Day 28

Day 28

            Today we woke up and had breakfast with Bill at Sportsman’s Bar and Grill, owned by his old high-school classmate. Everyone there knows each other by name, a nice change from the hustle and bustle of strangers in Charlotte. We returned to the farm, packed up the car, and visited for a while. Kimberly Chisholm came over and said hi since we missed her the night before and we laughed at her clumsy misfortunes and talked about work and school.

Once she left, we departed for the Mall of America! We walked in under a sign with Princess Diana’s face on it, and you should have seen Katie’s face. Priceless! They had a Tribute exhibition for the late Princess, complete with her tiara, her wedding outfit, and a collection of her most famous outfits. Katie loved it all, but said the most amazing part to her was the collection of Condolences for Diana, spanning a wall-to-wall bookshelf. She even got to write her own in the book they had for visitors there. My favorite part was the handwritten rough draft,  typed and hand-edited second draft, and final version of her brother’s eulogy for her. In the typed edition, you can see where one of the royal reputation officers had crossed through any controversial or offensive statement towards any royals, and a final statement thanking Dodi for making her last days on Earth her happiest.

            From there we did real mall things, like walk through the 27 Acre amusement park. We walked around all four floors, not buying a single thing but stopping in the candy stores for free samples, and only missed one half of the third floor in our short three or four hour visit. We left and had dinner at the Nook in St. Paul, MN, the best burger joint in the nation (though I had a Black-bean burger). Katie got the stuffed burger, filled in the middle with melted cheese, like a jelly doughnut but better. We shared a root beer float (root beer from tap) and headed back down to Cedar Falls, Iowa, near Waterloo, where Kristie Chisholm lives, the third eldest Chisholm daughter. For such a short trip we did pretty well, seeing all the Chisholms except Katie and Kelly.

            We spent the evening with Kristie and her boyfriend, Jeremy, who is awesome! Their friend Brian (name?) was really funny and cool too. After a Burger King run we watched Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, a really creative and interesting movie. Jeremy has good taste. It was a fun evening and we went to sleep to late for as early as we had to get up the next day.