What do you think of when you hear the word 'vacation'? Some of you think of such things as 'fun' or 'peace' or 'relaxation'. Others think 'annoying siblings' or 'long car trips' or 'shoot me now'. I personally am fonder of the first three choices. When my family told me we were going to be taking ten days off to be together, have fun, and spend a lot of money, I was pretty excited. Our plan was to go from our home in Indianapolis, drive through Michigan and up to Toronto, then on to Montreal, finally reaching our destination, a cabin on a lake, in New Hampshire. That all sounds great to me, everyone loves getting away from their normal life. And, I'm also going to admit that (I know it's weird) I kind of wanted to get away from Hanson. Let me explain. I run this website. Most of my online-time is spent working on it or emailing people about it or searching for info for it. It gets kind of tiring. So I was hoping to get away from that whole part of my life, to not even seeing Hanson for ten days.
We left at like, 5:00AM and my parents told me that we'd be going through Detroit, Michigan. Being the insane psycho I am for oldies music, I immedeatly started whining, asking if we could stop at one of the Motown museums that was sure to be in the area. They said no. So I went to bed. Quite a few hours later, my mother woke me up and let me know that we were in fact going to be stopping at a Motown museum. I figured that since Motown is THE thing that Detroit is known for (much like Indiana is known for Hoosiers and the Indy 500) that there would be at least five huge museums dedicated to the awesome music made there. You can imagine my confusion when we pulled off the freeway into a somewhat typical 'inner city' city. We stopped in front of a little house. I looked up and saw a tiny store front with HITSVILLE USA written across the top. My mom told me that this was it, so we all got out of the car. That's when I saw it. A green sign with gold lettering about the history of Motown. I read it, and my stomach sank a little. It talked about the first ever recording in Motown's Studio A, "Money (That's What I Want)". AHH!!!! This was the place that Hanson stopped at on their Albertane Tour and happened to put on their tour video. After the initial fact that my trip was no longer unHansony (that lasted a good three hours), I began enjoying the museum. It was actually really cool, and now I'm going to have to watch "Road to Albertane" again.
On the road again. Asleep again. I woke up somewhere along the road, maybe in Canada. Gee, Toronto. That has no Hanson ties at all ("Getch'er ear plugs and let's boogie"). So there was Hansony thing two, the actual city. And we also passed some building with a big MOLSON written across it. That made me think of the fact that Hanson played a concert (I don't know if it was in Toronto or elsewhere) at The Molson Center/Ampitheatre. #3. We got to a nice little hotel and I flipped on the TV to MuchMusic. The Top 10 Countdown was on, and the song Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down was at #8. I layed back on my bed and shut my ears when I heard an all-too-familiar opening to "If Only". Number seven on the countdown, #4 on my Hansony Count.
The next few days had no Hansony occurences, but that all changed again when my family went to Maine for a day. There was this really cool market that we went to (it was huge, really) for lunch and we were all walking around looking at the different stalls. I went to the very last corner and stopped in my tracks. "The Hanson Brother's Fishing Company". I stifled a laugh as I walked up and saw a bunch of dead, frozen fish wrapped in "The Hanson Brother's Fishing Company" paper. When I looked up, there was a nice-looking-yet-rustic wooden sign with three huge angry looking men in overalls with bulging biceps staring at me, with the words "The Hanson Brother's" written in angry writing across the top. I wanted to ask some of the beefier looking middle-aged men how they felt about working for the Hanson brothers, but I didn't. #5.
Finally, on the day before we left the cabin, my sister and mom and I went shopping to get some groceries for lunch. My sister and I stepped into a pharmacy in search for some toenail polish. Of course, the only brand they carried was Sally Hansen nailpolish (#6). So I bought some and went to read some magazines until my mom was done with getting her groceries. I picked up some random magazine with Britney Spears on the front and opened it up. Guess whose faces I was gazing at? Yeah, you got it. Sigh. That made #7.
Sitting at the cabin that night, spreading Hansen on my feet, I realized that my little Hansony experiences were quite nice. They kept me from getting annoyed with my sister and amused me beyond the normal "I LOVE TAYLOR" websites. So thank-you to Motown, Toronto, Maine's fishery, Sally Hansen, and Disney magazine. After my realization, I muttered a soft 'screw it' to myself, ran up to my room, and popped in my "This Time Around" CD. Ahh...