lanesboro

(Brace yourself, this is a really long post)

Having been gone for a week, I was delighted to come home on Saturday night and find my power back on, after three days of no power. Unfortunately some of my friends in the area are still without power and it's questionable how quickly it will be restored. My sister and brother-in-law are absolute saints for watching Beaux and Zoe while Rick and I took off to visit his family in Minnesota.

Fri, Dec 8 I was all worked up. Rick hadn't started to pack, we needed to drop his car off at the auto shop for them to look at while we were gone, and I hadn't even begun to pack either. And since we were taking an early morning flight, we needed to be up at the crack of dawn. As soon as I got home from work, I realized that I had bills that needed to get paid and so postponed the packing to focus an hour on the finances. Rick had started some laundry and was waiting on that as he packed. I told him that I'd be back over to his place around 9:00p to pick him up. Still no where near packed myself, I headed over to his apt to find that he still wasn't packed. I was tired and anxious to get back home, so I could feel myself getting a little edgy, and it didn't help that I felt like I was starving. I ran out and grab us some sandwiches from Subway hoping he'd be at the door waiting for me, bags packed when I got back. Not the case...and so I waited patiently for him to burn some photos to a CD for us to take to his grandma. Finally heading out of there at 10:00p so that I could finish throwing things in my own suitcase. If he can put up with my stress-case self, then he's truly a keeper. And I knew that this trip would definitely showcase my short fuse potential in all it's glory.

Sat, Dec 9 we woke up (after hitting snooze for at least 30 mins) at 6 am. Jeff and Andrea we're dropping us off at the airport and would be watching Zoe and Beaux at my house while we were gone. We loaded up in the car and made it to the airport in good time. No stress, plenty of time to check the bags, get through security, and even get a breakfast wrap to eat on the plane. I sat in a middle seat, sandwiched between Rick and some lady who must have been in her 60's. In flight, I pulled out the laptop and headphones so we could watch "A Prairie Home Companion." All this time and I never knew that it was about Minnesota. I had the noise canceling headphones on, and despite that I kept hearing a high pitched humming. Thinking that it was in the movie, I shrugged it off, until I saw Rick lean around me and glance and the passenger sitting on the other side of me. I turned my head and saw that she was singing off of a music sheet, clearly practicing for her lead solo in some church musical medley. I couldn't contain myself from the laughter. I turned my back to her and faced Rick and the laptop and erupted into convulsions. Wiping the tears from my eyes, I tried to focus back on the movie and hopefully not to embarrass the poor woman sitting next to me.

We landed in Minneapolis and waited for a short while for our transfer flight to Rochester -- little puddle jumper that seated 50. Now having my tummy quite content from the late lunch/early dinner at the Minneapolis airport, we got on our very uneventful 30 minute flight. In hindsight, we would have been better off just getting the rental car in Minneapolis and driving down, but que sera, sera. The Rochester airport is tiny. Six gates, one baggage belt and a few rental car counters -- we were in and out of there so quickly. As we made the drive down to Lanesboro, I tried to catch a glimpse of the countryside before the sun went down. But it was pretty dark by the time we rolled into Lanesboro, population 800 about an hour south of Rochester.

As we pulled into the quaint town, Rick pointed out the Christmas tree at the top of the bluff overlooking the town. We had arrived a little earlier than Harriet (aka Grandma) had been expecting, so we took advantage of the extra time to do a quick cruise through town. Rick moved there when he was 10 and being that it's a small town, there's a lot of history and memories for him there. We saw his old elementary school that is perched above the park there, the Catholic church he went to as a kid, the bass pond where he used to fish, the tavern where he had bartended. The main street in Lanesboro is so picturesque -- little shops lined the street in historic buildings -- Mrs B's Bed & Breakfast, Crown Trout Jewelers, the Parkway Pub, Rhinos Pizza, the Commonweal Theater, the bank, Silver Lake Winery, Village Hall and the Saloon.

Here's a photo we took of Lanesboro at the top of the bluff near the town's Christmas tree.



















Finally drove up to Grandma's house, little blue house just across from the bass pond, and only a few hundred yards from the rail-to-trail path. His aunt Joanie lives in the house right next door, so Grandma's tends to be the gathering place. Rick's aunt Carol, uncle Ron, cousin David, his girlfriend Lisa and their little boy Ryan where all there to greet us as we walked in. Ryan had been sick earlier in the week and suddenly had a seizure that Thursday. His grandparents Carol and Ron, and his dad David all live in Milwaukee and came over to Lanesboro a few days earlier than planned to be with him. By the time we got there, he was all back to his old self running around the house.

