tag archive: minnesota

A warmer, greener time.

Only one thousand words for you today.

This is the Mississippi River above the Coon Rapids Dam:

(And six more of the river and the dam…)

I wonder what the birds think when one of these things pops up. Oh, yeah. Dude. Bonus!

It would be nice if you could negotiate with them. “Okay, listen up, birds. We’re going to give you free food. In return, can you please not poop on us and our things?” To which their answer is, “We’ll take the free food, but sorry, we won’t be bound by gravity or bodily restraint.”

But they’ll sing pretty songs for their food, right?

Except, so far we’re mostly seeing grackles, whose song Wikipedia describes as “particularly harsh.”

Lanesboro is “a popular tourist destination.” Not a vulgar tourist trap, but appropriately touristy. I like a certain level of touristy-ness. It makes me feel welcome, as a tourist. You can find a decent selection of logo t-shirts in a touristy town, and cool souvenirs like the bike pictured here. Look! Excepting the pedals, it’s one piece of wire! Isn’t that neat?!

I always have this vague and unrealistic hope that something will change on my vacations. Or on any given weekend, really. That I’ll have an epiphany. I’ll find a better way to live. I’ll finally discover what I want to be when I grow up.

Instead, I usually put thoughts of work from my mind and enjoy a brief fantasy of freedom, pretending that my life isn’t weighed down by the unsatisfying work I do to finance it. I indulge in other fantasies, where I consider calls like this one: “You should probably quit your job.”

“Here’s Looking at You,” by Lisa Pertile

by Lisa Pertile