I’d spent my fair share of layovers in the Minneapolis airport flying east from Anchorage, but the first time I spent any time in the state was, once again, on a baseball road trip with Aimee in the summer of 2003. The previous summer, my friend Alecia, whom I’d gone to school with from first grade through high school graduation (save one year in there somewhere, I think?), had gotten in touch, and by the summer of 2003, was moving to Minneapolis. She and her husband Craig were gracious enough to let us crash on their couch the day they moved in, and we enjoyed a great visit with them, falling in love with their house, checking out Minneapolis, and catching a game at the shockingly ugly Metrodome, where Craig took the above photo of us.

The next time I was in town, for the AMIA conference in the fall of 2004, Alecia and Craig put me up again, and I had the good fortune of arriving in town the night the Pixies were playing in St. Paul, so we all went to the show, which was a lot of fun.

As luck would have it, we found occasion to pass through Minneapolis once again on our most recent road trip in 2006, and stayed with Alecia and Craig again, this time with the added bonus of getting to meet young Abbott, the newest member of the family (at that point). We ate yummy food at their local haunts, watched old music videos, and hung out with Abbott. We headed to North Dakota the next day, so we got to see whatever you can see from I-94 as it stretches onward; hopefully we’ll find ourselves in Minnesota again one day soon so we can catch up with everyone again.