maybe you can help me understand something. Why is it that Minnesotans don't know how to drive in snow when it's winter there 9 months out of the year? :rolleyes: For crying out loud, you have an SUV, use it, dumbass!

Last winter we landed in snow there (they never bothered to plow the runways) and then rented a Jeep instead of the normal car rental to get to the hotel once it was clear to us that the highways weren't plowed either. The traffic on 35W was incredible. Everyone was staying in the left 2 lanes. Meanwhile there was a whole wide expanse of highway on the right that noone was on so I put it in 4WD and did 35-50 most of the way, blowing past EVERYBODY (which wasn't hard since they were doing 5-10).

[Nik1128]

LMAO!! Classic example.

Our snowplow drivers suck. I mean, I live out in the country. They wont put sand down for ANYTHING. (plus it takes them like 2-3 days AFTER the storm to come and plow the roads) We've gotten an ice storm twice since Christmas, they don't bother to put any sand down. It drives my mom crazy, because she HATES winter.

But I love it, like just a couple days ago. I was driving my dads truck, I was slipping every which way, I didn't bother to put it in 4WD until I was going up a hill and I couldn't get up it w/just the rear wheels engaged, so I put her in 4WD and away I go, and I say to myself "this isn't any fun at all!"

I'm just as bad as the rest of them I guess. *shrugs* :lol: (I've lived in this state for too damn long)

[Alerosince99]

First of all, winter is only 4 months...thank you very much! :D

Second of all the drivers really do suck in this state. Plain an simple!

In this state, the most common vehicle to end up in a ditch is an suv but that goes for any midwest state. I think its because soccer moms drive them more now and we all know they cant drive for poop! I've driven extensively in MN, IL, WI and the drivers are all the same.

But just so you know 35 is the biggest mess of a highway ever created. The highways on the northwest side are much better and people fly.

[Daytona]

^So, for me to go to Roseville, instead of heading over to 35W, going north (and that's another thing I never understood - what the hell is up with 35W and 35E not being the same road and you can only go North and South on them and not E & W? :huh:) to Roseville, I should really go 494 east to 35E north to 36 west? I went that way the first time or 2 out there but it seems like that's the long way around. That's why I've been taking 35W ever since. Yeah, traffic does suck in the evenings and most any time I'm going south to get back to the airport but the mileage is much less.

[alerored04]

I agree about soccer moms and SUVs, thinking that just because they drive an SUV that they can drive normally on snow. The 35E and W thing is a split in the north and south travelling highway to supposedly reduce traffic. One side of the split goes east of the cities and one goes west, hence 35E and 35W. today the 14th it is really cold, im not sure of the figure in minneapolis but in Grand Forks it is 30 below counting the wind chill, it is psycho cold. Hopefully it warms up for you at the end of the month.

[Daytona]

^I STILL don't get it. Here in NJ, Rt. 18 goes North and South so depending on which direction you're heading it's simply called Rt. 18N or Rt. 18S. There is no Rt. 18E North/South and Rt.18W N/S. That's just stupid. If you have 2 parallel but separate highways going in the same direction call them DIFFERENT numbers!

Where I went to High School there were parallel roadways - 1 on each side of the railroad tracks. The one on the south side was called South Avenue, the one on the north side was called (you guessed it!) North Avenue. They both ran East-West but were titled North and South Avenues because of where they were vs. the railroad tracks. South Avenue technically was Rt. 28 but North Avenue was NOT called Rt. 28N. It was some other number. DUH!!!!!