Always on the Verge

Reflections and connections of a life-long learner.

Lake City Highlights

Mom's "million dollar view" of the Lake Pepin portion of the Mississsippi River. Taken from her front yard.
Mom’s “million dollar view” of the Lake Pepin portion of the Mississsippi River. Taken from her front yard.

It has been an eventful five days. Saw lots of family members, ate, attended two class reunion parties, ate, enjoyed a local fall festival, ate, played bingo with mom, ate, took in a couple of tourist attractions, ate. Now wondering if the things I packed to wear on the remaining 7 weeks of this trip will even fit me.

Biggest surprise: reminders of high school antics that I had forgotten about. Some of my classmates have amazing memories and as they shared recollections, the hilarious details came back to me. Have been pondering the forgetfulness. Was it because I left my home town right after high school and came back only for visits? (Many of my classmates stayed closer to home and they probably had chances to recall those events.) Or maybe it is because I have lived in quite a few different places and can only store a certain number of happenings from each place. Or, it may be that my memory is just not holding information well. Whatever the case, the retelling of the stories brought lots of laughter so I guess it doesn’t matter why I forget. The important part was the gathering and sharing.

We bought two flavors of cheese curds and "Packer Brats". The brats are stuffed with cheese curds and sauerkraut. Will save them to share with Ben when we get to Denver.
Sunday jaunt to Ellsworth, WI. I was told that this creamery is the official dairy of the MN State Fair. Sort of an odd selection : MN fair, WI dairy…oh that everyplace with common borders could be so open-minded. We bought two flavors of cheese curds and “Packer Brats”. The brats are stuffed with cheese curds and sauerkraut. Will save them to share with Ben when we get to Denver.

 

Septober Festival in Wabasha, MN. Streets are decorated with a clever fall arrangements.
Septober Festival in Wabasha, MN. Streets are decorated with a clever fall arrangements.
New favorite apple variety - Sweetango. It is unbelievably delicious.
New favorite apple variety – Sweetango. It is unbelievably delicious. This apple house is just up one of many around Lake City, MN.

Days 2 & 3 – Destination 1 Reached

Most of the past two days have been pretty uneventful. We covered about 900 miles, much of it through South Dakota; which I can tell you is about 415 miles from edge to edge.  (See what sort of statistic a person starts to notice when riding in a car for hours on end?)

Based on our observations, there is an extraordinary amount of road work being done. We have taken four major road trips in the past three years and not experienced as much construction as we did over the past couple of days.

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Bug-splattered front grill of Element. Windshield fluid will also need refilling. Even Gus had bug issues. He was swarmed by grasshoppers during his afternoon constitutional. He chose to stay by the roadside instead of scouting for a suitable shrub.
Lovely Minnesota
Lovely Minnesota