I Went To Red Wing And All I Got Was This Lousy Sprained Knee

Ok, that's not entirely true, as you will find out. KyKy, 'Nika and I made it to Red Wing on Amtrak without incident. If you want to spend a whole day in RW, and I mean the whole day, the train is the way to go. We met up with TOYH and The Madster at breakfast, and when we were finished eating, we commenced with our wanderings. Highlights of the day included a stop at the Goodhue County Public Library, Lilly's Coffeehouse, assorted antique and specialty stores, dinner at the pub at the St. James Hotel, coffee at a Caribou where there was an "acoustic" singer/guitar player with his amp turned up to 11 (why they called it acoustic when the guy who was performing was playing too loud for us to be able to hold a conversation is beyond me) and lots of walking. RW does have a taxi service that is pretty cheap, so if you take the train down there and want to get to Pottery Place, it can be done easily. And yes, I did sprain my knee. On the way to said Caribou, lugging all our bags and looking like a slightly well dressed homeless family, I slipped on the ice and fell on me bum, giving my left knee a pretty good twist in the process. My butt was ok but I've been hobbling around a bit, especially on the stairs.

Perhaps the most charming part of the trip was waiting for the train to get us back home. Since the Caribou was too loud, we decided to wait it out at the restored RW train depot. As we approached, we started to hear music coming from the inside. (RW apparently doesn't like silence. Everywhere, and I mean everywhere, we went there was either live music, a radio playing, or some kind of pop music, mostly from the 70's and 80's, assaulting us.) The music from the Depot was great though. It was three retirees, one on a tuba, one on a trumpet and one who had tenor, alto and soprano saxes plus a clarinet. They were playing dixieland tunes and old timey popular music - and doing it quite well. They do it just for fun apparently, because they wouldn't fess up to playing paid gigs. The Depot is unlocked at that hour and since no one is there, they use it for rehearsal space.

In one of the antique stores we were in, I found a box with some old road maps. I love to look at maps. I started to rifle through the box and found an old Standard Oil map of the Twin Cities from the early 60's. What I love about that map is that those awful gashes that cut through the cities, also known as Interstate Highways, are pretty much absent. 35W ends at 58th Street in South Minneapolis, the 494/694 loop consists of about a mile and a half of road in South St Paul and 94 only exists in some evil engineer's imagination. When I brought it up to the counter to buy it, the guy in the store asked me if I had seen a particular book he had found hiding in a piece of furniture they had for sale. I hadn't, so he showed it to me. It was a 1902 Hudson's Dictionary of Minneapolis. It had a fold out map of the city as it existed in 1902. I have no idea if the book was worth anything, but I had to have it, so I bought it for what I'm sure is far too much money. The map is not in great shape, it has lots of creases and a big tear, but it would look really cool framed. Among the points of interest on the map is "Lake Mendoza, formerly Lake Calhoun" (and now currently known as Lake Calhoun). In the book, two of the longest entries are for the street car system and, drum roll please, BICYCLING. In 1902, Minneapolis had 50 miles of bicycle paths plus some "good hard" roads that were amenable for bicycling. The entry also contained a list of bicycle routes for out of towners to the city to use, and a map of the paths and roads good for cycling. Also of note, there were no entries for automobiles in the 1902 Dictionary of Minneapolis. It's just so hard imagine the impact car culture has had on our country in the last hundred years. From the enormous amount of wealth created by the automobile and associated industries, to the fractured, ailing central cities which not only have gigantic ditches isolating neighborhoods, but also lost a valuable public good with the demise of mass transit (well at least in Minneapolis).

So in the spirit of non-auto transportation, I spent quite a bit of time on the bus yesterday. I rode the 11, 18, 21, 11 (again) 46, 5, 11 (again), 16, 2, and 5 (again) bus routes. All this to get the girls to two different karate sessions and for me to get to the Boys State Swim Meet. The whole state meet thing was a huge trip down Nostalgia Lane for me. I saw people I hadn't seen in 25 years, and the whole atmosphere of the meet brought back pleasant memories of my high school years. It was really a fun time. On my bus ride to campus, I got a call from Nerdy Bike Neil who was just leaving the Gopher basketball game with his son Owen. We literally crossed paths by the Radisson on Washington Ave. Naturally, Neil told me that my knee would get better if I rode my bike more. I think he's probably right. When I got to the meet the first person I saw was an old college teammate of mine. He's now the Edina girls coach, and we had a nice little chat. Next, I saw a group of Cambridge swimmers, I introduced myself, and told them how pleased I was that the relay record was broken. Unfortunately, none of them in that group were on the relay (those guys were in the water warming up, duh). They pointed me in the direction of the Cambridge fan contingent. By some twist of fate the assigned seats for the Cambridge parents and team members were the best seats in the whole facility. Really. Front row, right in line with the starting blocks. I had a standing room only ticket so I couldn't walk down there and plop on the bench. I caught a glimpse of one of my old H.S. teammates, Jim Berry, whose son Jake is on the relay. Jim and I finally hooked up, and after catching up with each other, Jim proceeded to introduce me not only to the members of the relay, but to parents of the other swimmers, one of whom, Rusty Jacobson was a classmate of mine although an non-swimmer himself. It was nice to be able to congratulate the kids on breaking that musty old record, and as a added bonus, the kids were really nice. Jim couldn't say enough good things about them. Rusty and his wife Char (another classmate of mine) left after the Cambridge boys were done, so Jim and I went and took their places and enjoyed the meet from the best vantage point in the house. We continued to talk old times and watch some pretty incredible swims. I also saw and chatted with Jeff and Deb Edblad, who I haven't seen since H.S. days. All in all, a very pleasant evening.