cabela’s

minnesotans are pretty intense about the great outdoors.  hunting, fishing, camping, boating, hiking, golfing, ice fishing, cross-country skiing, snow-shoeing…  you name it, they do it here.  so needless to say, the stores where you buy all the gear to go do all that stuff are also pretty intense.  it’s really an experience in itself.  and since we tsais aren’t really the outdoorsy type, we spent memorial day weekend inside the nice, air-conditioned store while our fellow minnesotans were all off to their lake cabins to go do…  whatever it is they do. 

about to enter the retail beast known as cabela’s (that’s phil with mikey and allie in the shopping cart in front of that boat but you can hardly see any of them!):

mikey loved the in-store aquarium full of lake fish:

in front of the mountain full of hunted and stuffed animals.  taxidermy is also big here.

mikey roaring like the polar bear:

mikey petting the ceramic display dog:

time for lunch!  (seriously, this was an all-day affair!)  the blt lunch special from cabela’s cafeteria:

we did buy one thing there — an all-in-one fishing kit!  i’ll have my camera ready to document phil’s attempt to show mikey how to fish.    btw, mikey’s a bit upset in this pic because we tried to take bear away.  big mistake!  so this is him saying “cheese” through his tears.