I immediately got big hugs from his aunt Joanie and Grandma Harriet. Sloppy Joe's on the stove, we helped ourselves to some dinner and then settled into the living room to chat with the family who was there. Carol, Ron and David were heading back to Milwaukee the next day, so we had a nice, casual introduction that evening.

John, Rick's buddy from high school (there were on 20+ people in his graduating class), was in town that night and so after Grandma, Joanie and the others were off to bed, Rick and I headed out to the Saloon to meet John who was already well into his evening of liquid enjoyment. They still allow smoking there, so my eyes teared up immediately and it took me a little while to adjust. Rick was like a local celebrity. I swear he knew half of the people in the bar, some of whom he hadn't seen since high school. While Rick was chatting it up with some people, John and one of his friends decided to get up for a karaoke rendition of Sweet Home Alabama, or some other old school country song. Man, these people like their karaoke. There were so many country-ish songs sung that I had never heard before.

We'd only been at the Saloon for an hour or so when the crowd started to thin and we realized that the "party" was moving across the street to the Pub. We joined the crawl over to the next destination and walked into an oversized country-style, football frat party. I plopped myself at the bar while Rick and John caught up with some other boys. I struck up a conversation with a woman who was in town for her 42nd birthday. Her husband had surprised her with a weekend getaway to a B&B in Lanesboro. They had announced it was her birthday and some young lad whipped of his shirt and gave her a lap dance. Oh my. Glad it wasn't my birthday.

Closing time approached and John, not wanting to be empty handed, ordered several rum and Cokes to have ready and waiting after hours. It was near 2 am and I was sober, so I drove Rick and John back up to Grandma's where they wanted to continue their revelry with some conversation and guitar playing. We went over to Joanie's house, only to find aunt Carol on the couch there. She graciously got up and headed next door to Grandma's and I laid down on the couch while Rick and John reminisced and sang with the guitar. I have vague memories of them singing the chorus, "me oh my" but they couldn't remember any of the verses. Rick and I slinked back over to Grandma's and left John on the couch, finally retiring to bed after a long day of travel, family introductions and bar hopping.

Sun, Dec 10 we woke up to John entering the bedroom. Still dressed in a Minnesota Vikings jersey he was wearing the night before, he was heading back on the road to go up to the cities. Smelling like cigarette smoke, I was eager to shed my clothes and take a nice warm shower. My pea coat got hung up outside, doused in Febreeze. There was only one bathroom in the house, so I made sure that no one else needed to use it before I locked myself in. Turned on the water -- luke warm at best. Uggh. I held my breath and plowed through a necessary, yet utterly cold shower. I may have even gone into cardiac arrest at one point. Happy to have washed out the smoke smell, I went about getting dressed for the day. Carol was making strawberry pancakes. Yum. Rick's uncle Pat, aunt Pam and his cousin Benny were going to be coming down from Rochester later that day. Pretty low key day, spent around the house with Carol, Ron, David, Lisa, Ryan, Joanie and Grandma. Pat and Pam showed up around 3:00 pm, at which time Carol, Ron, and David headed back home. We had a nice visit with Pat and Pam, but they had to leave to run some errands, so we made plans to go to their house Monday night for dinner. Grandma made a ham for dinner that Pat had brought down complimented with yummy creamed corn and potato casseroles.

Mon, Dec 11 we had agreed to drive Joanie over to La Crosse, Wisconsin to Linda's (Rick's mom's house). Linda had some things she needed Joanie's help with and so after sleeping in for a little while, we finally got up and made the one hour drive over. The weather was a little overcast and we'd heard that it was supposed to have icy rain that evening. Joanie was concerned about us heading up to Pat and Pam's house with the risk of icy roads that night. After we dropped Joanie off, Rick and I thought it would be fun to grab lunch in La Crosse, check out a local music store and walk around the downtown area. I have never seen so many bars in one area. Rick says there's some fact about La Crosse being the city with the most bars in a town, or something to that effect. After lunch, we drove up to Grandad's Bluff to get a view of the town. The wind was whipping us around and I was a little cold. The rain started to fall and I had hoped we'd get back on the road before the weather turned south. We ran out to the viewpoint, snapped some pictures and ran back to the car. We decided to cancel dinner with Pat and Pam and had planned to meet up with them again some other time, to be determined.

