au revior le Hutch. OR The Big Waterfall Road Trip.

My incessant boredom over the last three weeks would lead one to think I'd be blogging everyday, writing about the nothingness that goes on in Hutchinson with basic cable, a wall air conditioning, and 85 degrees. But boredom, somehow, leads to laziness, and I have been too lazy to blog. I have been too bored to blog, too lazy.

The countdown to Operation: Get the Fuck Out of Hutch has reached its final week. I'm leaving on Saturday. I've been slowly packing for awhile, mostly buying bins everyday and letting them sit in my living room. Then buying more bins. I have a load of boxes to give to Goodwill. I'm throwing things away. The He-Man blanket, I'm sorry to say, has reached its last leg (perhaps a child will experience an unfortunate pricking of the sewing needle Shannon once lost in there), as have a bunch of my clothes, the comforter on my bed (but I love the new one), the Psychology textbooks with USED stickers on the side I thought I'd hold onto for the rest of my life to remember that I once was 19, some random desk items like a paperweight and those desk lights from Ikea that I once thought were so amazing, stainless steel bowls that came with my pots and pans (from the second year of undergrad) and that I never used, not even once. The dishes with the shallow bowls that are ugly anyway (leaving me with only three or so plastic bowls, but I've decided I like hodge podge dishes and intend to replace them slowly with one or two from multiple sets that I like) are packed up and ready to go, as are the plates I bought to display Christmas cookies (just for that, you know) that I did get use out of during Operation: Bake back in 2007.

It feels good to get rid of this shit. I am a new woman.

It will probably be replaced with other shit. But I'm trying not to do that. I feel like I will finally be settling, and it finally feels good. [We'll see how I feel about this in a couple of months, though, eh? Grass-is-greener-Wayzata.)

Today I ordered $50 worth of pictures from Snapfish. I haven't ordered hard copies of photos since 2006, so I'm pretty excited to hold onto the last four years of my life. [Now that I've said this, I realize I'm missing a bunch. Good thing I have a free shipping password.]

A couple of weeks ago, I cleaned out my classroom, handed in my keys and my ID card (which felt like handing in a badge and a gun) and I had the exit meeting with my principal. He said: even though you're leaving, we don't regret hiring you, which I needed to hear. This was much different than what the "mean one" in the English department told Tessa: Jean interviewed so, so well--we were just floored with her. But then the school year started and she didn't do anything we expected her to.

She's a bitch. I should make it clear that "expected her to do" meant that I didn't follow the in-stone curriculum of the department, that I added my own assignments to the in-stone calendar of the department. Before the new interview the department told Tessa (who has the same "rebel" approach to her classroom that I do): well, it's our fault for not making it clear that you and Jean were expected to do everything we'd written in the curriculum. We'll just have to make this perfectly clear during this interview.

Yes, Tessa said, we should make it clear that there is very little room for creativity in this curriculum.

I have been replaced with "Joe."

So, my room is empty. I don't get to say goodbye to some of the kids I'd like to say goodbye to, and I was nostalgic on that last day. But it won't last long. I love this place for the experience, but I keep putting myself in the position: what if you were here for another year, and my stomach twists like I'm doing an unintentional sit-up. Oh, God. The 95 degree open-house with no air conditioning. Teaching "La Relacion" again. And then I think of teaching Advanced Comp, and the twisty feeling disappears. Then I think of living 3 minutes from 8 coffee shops and 2 bookstores and the twisty feeling disappears.

Hutch, Hutch, Hutch.

*

On Saturday I was feeling claustrophobic and I wanted to go shoe shopping, so I drove to Willmar. When I got to Willmar, it was uneventful and dull. It was Hutchinson, but smaller, and with less water features. I was going to turn around and go back, but then I figured I had a whole day, so I decided to turn it into a day trip.

And the mission of my day trip was to visit cities that had the name "falls" in their city name. Because I anticipated that these places would have some waterfalls, and who doesn't love a good waterfall on a Saturday.

GRANITE FALLS, MINN. ["Don't forget to wipe"]

I turned the Impala southwest and headed to Granite Falls. The little phone GPS took me right into the city, and I tried to find parks or waterfalls or areas of green on the little map. But I didn't find much. While the logo for the town has a big fucking two-piered waterfall on it, there were no sigs pointing to waterfalls, nor brown signs indicating parks, which would indicate waterfalls. So, I drove around for awhile, in those little streets. I drove by a Lutheran church with an 80s SUV out front for an almost-married couple, and in addition to streamers and cans on the back, the windows were painted CONGRATS GOON & SHORTY.

This couple is either really, hideously annoying, or really fucking awesome.

I found a bridge and a clearning near the Minnesota River, and I saw a dam-like waterfall next to an hydro-electric plant. See:

And I thought there is no way this lame, man-made waterfall is the claim to fame of Granite Falls. I crossed the walking bridge, over to a park, full of tall oaks and ankle-length scratchy grass; I walked down a sidewalk alongside the park, following the river. And there was nothing there. From the bridge I saw no waterfall, and from the river-side I saw no waterfall.

