Keep your hands and and arms insiiiide the armchair...

Rachel and Aaron were wedded by the shores of Gitchi Gumi on Saturday. KKBobcat, ncd, and I drove up together.

The warm July wind blew through our hair (because we don't have air conditioning). We made a stop at the Pamida in Two Harbors for supplies and then made an unsuccessful visit to the Liquor Barrel nearby. This photo shows a hopeful Kris giving the thumbs up, but alas, no suitable libations were to be found inside. We discovered the problem a little further up the road where we stopped at another place. There were no lines in the parking lot of the combination grocery store/liquor store so ncd drove to the far end of the parking lot and pulled in next to the only other car there. On our way to the door, we passed a stocky woman smoking a cigarette.

"Could you have parked farther from the door?" she asked.

We acknowledged that no, we could not have, and ncd noted the lack of lines and admitted and offered his confusion as an excuse.

She said, "That'll teach you to leave the city!"

"How'd she know we're from the city? " KKBobcat queried before the trio of travelers almost died laughing.

On our way back we would pass the same woman leaning against the rail, smoking a cigarette. We would laugh heartily, note the seascape she was overlooking, and acknowledge that there are much worse places to bide one's time.

That evening we arrived at the rehearsal dinner and made merry on the bluffs above the Great Lake as the sun set.

Suddenly, the bride: "Look!"

The assembled revelers followed her outstretched hand with their gaze...

...and lo and behold, it was the moon rising out of the shining waters.

It rose quickly and quietly...

...and remained, silent, beautiful, and triumphant, watching over friends and loved ones talking late into the evening.

Saturday dawned inside of a cloud. The sun shone brightly while ncd and I did some yoga by the beach, but remained swaddled in vapor. We assembled, at the appointed time, by the shores of Gitchi Gumi, by the big sea waters which were not shining, but instead cloaked in enchantment. We listened to our friend Michael's fingers waft meditatively over the strings of his guitar and eventually fade into the sounds of the waves washing over the dark pebbles on the beach and the songs of birds invisible in the hush of the trees.

We began to pass the rings among us. Warming and holding them as longer portions than I will post here were read:

Song of the Open Road by Walt Whitman

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,Healthy, free, the world before me,The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose...

...The earth, that is sufficient,I do not want the constellations any nearer,I know they are very well where they are,I know they suffice for those who belong to them..

...Allons! whoever you are come travel with me!...

...Allons! we must not stop here,However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here,

However shelter'd this port and however calm these waters we must
not anchor here,

However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted
to receive it but a little while...

...Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

They shall!

And there was much rejoicing!











(and shuffleboarding)

ncd and I (mostly him) served as DJs at the reception. We'll be reprising our role at Susz's wedding in a couple of weeks.

Better Living? Through Gravity, Water, and Engineering

Let's forget yesterday's post every happened.

Unfortunately for you, today's post will not be any better. However, take comfort in the knowledge that, unlike yesterday's post, today's is being generated on an ergonomically correct keyboard. While that makes my fingers happy, all it means for you is that tehre wlil be way mreo tpyeos. Now, let's get down to business.

I know you are dying to know about the picnic, but nothing exciting happened. In fact, in order to have SOMEthing to write about to keep this unprecedented 3-day streak alive I'll have to take you to the weeks-back. Dooodledodoodledodoodledo...

On a Sunday several weeks ago ncd and I decided (as we often do) that Sunday should begin with an old people showing* of some movie or other. As luck would have it, public transit was slow because of a detour around the Gay Pride Parade route. We decided we would not make the move and ended up at the Stone Arch Bridge(SAB) instead. Many* of you MPLS residents have watched boats go through the locks from the SAB and admired the way the falls look like this scene from PJ's* LOTR*. But did you know that you can take a tour that gives you VIP-style access to stunning views of the lock, the falls, and information provided by a bona fide park ranger in an authentic hat (instead of the Cliffs Notes informational plaques provided on the bridge)? No, you are not. Here's why: the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) is actually more interested in marketing to trolls than to you, the human public (see exhibit at left). There is not a sign up ON the SAB, only down by the actual ACE building.

People, we took the tour. And I am here to tell you it was bonkers great. We had all of our burning lock questions answered. For example, "Do you think that they're really annoyed when they have to fill up/empty out the lock for 1 kayak?" ANSWER: "No. There is only another 3 miles or so of commercially navigable river beyond these locks so the traffic is slow compared to other locks. If you don't want the ACE to get bored, you will paddle your kayak up and pull the line to request portage."

We got to walk right out on the lock!

The two locks at St. Anthony Falls (SAF) don't have numbers because they are so young. They are U(pper)SAF and L(ower)SAF. Lock 1 is downstream by Ford Motor Co. (where the Mississippi and Minnesota converge, Mama). By young, I mean that LSAF was completed in 1956 and USAF in 1963. We neglected to ask WHY, at that late date, with the number of transit options that were available, it was decided that getting another 3 miles along by river was worth it.

We watched The Paradise Lady head down river (she was equipped with automatic doors a la Star Trek: "kssh kssh"). Here she is getting ready to exit. Chumps watching from the SAB haven't her since she disappeared from view several minutes ago.

The lock fills at about 5 feet a minute through clever use of gravity and some pipes that measure 10 feet across. I don't remember what astronomical number of gallons that is. In addition to being young, these locks are also comparatively small--they only hold 1 barge at a time.