Tues, Dec 12 another morning without an alarm clock. We took our dear sweet time getting out of bed and made our way into the kitchen. Grandma had already started cooking breakfast -- eggs, toast, bacon, hashbrowns, topped off with a glass of milk. Seriously, I feel like I gained 5 lbs this week from all of the food. Not to mention all the sweets Grandma keeps around her house. We'd wrapped up the morning ritual by noon and decided it would be a good day to get out and stretch our legs. We had a lovely three hour adventure, walking through town and seeing some of Rick's childhood haunts. The trail down to the waterfall, a quick climb up to "pot rock", circumventing the fence to the dam to get a close look at the ice. We pulled out the camera and took a few photos. Then up to the low maintenance road above Grandma's house where we could see the high school football field and the Root River below.

Here's our self portrait by the waterfall.



















Following our little adventure in the "backyard," we walked into town, past the high school and Sylvan Park, and over to the 9-hole golf course, where Rick played for many years. It was so nice to walk around and hear him tell stories of the things he and his friends did when he was younger. And being able to see everything gave me even more appreciation for the stories. We then walked over to the cemetery at the edge of the golf course and found the headstone for his Grandpa Joe who passed away in 1999. Rick was really close to Grandpa Joe. He was raised by his grandparents for most of his childhood, so he's been very close to them. We took a picture of the headstone and spent a long time walking around the cemetery. I have this fascination with imagining people's life stories, so as we walked around, we read the headstones, looking for dates, inscriptions and anything else that we could see to deduce who these people were buried in the hollowed ground. There had also been a recent burial of someone from town and from across the distance we could see the freshly dug up earth. There was also a terrible car accident on Saturday night, the first night we were in town. A well-known city council member had hit some black ice and was killed. The funeral was for the next day and we could see the post marking the spot next to his brother's grave. As we left the cemetery, Rick left a golf ball he had found on the golf course with Grandpa Joe. A calling card to let him know we'd been there.

Hand in hand we walked back to town, around the neighborhoods until we reached the park again. The pond was frozen with thick ice. Someone had even thrown some huge rocks onto the pond and it didn't even crack the ice. Under the surface, Rick spotted two bass sitting there next to the aqueduct that drained water from an adjacent pond. We found some corn set out for the ducks and geese and tossed it into the water where there wasn't any ice, to see if the bass would "take the bait." They ignored us and so we turned our attention elsewhere.

Above the park was the old elementary school and Catholic church. Rick showed me the "bunny trail" that they used to run up and down for football practice. We hiked up to the top and reached the school's old blacktop playground, now void of jungle gyms and hopscotch squares. The windows of the school all boarded up with signs for future development -- condos for sale, starting price $189k.

We then walked around the corner to the Catholic church he had attended with his grandparents when he was young. More stories of him and his friends rolling tires down the steep hill, while one of the friends would keep an eye out for oncoming cars. And how they were chased by a police officer for their shenanigans. Back down the hill we walked to the main drag of town. Most of the shops were closed. With the winter season, they don't have as many visitors, and so many of the stores are closed Mon-Wed. You can find an occasional store front open, but as one sign said, "Open Thurs-Sun, Mon-Wed by luck." Another store said, "Back in April." With just a few hours of sunlight left, we headed back to Grandma's house for dinner and to settle in for the evening.

I wanted to take a bath to wash up from the day, but wasn't too keen on having another cold shower, so I decided to take a bath. As I ran the water to fill up the bathtub, Rick was in the kitchen boiling water on the stove to help heat up the less-than-ideal water temperature in the tub. He was so cute, running in multiple pots and tea kettles of water as I sat there and soaked in the tub.

Wed, Dec 13 was another lazy day of no alarm clocks, no cell phones and no email. We didn't really have much to do so we walked into town again and saw Rick's friend in the window of Crown Trout Jewelers. Kerry chatted with us for a bit and invited us to come back on Thursday to see Liz and get a tour of the store and their apartment above it. Kerry gave us some coupons to see the play in town and so we held onto those in case we had time before we left. We then walked down to Silver Lake Winery, which produces fruit wines and tasted a couple. With airline restrictions and shipping restrictions across state borders, we didn't end up getting anything, but I really like the tart cranberry and cherry wines. For dinner we drove over to Winona to meet up with Cory, another longtime childhood friend of Rick's. Cory's done very well for himself, now an exec with Fastenal, he's moved around the country quite a bit, but is back near his childhood hometown. Cory's wife was unable to join us, so the three of us met up for dinner and some small hotel bar. I could tell that Rick and Cory were hellions by the stories they were telling. I could see how happy Rick was to visit with his good friend again. While we were having dinner, we had pictures getting printed at the local Walgreens so that we could leave them with Grandma. After dinner, we picked up the pictures and headed home. Another quite night at home watching the news reports about the impending storms approaching Seattle. To cap off the evening, I pulled out the laptop and we watched the movie RV. I must say, pretty funny.

