Cabela’s Vacation

J. and I are back from our vacation to Cabela’s in Dundee, Michigan. I had a FABULOUS time!

Cabela’s is a MASSIVE outdoors store – 225,000 square feet actually! It had more camo clothing than I’d ever seen. Lots of camping equipment, fishing, boating, hunting, dog stuff, and even a huge women’s clothing section!!

I have to admit, I was SOOOOOOOOOOOO close to tears in the woman’s clothing section. Never before have I found a store with so many things I LOVED. Everything was my style! I just HAVE to sign up for their woman’s catalog that they mail out!

I managed to not spend too much money. Just a few clothing items, a nice new braided camo slip lead for Monty’s retriever training. AND!! I did get a GORE-TEX jacket! It is a women’s jacket and it’s purple! I had no intention of even trying it on because I’ve gone for years not buying nice womens jackets because they never fit right. Well J. convinced me to try it on and I was soooooooo excited!! It fit perfectly! Cheapest GORE-TEX I’ve ever heard of – the jacket was only $99 and it wasn’t even on sale. They had zip in fleece jackets and matching pants – but after a few minutes of wild craziness, I put them back and just kept the coat.

You should have seen J. in this store though. Oh my goodness. He was actually skipping and jumping around – his eyes were all twinkly and he had a big dimpley grin. He was more excited than a 5 year old on Christmas morning – like probably 5 times more excited!

Okay okay, here are some photos and I’ll add more details of the trip as I go:

Dundee, Michigan was likely quite small before Cabela’s moved into to town. Now there are many restaurants and hotels surrounding the Cabela’s store.

J.’s excitement started when we were still on the Interstate and he spotted the Cabela’s watertower!

Oh, hold on one sec…

Okay I just went and subscribed to the Cabela’s catalog for Women and Kids. Woo hoo!

Ok, Here is the front of the Cabela’s store. It sits on a big parcel of land with a pond out back and lots of grassy area where they had tents up for display.

When you are in Dundee, you see the Cabela’s logo everywhere. It is apparently the Number ONE tourist attraction in Michigan! There sure were alot of people there – license plates from all over. Apparently people fly in just to shop.

Guess how many times we went to Cabela’s? One? Heck no, we went THREE TIMES! 🙂 Might as well, we stayed across the street! We stayed at the Country Inn and Suites. It was a nice enough place. Nice king sized bed, clean rooms. They had a pool and a whirlpool on the main level. We tried it out both nights. I can’t remember the last time I was in a pool. I still smell like chlorine, but it was nice – especially the almost boiling hot whirlpool. I want one!!

Around 2am during the first night, we both woke up to the stench of something burning in the hotel room. It smelled like burning hair – like a bad blow dryer or maybe a really dirty baseboard heater. The air conditioner was on, but it didn’t seem to be. J. investigated. I was trying to think, in my sleepy brain, how we were going to get all the purchased merchandise out of the room if there really was a fire. I guess it was too much for me to figure out because I fell back to sleep and J. said he stayed up for an hour making sure we weren’t about to die. We still have no idea what it was.

Ack! Foiled again – I just got an email that the Cabela’s Woman’s catalog is unavailable at this time. I hope they’ll send me the fall one when it is ready!

Okay back to the weekend. As you know, I left Monty at a boarding kennel. Yes I did tear up quite badly driving back to my house on Friday morning after I dropped him off. Having recently lost two other dogs, it’s really hard to leave one behind. We picked him up this afternoon and he was fine. The kennel was packed though – I guess they had 67 dog boarding last night! No wonder Monty is so tired right now – they probably kept him up barking all night. Luckily I left him his big hippo toy. The girls working there said they liked him and they noticed how much he likes his ‘teddy bears’. He seems to be none worse for the experience. He’s clean. They bathed his bed for him. And he’s snoozing. I guess it was good. I missed him a few times over the weekend. Often I would quickly think to go check on him, or to turn around and see if he was okay in the back of the truck, and remember he wasn’t with us. I guess it’s natural since he’s been with me all the time since I brought him home in December, well except for the time I’m at work.

Okay back to the store. Here are some photos from inside so you can appreciate the size of the place. I believe it’s the equivalent of 4 football fields inside. It had an upper level on one end too.

There were dead stuffed animals EVERYWHERE in the store. There was even a mountain full of them. Nicknamed taxidermy mountain, I think it was really called conservation mountain.

There were big aquariums in the store with fish and the cutest couple of turtles. There were a few little streams going through the store with live fish. And I’m not talkin’ goldfish here – I mean real fish you’d throw in a line to – if you weren’t too busy shopping. haha

Alive or stuffed? I’ll never tell:

It was so nice to get away. I’m glad we didn’t bring the dogs. It was nice to not have to look after them. Going on a vacation with someone so easy to get along with is really special as well. And I think he’s changed me. I used to think camo clothing was silly but now I think it’s kind of cool. I also ate jerky on more than one occasion this weekend. Crazy world.

I must comment though on the food in America. My goodness. I have never experience food that was so overloaded with sugar and/or salt. I know I don’t eat healthy and I sure love eating food that isn’t good for me, but some of it I just couldn’t finish. For example, my rice at Applebee’s restaurant was so salty I didn’t eat half of it. My grilled sandwich at Bob Evans tasted like they filled the pan with half butter and half salt before they tossed my turkey sandwich in to grill. Even at the steakhouse last night – the buns served with dinner were sweetbread buns – and the butter for them was sooooo sweet. The breakfast at the hotel was really nice, and free, but the yogurt was tasted more like sweet jam than yogurt, and there were danishes that made my teeth hurt (but I had one the second day as well). Even the popcorn they were selling outside of Cabela’s was coated in sugar. There was sugar for sale everywhere! Every checkout, at Cabela’s, at the restaurants, and at the stores we shopped, had fudge and chocolate bars surrounding the til. The hotel even had free cookies and mints on the front desk in the lobby. Half the billboards on the Interstate, if not more, were selling food. The first thing J. and I scarved down with our dinner tonight when we got home was a plain lettuce salad!

Okay I’ll close this post for now. I have a few more tidbits to post but they’ll have to wait. I should really get some sleep!