Day 1...

Ok, so we are here in Wisconsin & first off... Thank you to all that helped with funding a little of this trip. I greatly appreciate it. Now I have no internet service in our cabin. So I have to walk in the snow down to the main office & boot up my laptop there. So I'm still working out the kinks. Second, since I have no internet, I've been writing things down in Word & then I'll paste it on here. So I apologize if it sounds funny. So here is what has happened so far.... Left Seattle @ 12:40 a.m. & arrived in Minneapolis @ 5:50 a.m. It was 18 degrees with a few inches of snow. With a 3 hour wait for our connecting flight to Rhinelander, we were able to get breakfast at a Chili’s & wandered for about a hour before getting to our gate. Darryl & I had a $1 – 3 minute chair massage… wow, Happy Valentines to us. Now we are just sitting at the gate, Darryl is watching Blue Comedy TV w/ Kenny looking over his shoulder. Scott & Aaron are wandering this endless airport. Scott mentioned that he has seen over 15 bars, he really likes this airport.

9:05 a.m. a twin prop 40 passenger plane pulled up & we boarded for Rhinelander. It was about a 45 minute plane ride. 12 degrees & snowing, soft, dry snow. We ended up getting one rental car, a Dodge Durango. It was the biggest vehicle they had. How many Monkeys can you fit in a Durango?? Apparently 5, that’s with 5 hockey bags, 5 suitcases & carry ons. Darryl drove, Scott navigated & Kenny, Aaron & I piled into the backseat with a hockey bag draped on us. We headed north to Eagle River, & 35 minutes later we pulled into our sweet cabin. We are staying at the Eagle Waters Resort. We have a amazing cabin that sleeps 8-10, two stories & a number of bathrooms, just in case. So we are going to chill for a while, register our team later on tonight, get some dinner & then hit a bar.

We did a little shopping at the local grocery store, which also sells liquor by the way. On our way back to our cabin, we stopped in at a local rink. It’s not a public rink, but Scott & Aaron went in & asked if we would be able to skate for a little while. We rushed back to the cabin dropped off our groceries & picked up our gear. A 2 hour skate for $5 a person. That rink was crazy!! They didn’t Zamboni the ice, but that’s the way we wanted it. Gave us a idea of what to expect. It was freezing!! It was so surreal, like skating in a movie, lights barely on & working on drills. It was so cold in that rink, that when I got off of the ice, my moustache had icicles.

Back at the cabin, we pretty much took it easy. Got cleaned up, registered for the tournament, collected our cool Labatt Blue hockey jerseys, then headed back to Eagle Waters Resort for a great prime rib dinner. Now Scott, Darryl & Kenny are at the cabin, watching high school hockey, Aaron was my buddy & escorted me in the cold so I could post this blog. I've got pictures but I'll try to put it on a different site, so you can view them all at one time. I'll post the link once I get that situated. First game is tomorrow @ 11:45 a.m.!! GO MONKEYS!!