✨ My First Date with April ✨

It was November 2023. I had met a beautiful woman named April at school (sko dawgs) and had emailed her about a potential date. We were about to start Thanksgiving break, so both of us would be traveling 6 hours home for the week. Fortunately, we happen to live near each other. It was perfect. We were going to meet up in a city near both of us. we were going to spend the day climbing a mountain in Winona, Minnesota.

Now you may be thinking, "Winona doesn't have any mountains." As if I'm not aware! What it does have is a peculiar rock formation on top of a bluff which towers high above the city. It is called a sugar loaf, and there are at least five of em out there according to Wikipedia. (I had no time to count them.) It takes a little while to hike the trail up to the top of the bluff, but it was by no means impossible. Once April and I reached the top of the bluff, we were astonished by the beautiful sunset view. We had climbed a mountain, and it was worth it.

April and me on top of the mountain 

I had heard years prior that a group of crackheads wanted to push the sugar loaf down the bluff into the traffic circle below. I deemed it my mission to accomplish what they never could. With April's help, we would push the sugar loaf off the bluff.

I quickly learned that pushing a 85-foot multi-ton rock formation down a cliff is easier said than done. I pushed and pushed to no avail. April joined in. We pushed and pushed, seeing no more progress than before. After about ten minutes, we gave up. Sure, I suppose I could have continued until my muscles gave out. But do you want me to suffer? The sugar loaf was going nowhere.

We resorted to throwing loose parts off the cliff. If a piece of stone was loose, we could just peel it off the sugar loaf and chuck it down. In retrospect, this was a terrible idea. We were not only damaging a rare structure on the national register of historic places, but also endangering anyone who might be hiking up the trail below. We should not have done it. It was wrong then, and it's wrong now.

After we hiked down the mountain, we decided to spend some time in the city proper. Winona has a beautiful downtown, and it was about dinnertime. We were planning on eating at Blooming Grounds. I had hyped this place up as delicious. But we arrived at the site, and it was closed for repairs! They were remodeling the store. Even stranger-they left the door open and unlocked. What were they thinking? I wanted to explore inside, but April convinced me not to.

April didn't like that I went inside Blooming Grounds.

Instead, April and I went to Toppers Pizza. Toppers has a location in Lincoln, Nebraska, near our school. However, I had not yet been there. With Blooming Grounds closed, we had to go somewhere, and Toppers was close enough.

We both ordered boneless wings. I got the honey barbecue wings, and April got the garlic parmesan wings. Then we split them so that each of us got I think April enjoyed the wings more than I did. She really liked them. I thought they were okay. Toppers is nothing mind-blowing, but I can see why it's popular.

Downtown Winona is also home to a comic book / card shop I've been to a few times. Think of it like Android's Dungeon from Simpsons, but in real life. A friend of mine likes Magic The Gathering, and another friend likes baseball, so I had been a regular customer in the past. (These guys are still around, but I did NOT want them tagging along on a first date.) April and I stopped in to see what was up. Nothing piqued our interest, so we left and went to a bookstore nearby. 

This bookstore is really neat. It has two stories and a cat! This cat is fat, brown, and fluffy. Is it bad for the books to have a cat running around between them? I don't know, man. I'm not a scientist. April and I enjoyed our time at the cat bookstore.

April and me petting the cat. 

April and I stopped into an organic grocery store, but it was mid. So we went shopping at Target instead. We spent so much time in Target buying Christmas ornaments and knick knacks. I also bought a blanket for my Lincoln Zephyr, since April convinced me that everybody needs a car blanket. While in Target, I passed a young girl wearing a Camp Cherith sweatshirt. Camp Cherith is my camp I work at, but it's hours away from Winona. It didn't help that I was also wearing a Camp Cherith sweatshirt I stole from Maddie Hopkins. The little girl gave me a sly look as we walked past her. I thought, "Does this sly girl recognize me? Is Sly aware?" After thinking about it some more, I concluded that Sly is very aware. If she were not aware, she would not be Sly. I am grateful that Sly did not bring up my ex-girlfriend from the summer. I would not like to explain my previous relationship to April. Not on our first date.

At the end of the day, we had spent a whole 5 hours and 40 minutes together. I was having so much fun that it felt like no time had passed. Now, when I look back at that day, I see nothing but good memories. 

What happened next? Well, take a wild guess. April and I spent some more time together over the next month. We even carpooled back and forth between Nebraska and Minnesota a few times. I got her a whale plushie named Justin for Christmas. A few months later, we decided it would be better if we went our separate ways. April transferred schools at the end of 2024.

April's lasting legacy, in regards to my online presence, is small. One night in December, she wrote "W4M H4M" on my refrigerator in magnet letters. In the videos VOTE FOR AARIN and VOTE FOR JOSH B (they are the same video, but slightly different), Ryan Edinger can be seen sitting in front of that very fridge. Big Ryan fan btw