Our first out-of-California adventure together was for a friend’s wedding in North Dakota. Considering her natural aversion to all things cold, I was very surprised that Jenny was fully on board to be my plus one for a Minot wedding in December. We drove from Monterey to the San Jose airport, where it was 75 and sunny, and hung out in the lounge for about an hour before it was time to board.
When our time came to board, we handed our tickets over to the flight attendant at the gate.
“Heading to…” she paused a moment looking at our tickets, trying to decide how to pronounce our intended destination, “Min-oy?” She looked at us apologetically as she handed back our boarding passes.
“My-not,” I corrected her, with a slight laugh, “but no worries.”
“Oh, I was trying to class it up a bit I guess,” She responded. Jenny and I thought that was really funny, as people rarely talk about trying to “class up” anywhere in North Dakota.
We settled into our seats for the first leg of our trip, landing in Minneapolis for a four hour layover. Fortunately for us, my brother, Max was able to pick us up and take us out for dinner while we waited. With plenty of time to kill, and Jenny bundled up against the cold in the back of Max’s Ford Focus, we headed out and got some pizza at a local hole-in-the-wall. It was good pizza, greasy, cheesy, and filling, and with a little time left before takeoff, Max dropped us back off to board our flight to Minot.
We arrived in Minot a little late, catching a Lyft to our apartment for the weekend. One of the side benefits of dating Jenny is that she has family absolutely everywhere, as evidenced by the fact that one of her cousins, a medical professional that works at the Minot Hospital, maintained an apartment in downtown Minot. Jenny’s cousin and her husband graciously made their apartment available to us while they were out of town, saving us the trouble of a hotel reservation. The apartment was also within walking distance to the wedding venue, which was an excellent discovery.
The morning after arriving in Minot, I met up with a friend of mine, Casey, who had been with me in Qatar during my last stint there at the beginning of the year. We met at a burrito shop for breakfast, and the first thing Casey did was shove a package of home-made goose jerky in my jacket pocket.
We ate breakfast burritos with Casey, getting caught up on each other’s lives and reminiscing about days that weren’t too far behind us. Casey gave us a few recommendations of things to do while we were in town, and before too long, it was time for him to go back home and for us to go kill some time.
While much colder than Monterey, we were pleasantly surprised by the weather, and were even able to walk all the way to the local mall to pick up some shampoo that we had forgotten. After that little adventure, Jenny and I walked around downtown Minot, such that it was. We got coffee in a little shop, and inspected a book store across the street. We wandered into a couple stores, bought trinkets and post cards, and then walked back up the hill to our apartment.
Even after all that adventuring, we had plenty of time to kill. We anticipated a late night due to wedding festivities, so a nap was in order before freshening up and preparing for the wedding.
Jenny and I got ready for the wedding, and then called a Lyft to bring us to the wedding. Despite Minot being a rather small town, the Lyft driver had never heard of the venue that the wedding was being held at, and brought us to the wrong location, partially because the GPS provided instructions had him drop us off on the other side of a park from the venue. Using a second set of instructions, we managed to get to the venue, only to discover that we could have walked straight down the hill from our apartment for about three blocks.
After that bit of navigational confusion, Jenny and I got to the wedding. Zach and I had known each other for quite some time, since my Freshman (Doolie) year at USAFA, and it was great to see him again. We had seen each other several times since USAFA, including going to New Orleans, and being deployed together. Zach had even come to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving a few years ago, and gone up to my Grandpa’s hunting shack with us to unblock streams by blowing up a beaver dam.
Now at the wedding, Zach was sporting his traditional mustache and enthusiastically greeting everyone at the door until it was time for the ceremony to start. Jenny and I took seats in the back and watched the ceremony.
The ceremony was quite nice, fairly quick, and despite having heard much about Hannah, Zach’s wife, I had never seen her in person until she walked down the aisle. Jenny and I did get to talk to the new couple afterward, and she was every bit as delightful as Zach had made her out to be, as he often spoke about Hannah when he and I were in Qatar together.
Dinner followed the ceremony, and the reception followed dinner. Jenny and I had a blast, dancing away and just enjoying ourselves well into the night. Our flight was unfortunately early in the morning, so we ducked out a little earlier than most to get a decent night’s sleep. We walked briskly up the hill to the apartment, Jenny almost running ahead of me in her heels and dress, trying to beat the cold Minot air.
Our flight was at six the following morning, and we totally overestimated the amount of time required to navigate the Minot airport. We woke up at 4:00 AM to put the used sheets in the washer, and then in the dryer before we left. We made it to the airport by 5:10 AM, and through security by 5:15 AM. With plenty of time to kill, we dined on a breakfast of home-made goose jerky, which was delicious.
The return flights took us through Salt Lake city this time, and while we walked from one end of the airport to the other, I realized that Jenny consistently walked well in front of me. In fact, to me, she appeared to be nearly running, her shorter legs pumping quickly to get where she needed to be.
“Jenny, slow down!” I shouted, “You’re a little quickstride up there!”
Without hesitating, or really slowing down, she responded, “It’s not my fault you’re such a shambler.”
The rest of the trip passed uneventfully, and we were back in Monterey to prepare for the week ahead. We had a great time in “Minoy,” but it was pretty clear that I owed Jenny a warmer trip in the near future.
