ah love mair ca part 2

America:
Okay, so then? we like went? to like Target. It was, like, AWESOME.
Seriously, it was consumer heaven. Of course it was, because it was a SUPER Target!



Bridal:
Across from the Target we visited the mecca of bridal magazine readers, David's Bridal. I won't go into too much personal detail, but suffice it to say that Jo looked soooo pretty and H and I had fun trying on bridesmaid's dresses (and forcing each other to wear pink and frills just for the fun times). It may be cliched to say so, but there's something about a wedding dress that transforms a person into a glowing, fairy-tale version of herself. Ah. These are the privileges of friendship.

America:
We had a surprisingly generous amount of time left after our bridialities, so we executed the most American of evenings in celebration of our last night in Davenport. As you know, Davenport is built on the shores of the magnificent Mississippi river. Also, a relevant fact is that our rental car was a Chevrolet Cobalt. Combine these facts, and what do you have? Yes, dear readers, we drove our Chevy to the levee. And along with that, we did in fact eat apple pie (the kind you buy from the corner store) and, to top it all off, we went to a baseball game.

Seriously, how quintessential is that?

We saw the Quad Cities Swing play the... uh... help me out here, I totally don't remember who they played. But it was a wonderfully small-market event. In fact, the announcer was a man of the people, not five rows in front of us:



On the advice of Nicky B., I indulged in cotton candy-flavoured Dippin' Dots. They came in a plastic batting helmet, and I loved them.



(for the uninitiated, they're freeze-dried ice cream pellets. they stick to your tongue and are actually somewhat painful, but the pain is delicious.)



In the end, I think the Swing even won. But I wasn't really paying attention. More important was the Ball Park Frank i enjoyed and the fact that we got to sing Take Me Out to the Ballgame in the seventh inning stretch. I realize this isn't a strictly American thing, but it felt pretty Yankee-doodle at the time.

Yee haw, and shoo-eee, and Yessir.

Ah love mair ca

This was America Day, Museum Day, and Bridal Day.
America:
We began the day with breakfast at the Village Inn (the word on the street is that IHOPs are disappointing, so we opted to skip it) where, if they don't offer you a slie of pie at the end of your meal, then it's free. That's any meal, no matter what time of day. Naturally, then, a couple of us indulged in breakfast pie. God bless America.

Museum:
While Jo finished up some Palmery things, H and I decided adventurously to check out the Museum of Chiropractic History, which is a temple to the bizarre. It's housed in an old Masonic lodge:


And yes, it does say "Let there be light" above the door. Humble folks, the Palmers.

The exhibits ranged from the silly to the thought-provoking. My favourites:

Hilarious ads from the '20s:


The spine segment parade:


The very scientific posture queen contest:


The names of chiropractors who went to jail for practising medicine without a license. (Some states took until the '60s (?) to recognize chiropractic as a legitimate form of health care):


I'm glad we went, and I particularly appreciated the air conditioning.

Museum/America:
Then we hit Moline's biggest tourist attraction: the John Deere museum! We learned about combines:


We saw a statue of a, uh, Deere:


And though we didn't ride it, we saw their cute little tourist transportation wagon:


At the immense and fabulous gift shop, I picked up a John Deere cowbell for James, which, incidentally, he took to the Riders game this afternoon.

...part 2 to follow

Davenportant discoveries

Though we had spent the previous day at school, this day taught me quite a bit, too.

Lesson 1:
America is hot.
Like, deadly hot. Humid and oppressive and thank God for air conditioning. This day was 38 degrees with the humidex, which for us was a special kind of torture. Being outside was unpleasant and even vaguely frightening as our two-minute hike up a hill made me feel ill. I know it was just another day for the initiated, though, because most of the Palmer students were walking around suited up in their clinic gear (business casual clothes with white jackets over top) like nothing was the matter. I suppose it's adjustable to-able, because Jo had better heat survival skills than H and I did.

Lesson 2:
Small communities can be quite fun.
H and I discovered some of the touristy things Davenport has to offer on our trips downtown, like
-Riverboat casinos on the mighty mighty Mississippi:

-The outdoor bandshell and monument to Jazz musician Bix Biederbecke:

-The modern skybridge which leads from downtown to the river which, for a modern touristy grab, was actually pretty cool:
(it lights up in rainbow colours at night, which is a bit much)

-The pretty historic buildings and the impressive modern museum building:

We also benefitted from the fact that in small communities, like-minded individuals can often find themselves more easily, and gravitate together. We visited the natural foods store with the BEST delicious whole-food treats ever, and witnessed a pretty continual flow of people who were obviously grateful for this institution in their community. Of course, a chiropractic college town has a disproportionately high number of holistic types, so this store could thrive more easily.

Lesson 3:
Even when you don't want to chat with, say, the crazy owner of the antiques store, you might as well.
The immense antiques store stretching through three (?) buildings was quite an experience. Room after room full of treasures, from printer's typesetting blocks to a spinning wheel to a carousel horse, sucked us in for a good couple of hours (over two visits). And when we finally selected our treasures to buy, the overly talkative, generously proportioned man in the unfortunate v-necked t-shirt talked our ears off about the weather, told dirty jokes, and finally got to dishing the good stuff: turns out he was a draft dodger and lived in Ottawa, just around the corner from where H lives now!

Lesson 4:
You can live until you're 25 and not know you have a spine disorder.
Hey, doctors, how come you never noticed that my spine is crooked? Fortunately, it seems that Scoliosis doesn't cause any problems unless the angles are more acute. My wavy backbone hasn't caused any harm that I know of, but I'm sure anxious to see how muscle re-education can begin to correct it. Maybe I'll gain some height!
Anyway, we returned to the Palmer clinic for our adjustments (and to log some clinic hours). Thanks, Dr. Jo!