Thurs, Dec 14 we took Kerry up on his offer and around 1 pm, headed back down to Crown Trout to see Kerry and Liz. Rick's known them for almost ten years. Quick visit with them. They have a lovely apartment above the shop. Open layout, beautiful artwork and design. Liz said she occasionally makes her way to Seattle for the business, so we told her to definitely look us up the next time she gets out here. After visiting with them, we had planned to leave Lanesboro that night and head up to the cities. But after some thought, we opted to spend another evening at Grandma's in Lanesboro, so Rick and I went to the Village Hall for a nice dinner. (I had some Atlantic salmon and Rick went for the duck and penne. I think he wishes he'd chosen the salmon as well. Duck can be hit or miss, and this one was definitely a miss.) And then after dinner to the Commonweal Theater for "A Christmas Carol." What's amazing about Lanesboro is that for such a small town, it has really capitalized on the appeal of Smalltown, USA. The tourism industry has created opportunities for bed & breakfasts and the arts support has funded for many years, this little performing theater. A small cast of just 5 or 6 people, they performed with such fluidity that you almost forgot that people were playing multiple roles. The theater probably only seats just under 100 people and we were surprised that it was almost 3/4's full that night. Wow. This must be a hidden gem here.

Fri, Dec 15 came so fast. I couldn't believe that we'd been in Minnesota for almost a week and that we'd be leaving the next day to fly home. That afternoon we drove up to Rochester to Pat and Pam's to drop off Grandma. Benny was going to be in a Christmas play and wanted her to see it. So we finally got a chance to spend some more time with them before heading up to the cities. Pam had made a lasagna for our canceled Monday night dinner and pulled it out of the freezer for us to have for lunch. Again, another yummy meal with cherry cheesecake for dessert. Pat is a big hunter and he has this HUGE yellow lab named Buddy. I swear to God that this dog was at least 110 lb and that his head was bigger than mine. I stayed inside and chatted with Pam while Rick and his uncle caught up. We left around 4:00p to head up to the cities where we'd be meeting up with some of his friends.

Davy and Angie let us stay at their place. We ordered pizza and talked over dinner before the other boys showed up. Kent"Buddy" and Jason. The boys had organized a boys night out to Mayslack's a favorite neighborhood bar for them, and I willingly agreed to stay at home with Angie and her one-year old son Gavin. Angie and I stayed up until 11:45p, the boys were still out. Rick came into the bedroom around 1 or 1:3o am, kissed me on the cheek and told me that he was going to stay up and have another beer with the boys. The room we were staying in was next to the basement family room where the boys stayed up and talked and drank until 4:15a. Exhausted, Rick finally came to bed, quickly followed by the ever-so-drunk, 300 lb teddybear otherwise known as KentBuddy. KentBuddy laid on bed giving me and Rick a big hug until Davy could drag him out. Sleep was intermittent as we had the only bathroom and KentBuddy was a frequent guest.

Sat, Dec 16 departure day. I had talked to my sister and she had filled me in on the storm back in Seattle. The dogs were now at her house and I was checking to make sure that our flight out of Rochester was still on time. We had hoped to skip the Rochester to Minneapolis flight and return the rental car in Minneapolis, but stupid airlines rules said that if we missed our first flight, they'd automatically cancel our tickets for our flight to Seattle. And given the weather delays, we definitely couldn't afford to lose our seats. So we finally got up. Rick was surprisingly resilient given the night he'd had. We drove back down to Rochester and met up with his friend Paul, Paul's wife Jess and again John (who had graced us with karaoke the first night we were in Lanesboro). Time was ticking and I was anxious to get to the airport. We finally got back on the road and arrived at the Rochester airport. With just a few minutes to spare, we checked in the luggage and made our way to our gate. Seemed so silly to go to all this trouble just to catch a flight back up to where we had been just a few hours earlier. Well, lesson learned this time. No more connecting flights to Rochester. Next time we'll just get off in Minneapolis and drive the two hours to Lanesboro.

Our flight back to Seattle was quiet and uneventful. We watched "La Notte" on the laptop. An interesting, yet odd black and white Italian flick. We were starving when we got back to Seattle and with the power out in many of the areas, I wanted to treat Jeff and Andrea to dinner so we made a pit stop at Bahama Breeze in Southcenter before heading to my house to unload the suitcases and greet the dogs.

What a day, what a night, what a week. I really loved Lanesboro and meeting all of Rick's family and friends, and getting to see where he grew up. It was weird because by day two, I felt like I'd known them all my life. It was also a great trip because I learned that we travel well together. Good thing since we have a three-week vacation in June to Europe. So there you have it -- the trip report. It was so nice to be out of cell phone and email contact for a full week. Gotta do that again soon. :)