May 19, 2001 - Lacrosse, Wisconsin

I left Winona in the morning and crossed the Mississippi to visit with my dad's high school friend, David Block. We had some lunch, I helped plant and tomato plant, and I pretended not to stare at his underage daughter and her friend prancing around in bikini's.

(not pictured: underage girls in bikini's)

Later in the afternoon I took I-90 to I-94 through Wisconsin and arrived at my Aunt and Uncles in Chicago. Well, technically it's Vernon Hills which is just north of Chicago, but you know how everyone around there says they're from Chicago even if they live like 2 hours from the city. It's a drive that I had made a hundred other times, but I think that may have been the first time I did it by myself.

May 18, 2001 - Winona, Minnesota

I slept in that morning and woke up in a panic. I rushed through the last few preparations for my trip while frantically trying to finish up cleaning the house. Then I put my dog in the car and left the house I grew up in.


After dropping off the dog I had two quick chores before setting off. First was a haircut because I'm horribly, horribly vain. The second was a teeth cleaning. I hadn't been to dentist in about two years at that point. It was unpleasant. Enough said.

 (That was the only hub cap on the car and it stayed on despite my best efforts.)

My first stop was Winona. The original plan was to drive down Hwy 61 along the Mississippi River, meet up with my high school friends the Raymond Twins and stay with the overnight. Naturally it didn't go quite as planned. The drive down was great. The weather was gorgeous, the trees in bloom and I had the top down and the radio blaring. I didn't think it could be a better start.

When I got to Winona my bubble was burst. Bad. The Raymond Twins had inexplicably decided to go back to White Bear, from which I just left. To this day I have not gotten a satisfactory answer from them about what happened but it turned out for the best. I was pretty pissed about the incident. (Later in the trip I had the opportunity to spend time in New Orleans with another friend which became legendary. All I had to do was bail on the Raymond's 21st birthday celebration in Phoenix.  It was an easy decision to make and the right one.) Anyway, the Raymond's weren't home but their roommate Lisa Lucky was.

(I swear to god, that's her real name.)

Lisa didn't drink or party at all so instead we picked up a friend of hers and drove up to the bluffs to hang out. It's an incredible view up on the bluffs, one of many I forgot to photograph during my travels. According to my old trip notes I was very impressed by the local college kids drinking out on the streets at 1:30AM. I would probably have less tolerance for that sort of thing nowadays. That night I slept in Rheanna's bed, something I had been trying to do for years, although granted it was not quite the exact circumstance I had hoped for. The next the morning I got up early and left for Lacrosse.

 (Not really what I was hoping for.)

The Night Before

It was a beautiful spring night and because it was the last night we would be living in that little house on the lake we had a great big goddamn party.

(Just another average night)

Why was this night different from all other nights?

On this night I told everyone that they would each be allowed to smoke one cigarette inside. I had steadfastly refused to let anyone smoke a cigarette inside the house for years. People who weren't even smokers lit up that night. Except for that it really wasn't any different from a bunch of early twenty-somethings partying. We got drunk, we got high, we jumped in the lake, we stayed up too late and I'm pretty sure that some random people hooked up too. Good times.

I mostly remember the smell of lilacs though. I was acting kinda funny that night. My on again/off again crush for Colleen was back on and I was jealous of her hanging out with anyone else. I was also nervous about leaving home and worried if my trip would be a success or failure. And I was worried about my dog scruffy staying at with my dad. Even when I was up in Duluth I had never been away for more than two or three weeks at a time and I just wasn't sure how he would handle it.

Cleaning and packing were furious that afternoon and the next morning. I thought we had done a decent job but later I learned from my mom that she was furious at the condition we had left the house in. Sorry mom, I was 21 and I did my best at the time.