Lesson 5:
You should see silly high school movies once in a while.
They might have Rufio in them.

Learnding is fun n stuff

Wake up in the morning
Gotta shake this feeling
Gotta face a day at school...

Well, actually, I was really, really looking forward to our day at school. It started with an official tour by an official Palmer tour guide who just happened to be Jo's friend Ann.

She apparently knew her audience well, because she focused mainly on the places on campus where you can get cheap or free food.

She told us all about the quirky Palmers (quirky doesn't begin to describe it... maybe eccentric? Idiosyncratic? Insane?) We saw some wonky spines which are displayed in cases throughout the whole campus:


We also saw the jelly people the students use to learn radiology technique. Some are fabricated, but some o' them bones is real!


After a fun turn through the bookstore buying hilarious American chocolate bars like Caramello and Whatchamacallit, we went to a big pretty lecture hall


to hear the brilliant and down-to-earth Sue Brown talk about quantum physics, success and identity, and changing the world with the power of your minnnnnnd. All this, of course, relates to the fabulous system that is chiropractic. I had never learned about it before, and was even quite suspicious of it. But boy oh boy, did Sue tell the chiro gospel that day. That, combined with the top-notch care we would receive from Jo the next day, has made me a chiro convert!

H and I took a stroll downtown while Jo finished up some clinic-y stuff. Whooo, that might have to be a whole other post all about the Davenport. After our stroll we went to a weird, weird grocery store where the sassy cashier asked for our ID so that we could buy our $4 wine--"You got the yuuung look, hon"--and we headed home to listen to the *sniff* hockey game *sigh.* H made us a gourmet dinner: Kraft dinner, two ways.


Seriously, click on that photo for the close-up. It's a beautiful thing.

never mind

Let's change the world through quantum physics

We interrupt this travelogue to say
GO OILERS GO!

Cross-border (health care) shopping

What do Canadians do when in the States? Why, they shop, of course! We headed out to Menard's (the aforementioned hilariously organized hardware store) as well as Lowe's, famous from all those American decorating shows. We scored the materials necessary to lash Jo's basil plants to her balcony rail, and to construct a net which would allow the merciful breeze to blow through the doorway without the kitten escaping. Ah, yes, the kitten; here she be. She likes to drink out of non-kitten-oriented containers:




Monday evening was clinic day, where Jo got to show us her doctorly prowess. Here she is in her cute white coat. Looking pretty sultry for a chiropractor.



So H and I got all assessed and got to do fun things like have our reflexes tested and lie on weird tables. Who knew that chiropractic school consists of learning how to tease your patients from all different angles? We had the fun diagnostic times and enjoyed our cross-border health care shopping, whilst providing Jo with valuable clinic hours towards the completion of her degree. Yay!

So, hooray for chiropractic and everything, but man, that was a long appointment. We were starved by the time we emerged from the clinic, so we headed to the Asian grocery fun land, and H provided us with a delicious dish for dinner, inspired by a fancypants restaurant in Toronto. We ate happily and conked out for the evening.

Feast Day

The pretty burg of Davenport is a pleasant place to stuff oneself full of food on a sunny Sunday in May. We awoke in Jo's lovely hillside apartment


which is verrry close to the Palmer campus. That's it at the top of the hill, as seen from Jo's balcony:

(Those are the basil plants which we lovingly transported outside, after a trip to the world's most bizarre harware store, Menard's. Need a mop? Here they are, next to the light fixtures. Need a memorial grave marker? Look near the BBQ sauce!)

Sunday morning was church, at the coolest church ever. (Sorry, Lutherites). Coffee during service? With cinnamon flavoured creamer? Hook me up! Jo sang beautifully, and H and I enjoyed our back-row table. I particularly enjoyed the loft-style setting in the historic (or historic-looking) downtown building.

After service we headed to a greazy spoon called Johnny's which served such classics as biscuits and gravy, patty melts, and your typical eggs-toast-meat breakfast. The waitress called us "hon" and poured some solid diner coffee. (Note to hapless Canadians like me: in the States, the distinction between breads is "white" or "wheat." Apparently, to them, all bread is brown.)

Replete with Midwest goodness, we headed to the enormous supermarket to nab the ingredients for the monster cookie dessert we'd be bringing to the Palmer student council barbeque. Back at Jo's place, H crammed choco-skor-chunk dough into a pizza pan and made a dessert-themed CD for the ride over (including Louis Armstrong's enduring rendition of "Cheesecake," which features the following lyrics:

Cheesecake
Gobble, gobble
Cheesecake
Gobble, gobble
Cheesecake
Gobble, gobble
Cheesecake
(cheesecake)

Cheesecake
Munchin' on the
Cheesecake
Munchin' on the
Cheesecake
Munchin' on the
Cheesecake
(cheesecake)

I iced the word Dessert on the cookie with Palmer purple icing, and away we went. Barbeque is a sacred thing in the Midwest; even more so than in beef-lovin' Alberta. In the faculty advisor's spacious backyard, we sipped our "soda" (Pibb for me, thank you) and watched as "Doc" tended not one but two grills with scientific meticulousness. We filled up on delicious salads, including the best barley dish you'll ever taste. (If you're really nice, I'll give you the recipe.) We enjoyed some chats with the friendly Palmer folk and heard a child use the word "y'all," which is highly adorable.

From there, we had to cut out early to meet the worship team from CrossPoint for dinner at Applebee's. Cool folks once again, interesting coversation, but all I could think of was how totally massively full I was. From there, we tumbled home.

The evening quickly devolved into an oven mitt fight. This is the sign of a good time being had.