Business and Pleasure–Day Two: St. Paul and Minneapolis
I arrived in St. Paul, Minnesota, early on Saturday morning for the Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) conference. After checking into the hotel and getting a short nap, I attended several presentations and ended the day at their awards dinner. I kept my acceptance of their Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research pretty brief, admitting my surprise at receiving their 2023 Best Discography in Research on Recorded Blues, Soul, R&B, Gospel, or Hip Hop award category for my book, Recorded Solo Concert Spirituals, 1916-2022, because of the high level of competition. Sorry, no pictures. Anyway, I got a fairly early start on Sunday morning since I had reservation for a tour of nearby Minneapolis. I lived only a four-hour drive away from Minneapolis for nearly two decades, but only now was I going to get to see the city. I chose the Narrated Scenic Trolley Tour that…
A Quick Trip–Voyageurs NP (Day Three)
Juneteenth morning found me about two hours away from my destination, Voyageurs National Park. Still, I got there, or what I thought was there, around 7 a.m. I took advantage of the time to get online–yes, I had wifi there-slow but there–to get information about the park. I discovered that a boat tour was available and there was one ticket left for the morning tour. Shortly after purchasing the ticket, a gentleman informed me that the park tour was located at another part of Rainy Lake. Fortunately, it wasn’t far away and only a matter of giving Waze a slightly different destination name, Rainy Lake Visitor Center, to get to the correct location. I saw a cute little chipmunk on the log building stoop, but mostly I saw and provided meals for lots of mosquitoes along with dead dragonflies, which I learned later are called mayflies. The ranger I spoke…
A Three-Day Tour… of National Parks
I’ve been back from my three-day tour of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Voyageurs National Park for two days at the point I created this post, and both parks are still on my mind. What an impression each made on me in such a short time! Folks crowd onto Yellowstone, Yosemite and other big parks–and with good reason. But they miss out on the various wonders of the small- to mid-size parks. Below is the map of the entire 2,235 mile trip: More about each park in separate posts, but I wanted to briefly update the complete list of national parks to include the ones I recently visited. I’ve bolded those that I have visited as of today and added links to the blogs where I’ve described the visits. Acadia Arches Badlands Big Bend Biscayne Black Canyon of the Gunnison Bryce Canyon Canyonlands Capitol Reef Carlsbad Caverns Channel Islands Congaree…
Changing of the Guard
On my birthday (Thursday, September 17th), I took my usual day off. I decided to do some car shopping while I awaited the final steps before the insurance company claimed RB. My research had led me to decide on the Kia Soul for my next car. The closest dealership is in Des Moines, so I drove over just to have a look around. Three hours and a good salesman later, I had a new car. I bid RB a fond farewell after moving everything over to the new car. I got a few pictures of RB and the new car together. Then, a tow truck picked up RB. Don’t worry, I won’t post any of those pictures here. The new car needed a name, one based on how she felt being driven. Her silver body color already influenced potential names, but I couldn’t settle on one because I just couldn’t…
Day 2: A Little Bit of History
Although this is not my first visit to Minnesota, I want to stop somewhere new in each state, whether or not I’ve previously visited the area. This time, I visited the Runestone Museum in Alexandria. They have historical displays of cultures that developed in the area. Town’s getting ready for Memorial Day, but I’m hoping to be at least a state away by then. RB and I crossed into North Dakota–my first visit to the state. Got as far as Bismarck before calling it a night. The full range of pictures I took during the first six days of what I’m calling “North by Northwest-2014” is available at http://singin1.com/piwigo/index.php?/category/north-by-northwest-2014-days-1-6. To see those from specific parts of the trip, click on the indicated regions on the map at the top of the album.
Day 1: Off to a Quiet Start
Left Grinnell at 10:00 to make a hair appointment in Des Moines before hitting the road. My car, Red Barron (hereafter called RB), was packed and ready for the trip. I reset her trip mileage gauge so that she could keep track of how far we actually travelled. My journey is minimally planned to allow me maximum opportunities to be flexible. This is the proposed route, which Mapquest indicated was just over 5598 miles: This first day was primarily spent driving. After taking care of business in Des Moines and filling up RB’s gas tank, we headed north. Once outside the Des Moines area, the traffic became surprisingly light for the Memorial Day weekend. This allowed us to make very good time. We crossed into Minnesota and drove until tired, so there’s not much on the picture front. Yet. But I’ve got a digital camera with a 16GB SD card…