But there was a blue porta-porty in the middle of nowhere, and I had to pee. I set my camera on the cement outside, went in, swatted the flies, locked the door, squatted. On the back side of the door, in red paint like blood was sprawled DON'T FORGET TO WIPE. It looked like a message on a mirror in a horror movie. And I didn't forget to.

Anyway. Granite Falls has little, but whenever I see them on the weather map, I can think: ah, yes, Granite Falls. I've been there. If I was a student or a certain MFAer with jazzy prose, I'd said, I'll never take that place for granite.


To get out of town and in hopes of seeing a waterfall, I followed these signs about the Minnesota River Valley:

But Minnesotans think everything is scenic.

REDWOOD FALLS, MINN. ["There is a waterfall here, but we're not making it clear where it is"]

I plugged Redwood Falls into the GPS, and it took me the way of construction, so I drove around until it recalculated and took me along more pink Minnesota River Valley sigs. Very green, very much like Mankato with its broccoli-head trees and hills on the roadways that make it seem like I'm constantly climbing a roller coaster, waiting for the click click clicks to get slower as I reach the top and start to point down.

I passed through a Sioux Indian Reservation (with a giant neon sign on the roadside that flashed INDIAN RESERVATION THIS WAY) which seemed a little Casino-esque for not being a Casino, and I pulled into Bridge Street, right into town. Redwood Falls doesn't have a giant river. It has Redwood Creek, and there were a couple of parks around Redwood Creek. I drove the narrow roads near the parks, around the camping signs and the tents and the folks in RVs with orange fires--flames stretching as though they'd just woke up from a long nap and kissing off black smoke--right outside their doors. I found plenty of creek, but I found no waterfalls. It was frustrating, the town being called Redwood Falls. I would like to rename it: There's a waterfall here but we're not making it clear where it is. But then again, Hutchinson is called Hutch and there is no communal Hutch in the city park or anything. There is only a popcorn cart that never, ever sells popcorn and a phonebooth with the phone off the receiver.

In Redwood Falls, I found a zoo. One of those free zoos with chickens in cages as though they're zoo animals and not just jacked from some dude's farm, with deer behind thin wire, with peacocks and goats (meh-meh-mehs) and candy machines that give handfuls of dusty corn for a quarter.

I stretched my legs here (and my feet, which were blistered because of impractical shoes for this impromptu day trip), grabbed the camera, and headed for the buffalo.

The buffalo's heads are as big as my car.

It's a little awkward, being at a zoo by yourself. Sort of child molestery. Parents there had children, couples held hands, I walked around with my keys in my back pocket and my camera strap around my wrist.

I stood in front of the cage. Kids gathered, too, parents made comments about keeping fingers out of cages and how big and brown the eyes were. I stood in front of the big one, camera at my side, just looking.

And the buffalo charged at me. Only me. I was the only one on that side of the fence, and the buffalo rammed his head into the side of the fence. It was like I'd been talking shit about his girlfriend and he was on steroids; it was like Eliot Stabler in the police locker room after a perp threatens his family. Of course, if the fence wasn't there I'd have been dead, but that's why zoos have fences, silly.

The whole crowd gasped and I stood there wide-eyed, and then a man with a paper bag (the zookeeper?) said What did you do to get him to do that? And I shrugged and he said I've been trying to get him to charge all day! And you just show up and he finally charges!

And then he took his paper bag and continued to draw it along the fence in a way of taunting the buffalo and calling out to them. Rattle, rattle, rattle. It made me want to charge him.

Also, he had like four teeth total.

I peeked at the deer for awhile, two babies and a mother; one of the babies really naughty and splashing in the pond, splashing his brother, trying to instigate a chase. Deer are adorable, and I would like one for a pet, please, with its stiff ears and morse code of white dashes and dots on its backside.

I'd grabbed some quarters from my car, so I went to the machine to grab some corn. I fed the goats--they were so excited and cute, little puppies--and when I went back for more, they went away. They went to their goat bridge.

You know, like Billy Goats Gruff. This goat is like: don't take a picture of my fucking bridge. And I certainly couldn't be like hey goats come here because I was by myself, and goats don't like being told what to do, but I noticed a weird crank device where I could drop the corn in and wind it to the top of the bridge. So I cranked, and the goats ate. And then I left, hoping to see some waterfall on the way out, but I gave up and went back to Hutchinson. It wasn't a bad view on the way out, though.

I passed through Olivia, Minn., the self-proclaimed corn capital. And there was a lot of corn, but no more corn than I'd seen the rest of the trip, along with about 400 grain elevators.

The end. That was the day trip, about six or seven hours. I didn't have to fill up on gas, I didn't have to talk to anybody, and I didn't buy anything. But how often do I get to western Minnesota, anyway, and what else are you gonna do. I came home and looked up waterfalls in these towns online: turns out that Granite Falls manmade waterfalls are the big feature (are you serious?) but there are some other falls along the way; turns out I was about 1/2 mile from the Redwood Falls Ramsey Falls alongside the creek. No big deal. Aren't I going to see Niagra Falls in a couple of weeks?

No better way to say goodbye to Hutch than to leave it for a day, so when I came full circle I could call it home, could come back home to Hutch, just once.