Starting Friday, my mom and I went on a little road trip, first to Dubuque, IA to visit her aunt, and then on to Galena, Illinois. Dubuque is a city I'm not that fond of, but it does have my favorite pillows in the entire world, located at Days Inn, a hotel admittedly a bit confusing to get to off the interstate, but ideally located by bluffs. We stayed in this motel for those two reasons. Pillows & bluffs, baby, yeah! Although I have to say we had some pretty weird characters staying in rooms near us. For one, there were these chanting, dancing, hooting men rooted on the floor above us. For a moment, we thought there were dogs howling! Next on the odd folks needing to be mentioned include a confab of freaks sitting around their vehicle in camping chairs, eating weiners, and playing horseshoes in the parking lot. Weird. I know. The things we do in Iowa for entertainment.
Got to see the Harry Potter film in Dubuque, and I was in such a state of shock throughout the whole thing. I could not believe I was watching the final film. Oh my God. It was wonderful. The acting was superb and the special effects unbelievable. And Snape actually got his well-deserved notice! For me, the Snape death scene and his pensieve memories were among the best parts of the movie. Of course, I don't mean to say that I enjoyed Snape's death scene, but rather it was beautiful in its own way. On the contrary, my heart was pounding and aching when the death scene was approaching. I loved Snape. He was my second favorite character, after all. I feel pretty cheated about the fact that all of my favorite characters were killed in the series, but that's how the cookie crumbles (sniff, sniff). It really says something about my nerves when I ate half a box of Mike and Ikes before the movie even started! And yes, I can't believe I actually admitted it, but fellow Potter fans will understand.
Next day we went to Bellevue to visit my mom's aunt in a nursing home. While there, we were on the hunt for shells, and luckily were able to find some! The place in Bellevue where my mom used to collect shells as a kid was covered by the rising tides of the Mississippi. (That's two years in a row now, grr!!)
From Bellevue, we went to LeClaire, IA to check out the digs of the American Pickers (Mike & Frank--History Channel--check them out!). I must say, their location is far from ideal. They're located off of an alley, and they have no signs of how to get there, but luckily we had a GPS. It was cool to tour their garage, even though they themselves weren't there, and see some of the antiques they had collected over the span of the show.
We went to Galena then and stayed at a beautiful motel called Stony Creek Inn. It was there that the Great Stuffed Animal Heist of 2011 took place. Okay, not heist, exchange, haha. Let me break it down for ya. The minute you enter your room at this inn, you're greeted by a stuffed animal, a stuffed animal that is yours for a price if you choose. Well, we had an ugly white bear in our room, but my mom noticed that the room across from us, a room that was being walked in and out of by a cleaning lady, had an adorable raccoon. So when the maid came out and walked around the corner, mom was like, "Go get the bear!" So I went into our room, grabbed it, and hiked a pretty impressive throw to her, as she stood in the doorway of the room across the hall. And the rest is history. My mom, a.k.a. Mash, professional animal exchanger, ran into the room, grabbed the raccoon, exchanged it with our stupid ugly bear, and tore back into the safety of our digs. I would have loved to see the maid's face when she returned. Of course this prompted me to come to the conclusion that I needed the raccoon too, so I had to go to the motel gift shop, whereupon I not only found another raccoon of equal cuteness, but a friggin beaver. Yes, I know. A beaver. What's appealing about a beaver? Oh, snap. You'd have to see this one. Anyway, long story short, Megan, the professional stuffed animal freak, struck again. I'm going to die of over-consumption of stuffed animals. It's true. It's a disease. Look it up.
Anyway, now we're back home, frying in this heat. It was hot there too. Good God. I've never experienced such heat. In Galena last night, the heat index was still 110 degrees at 9:00! I'll be sleeping downstairs tonight. Hopefully I wont be attacked by our unmentionable house guests. Oh well if I am. That way I won't be in debt up to my eyeballs. Can your eye sockets actually melt?
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