I had in mind...... in These titles mean nothing.

… a bullet list.

The pressure behind the bullet list seems to have decreased but there might be a bit of it left.

Let’s see…

• It’s been really hot and humid the last few days. Weather is supposed to change tonight when we get rain and it cools off a bit.

• I took the train to St. Paul Wednesday night and was picked up by son John. It was almost midnight when we got home.

• I think I was up early - yes I was. Katie leaves for school early so she is up early too. Will leaves later. I took Hans for a walk. I watched Deb work. I took a nap.

• In the evening we went out to eat and got a call from lbh who was in the taxi from the airport. John and I went home - just a short way - and met her. She came back to the restaurant and ate with us.

• We slept late-ish on Friday - too late for a Hans walk. We went by bus to the State Fair.

Ah the State Fair ..... it deserves another bullet list.

• There were 114,000 people there the day we were there. All willing to be there in the heat and humidity. All in good moods. It was incredible. As lbh and I observed - Minnesotans have tasteful tattoos and don’t swear much.

• We ate during the course of the day - tacos and cream puffs (real whipped cream, real puffs) and hot dog/Italian sausages. Lots of bottled water that was exuded through the skin and some tasty lemonade.

• We saw toy horses that could be ridden - either gliding on wheels or hopping in gaits. We saw the Vitamaster display and had a sample of the green health smoothie. We saw incredible bonsai and orchids - both male enterprises. We looked at Fine Arts and Arts and Crafts.

• We had our picture taken with the Obamas.

• We went to The Last Prairie Home Companion at the State Fair. It was very good. It was sad too. Nothing lasts forever. Everything comes to an end. But we don’t always want it to.

Next morning - pretty bright and early John took us back to St. Paul to get on the eastbound Empire Builder. We had a good trip. We were kind of noisy. Everybody on the train has a separate seat but we sat together and processed life and the journey.

We recovered the Buick at the depot in LaCrosse and drove downtown and found a place to park it. We walked along the waterfront and met a young couple - - the woman from Ontario and man I can’t remember. They had two almost matched golden and white boxers and two small children. They were on their way to Wyoming to a new job. They were enjoying the day. We walked through the flower garden honoring the city’s sister cities in China, Russia and several countries. We crossed the old railroad bridge that has just been redone to be a part of the city’s trail system.

We walked through the old downtown and went to Fayze’s for lunch. lbh had fish tacos and I had some kind of chicken sandwich. We consumed a lot of iced tea - no sugar. We bought Jim a fudge brownie. We took the fudge brownie to the car - hot but didn’t have to carry it anymore.

We went to Pearl Street Books where lbh found The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and a Graham Greene and I got a William Least Heat-Moon (interesting that the hyphen is between Heat and Moon, I thought) and a bio of the explorer Richard Burton. The girl at the book store was lovely. Her grandfather was a history teacher and he would reinforce dust covers of books and covers of paper backs with tape. That lead to a conversation about covering text books.

We recovered the Buick again and drove south along the Mississippi and crossed the bridge at Lansing and finished our journey home.

We met the home folks. Gracie is hot and cold, the rest are friendly. I always have such high hopes for Gracie. I figure she will eventually live up to them.

Today is an off day. I slept incredibly late. lbh made sharp cheddar, landlord’s tomato, lettuce and mayo sandwiches. And we are coasting.

Blessings on you all.

Furs for sale on the hottest day of the year:

The same place that sold the furs had a glass case of ‘authentic’ metal, old time law officer badges. I was almost temped to buy one. Now I regret not having at least taken their picture.

Metal chickens, also for sale:

Musicians:

An overview:

The prettiest cow at the fair:

Horses and their people waiting to go into the arena:

Onions and peppers:

Bonsai:

An orchid:

The Obamas with friends:

Cake:

During the intermission between the two hours of the radio show that was broadcast last night, Keillor came down from the stage and lead the audience in good patriotic songs - America the Beautiful, America, old songs we all knew, including all four verses of the Battle Hymn of the Republic - which a lot of us knew.

Last updated September 06, 2015