As you can see, the miter gates at the upstream end are much shorter. We walked across the bridge formed when they come together to get a closer look at the falls. As we walked across we got a good look at

1. I don't know/remember what these are called, but they are designed to keep things from running into and damaging...

2. ...the tainter gate. Tainter gates are used for other purposes, but in the lock, it usuall stays as it is in this photo unless there is a flood situation in which case the miter gates would be left open and the tainter gate would be raised along...

2A. ...this track to allow free flow of water through the lock.

This is the view from the other side. In the 1860's a tunnel connecting mills on either side of the river collapsed and caused a huge whirlpool that sucked land (and large chunks of mills) into the river. It almost destroyed the falls and it took years to re-stabilize the falls. During that time the first "apron" covering the falls was conceived as a way to stop erosion that caused the river to move upriver by about 4 feet each year. Now, the water slides smoothly down the concrete apron and the nubs (that create the galloping horses effect when straight-on from the bridge) at the bottom are in place to disrupt the flow so that the momentum of the water is broken and it doesn't erode the sandstone from underneath.

After our tour of the lock, we walked around on the new trails down by the mill ruins. Here is a view of the ruins from the Stone Arch Bridge and one up close from one of the new boardwalks. From above, we could see some big fish lurking in the warm, motionless waters by the ruins. I've always wanted to get right down by those gates--mysterious tunnels whip the current of my curiousity into a white froth! Being up close didn't render much more information about the terminus of the tunnel, but I did get to watch a couple of sparrows showering under a drip falling from the greenery.

Having passed such a pleasurable hour taking a tour (they run every half hour!) we spent the rest of the day as tourists in our own town. More to come. But now it's time to drive to Lutsen. Until later, dear readers!

*Any showing of a movie that happens before noon. By 10 a.m. early-rising elderly people have had coffee, eaten breakfast, read the paper front to back, done the crossword, and had time to look at each other and get bored enough to say, "So...what do wanna do?"

*In this context, "many" means maybe 2...possibly 3...including me.

*Peter Jackson

*Lord Of The Rings

If you have suddenly turned into a St. Anthony Falls geek, follow these links...

A book...in pdf format courtesy of the National Park Service. I haven't read it, but I'm interested. So far I've discovered that you have to type the next number chapter into the address in order to advance chapters. There's got to be a better way, but I can't figure it out.

ACE's St. Anthony Falls informational page. This fills in some of the historical information we got on our tour.

MPLS Library page is short and has some cool pictures.

Wikipedia has some neat photos and art. I shan't vouch for the info. I think I found more authoritative stuff elsewhere.

No time to proofread, so just tell yourself that if I had read over it I would have recognized the proper use of "to" and "too" or spelled "adn" "and"....etc.

Picnic

That's where I'm headed in about 25 minutes. We're getting out early to head up the street to a park and eat burgers with our co-workers. To fill in the moments of my life between yesterday's post and today's that are a mystery: we packed some stuff. ncd made turkey burgers stuffed with blue cheese topped with olives and mushrooms. I put stuff I purged while packing out by a curb near our old house where people will take anything that is free. Seriously, anything. When were moving out of there we put out dirty clothes that had been festering in black garbage bags in the haunted basement for months...just to see what would happen. The result: people are crazy for free stuff. So I'm pretty sure that even though it rained all morning, everything will be gone when I drive by again.

Tomorrow will involve work and then a northward trek for a wedding in Lutsen. But while you wait for those photos...here is a picture I took on the way to the bus stop recently. Aaaaand all this was gone the next day. That's a lot of shoes (and track jacket) to go up and come down over the course of 24 hours. This prompted me to look up the story about shoes over a powerline signifying a drug hook-up in the area. I always wondered how a potential customer would narrow down the possibilities to just one house and distinguish between a real drug compass and a copycat. But snopes.com says that there are about a bazillion supposed meanings of shoes over a powerline. Thanks snopes. I just like to say snopes. I would like to name a puppy snopes...."Heeeere Snopes. C'm'ere Snopes. Hang on Snopesy, hang on." Aaand daydream over. (I warned you you'd be getting more of this kind of tripe. Just thank your lucky stars it's not real tripe.)

Besides, it's clear from this photo taken a couple days later that the residents of this neighborhood are not lawless hooligans. Rather, they are cute mushrooms... who like to tag their likeness on United States Government property mailboxes...hmm.

Okay, it's picnic time, people.

Oh you're actually reading!

I'm thinking of putting less pressure on the blog. I mean, it has a really cumbersome name that makes you expect to see Jabba the Hut. So from now on, I will only post things that suck. No, not bad facts of life like, "It's been raining for 5 days and there's sewage backed up all over my 2nd floor apartment's floor,"* just writing that is bad. So, expect increased swooning over sunsets and slo-mo frolicking in vast open fields. All the just-barely-censored inner monologue you can take (and more!) as expressed by my fingers.

*Indicates pure fabrication. Expect more of these, too. They're like spice and I shall be administering them with a Spice Weasel. Yes, and if you want a spice weasel of your own I just discovered that you do not have to wait for them to breed. Learn how to make a fake here: BAM! And if you would like to know more about the origins of Spice Weasels, go here. See, now we're a real blog, folks. Just LOOK at all those LINKS! Okay, I'll knock that off. I hate it, too.

...oh...and more T-Rexes and evidence of clm's acting prowess (if she were male, I would just call it prow' 'cause I'm old school). Dig this: