On the way to Minnesota, we passed many prairies and wheat
and cornfields. Bob and I stopped for lunch at the Corn Palace in Mitchell SD,
where the annual corn festival was just setting up. The Palace was built in
1892 and every year they redecorate the outside with cobs of corn and cornhusks
in new and elaborate designs. They call it a folk-art wonder on the prairie of
South Dakota. Yes indeedy – it certainly is a wonder.
Bob and I spent five days with my parents in Wayzata,
MN. Wayzata is on the shores of
Lake Minnetonka, where Minnetonka Moccasins and Tonka Toys are from. We have
seen those moccasins in almost every state we have visited – they are SO
popular. My parents actually live north of there, which is now Plymouth. They
live in the house they built when I was 5 years old and we affectionately refer
to it as “the museum”. They still have paintings I did in high school in the
basement! In fact, the Gettens and
Hammeses have lived in the Wayzata area for several generations. A lot of my
aunts, uncles and cousins still live within a few miles of my parents.
My Dad and Mom will turn 87 and 80 this year. We celebrated
their 61st wedding anniversary with a lovely meal in downtown
Wayzata. They are both very active at the Catholic Church. They even managed to get us to go to
mass on Sunday. My mom sings in
the choir, and my dad has been a “server” at mass for over 80 years! They both still drive (pretty fast) and
they have a large garden that dad tends and mom has to process and can. She
says she’s ready for an apartment, but dad still loves the house and yard
work. He is also still flying his
small plane and just recently passed his two-year check-ride and physical.
Bob and I enjoyed meeting my friend Nan at the Mill City
Farmer’s Market in downtown Minneapolis and we walked out on the stone arch bridge
that crosses the Mississippi. I
hadn’t seen Nan since high school and it was great to reconnect. Later that
day, we were having drinks with my friend Ron, also from high school, at the
“muni” – the local municipal bar and pub. There was a group at the table behind
us talking about going to Orcas Island to attend a “granola wedding” and Bob
finally couldn’t stand it. He told
them that we got married on Orcas, and that I had lived there for most of 19
years. It turned out the man had graduated from the University of Puget Sound,
the same year that Bob did!! What are the chances of that?
During our time here we also had drinks and meals with my
aunt and uncle and cousin and their spouses. Bob also reconnected with Bonnie,
who he worked with in Seattle during the 1980s and attended our wedding.
We had planned to leave on Monday, but tropical storm Isaac
has given us pause. This has been a good lesson for us as to how variable these
storms can be. We are heading to
Nebraska, Oklahoma and Arkansas to finish off our map of the lower 48, but it
looks like the weather is going to be pretty nasty in Arkansas later this week,
so we decided to delay a day. That gave us a chance to wash the outside of
Harriet and do some shopping. We also had lunch at Smash Burger, which just
moved ahead of Five Guys for our favorite chain burger. I still think that
Fudruckers is in the running, but we have to have another lunch there before it
is declared the current winner.
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