After getting home from Tulsa on Monday, and going to a baseball game on Wednesday night, I ended up getting a room at one of the airport hotels. I decided to stick with Hilton to try and get my status back and booked through their website using my work discount page. Upon my arrival the computers all went down at the front desk and then I was told that the manager didn’t know how I had booked an accessible room – but they were all out. I could either stay in a 2 queen regular room or I could cancel at no charge. It was nearly 11pm, I had a 6am flight. I asked to keep the room and get a shower chair – of which they apparently also had none left. Way to go Hilton, maybe I want to just boost my Marriott status instead… Thursday AM I left bright and early to go to Minneapolis. My friends met me at the airport so we could pick up a rental car for our road trip to Iowa.
We hung out for a bit while a friend finished working before heading out for the 4-ish hour drive to Riverside, Iowa for our next Hanson adventure. We weren’t sure we wanted to do the show with it being so close to Hanson Day, but after we managed to snag front row tickets in the pre-sale we couldn’t pass it up.
When we saw a road side sign for Iowa’s Largest Fryin’ Pan, we had to stop and take some pictures because is it really a road trip if you don’t stop at a tourist trap on the side of the road?
Because of a lot of events going on at the casino including a wedding, most of the hotel rooms were booked up so we ended up getting a Grand Master Suite which was all the way at the end of the (long) hallway so after checking in and dropping off our stuff we decided to wander the casino. We did see Isaac out and about but opted to get snacks in the cafe instead of spending any time in the (smoky) casino.
The next morning we had breakfast at the restaurant in the casino and ended up spotting all 3 Hansons wandering around, though only Zac stopped very briefly to say hi.
The cafe also had a cotton candy zephyr, which we decided was some sort of donut/creampuff combo and since I am nothing more than an overgrown 5 year old, I had to try it. It did not disappoint.
That night we went to the show and I was very happy to sit and be able to see everyone for most of the show. (It was a tight squeeze so occasionally a friend would block a view, but leaning forward or wiggling to the side usually brought all 3 brothers back into view.) For this show their usual bass player, Andrew, was not there because he and his wife just welcomed a new baby (Congrats!) and they had a bass player named Aaron filling in, who I realized had also filled in back in 2016 at Hanson Day! (and played on Loud/Play) The show was a ton of fun and I was very impressed when Zac’s snare needed to be replaced in the middle of a song and he absolutely handled it like a pro. (While singing lead!) Taylor’s harmonica case also went flying off the stage at one point as well, so no, every show is not the same and you never know what might end up happening.
The next morning we went to another tourist trap, the future birthplace of Star Trek’s Captain Kirk. The story was that he was born in a small town in Iowa, but it wasn’t specified where. A fan living in a small town in Iowa decided that it should be HIS small town and so he made it so. I think it’s actually now been mentioned in one of the movies as well and they yearly have a fan festival in town for the past 30 or 40 years!
We stopped for lunch at a brewery in Cedar Rapids (and also another really good beer flight I was very happy with my choices on) and then dropped one off to fly home from Cedar Rapids before continuing our drive back to Minneapolis.
On the way back we were following a hearse with the license plate “after lyfe” and ended up passing it only to find out that a skeleton was driving the car. WHAT?!
It was nice to attempt to get a decent night’s sleep on Saturday into Sunday, but even with sleeping in I still did not want to wake up to get to the airport for my 2pm flight. We ended up being delayed 5-10 minutes to do something being fixed on the plane, but otherwise the flights were uneventful. I made it home in time for the American Idol finale and still absolutely need to catch up on sleep after diving back into work on Monday!