Author Archives: Jack

Walking Minneapolis

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The Trail Mix duo is split up this week as I am on vacation in Minneapolis, where I am taking in eight of the 11 days of the Minnesota Fringe Festival.

This is involving quite a bit of walking. Yesterday my Fringer Friend Ben San Del ("The Nice Guy’s Guide to Awkward Sex" at the Mixed Blood Theater) and I walked from the Bedlam Theater to the Playwrights Center to the four-theater University of Minnesota Rarig Center to the Mixed Blood Theater. I should say we RAN to the Playwrights Center, as we thought the show was at the Rarig but realized it was farther, so we ran in the ridiculous heat and made it right on time (no late seating).

And my knee is paying for it. Hopefully I don’t have to do the physical therapy thing again!

I saw "Grimaldi’s Chicken," by Jeremiah Liend of Bemidji, at the Playwrights Theater (which also involved a driving version of running to make it in time), starring Eric Nelson, Joel Ward, Bretanne Ostberg and Mallory McKay. I loved it. The crowd was small but appreciative.

But since this is a walking blog, that’s all I will say for now. Please check out my other blog for more on the Fringe: www.areavoices.com/lookaround.

I will probably write a couple of more walking-related posts during the week, but Bethany and I won’t be walking together until probably Tuesday, May 16.

Have a great week!

– Laurie

A temporary goodbye

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Hi all.

Well, we knew this was coming, even if our readers did not: Trail Mix is taking a hiatus for about a week or so while Laurie is out of town for the Fringe Festival in Minneapolis.

The timing it actually pretty good: With the Primary Election tomorrow, it was going to be a difficult walking week for me anyway.

So check back next week and we will, hopefully, regain some sort of schedule again.

(It’s funny how we’re actually more dependable at walking in the wintertime, when it’s -20 degrees outside. For some reason, the summers just keep us too busy!)

Have a great week!

- Bethany

Mushrooms, lawn vacuuming and lots of rocks …

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I may not think they make good eating, but mushrooms can make for good pictures. They were all over the place in this yard, but don’t ask me where. Bethany is the one who remembers things. Northland Apartments, maybe?

The good news is that we have two days of walking to blog about. The bad news is that the route was pretty much the same … from my house to the Fire Hall and Law Enforcement Center for their reports and then up and down in the Minnesota and America Avenue area.

This stopped us in our tracks and made Bethany sputter:

"You think they’re mow <pause> … vacuuming the yard? Or is it art? Maybe it’s art?"

It almost looks like the statue guy at Headwaters School of Music and the Arts is resting after some vacuuming.

The hostas at the Fire Hall are amazingly big. I don’t think I’ve seen any bigger ones around town.

 

Here’s a simple collection of grasses above in a glass jar.

Below, not so simple: 

 The number of rocks in this garden is amazing. The picture doesn’t even begin to show the volume of the impressive rock garden on a big corner lot. Look below for two more photos:

 

And, finally for Monday: Stuff on the ground:

This is one of mini-wallets that hold a driver’s license and credit cards. We dropped it off at the Law Enforcement Center on the way back downtown. Today, we picked up an SD card that must have been removed from a camera. There were pictures on it from the Keg ‘N’ Cork, so we’ll bring it there and hope they know the people in the pictures!

We don’t have many photos for today, as our big camera was in use and my little camera’s batteries died. We didn’t get the SD card, but we have some lovely socks:

 

This is a pathway to someone’s house from the driveway. It’s so beautifully secluded for those few feet, yet the front of the house still has decent visibility.

 Bethany walked by some pretty berries that overhung the sidewalk:

 I thought these gnarled trees were interesting: 

 

Have a great week!

– Laurie

Familiar sights: We made it back to the trail!

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Can you even see the trail?! It certainly has gotten a whole lot greener and more colorful in the past two weeks.

It never ceases to amaze me how much more calm I feel once I get back into the woods. I mean, there are so many days when I just don’t feel like leaving work. I’m tired or stressed, and I convince myself that I should just stay and work through lunch.

But then I remind myself that Laurie is waiting so I reluctantly change into my walking clothes, drive to Laurie’s and trudge along until encounter views like this:

And I instantly perk up.

Today’s walk was enjoyable. I’ve been in a bit of a funk in this week (I was going through another working mom guilt phase, I think, since my husband was out of town and I haven’t been getting nearly as much done at home as I would like), but I felt more relaxed today – probably because of the walk.

So here’s some stuff we saw and did:

Someone apparently took a really ugly (yet unique) mushroom and placed it for all to see along the fence post…

We met this pair of nice ladies, who are in town for a few days from St. Cloud (and apparently used some of their vacation as an excuse to exercise!)…

And we talked, again, about the Archie comic book developments. Long story short, Laurie last year was filling me in on how the writers duped readers into thinking he proposed, married and had a family with Veronica … only to, later, have him go through the same motions with Betty. (OK, I apologize in advance for the following photo. I swear Laurie is not doing what you might think she is doing. She just, apparently, uses her longest finger to point…)

We saw some canoers…

And an airplane…

And lots of pretty flowers!

 

I even caught a dragonfly taking a rest on one…

Here are some guys doing some tough work in the middle of summer (OK, today was about 70, which is pretty perfect, especially for July, but by this point, I was hot and tired – so I felt bad for these guys having to do hard labor in the sun)…

 And my favorite photo of the day, taken from the wetlands at Diamond Point Park…

And (drum roll please!), introducing the return of our daily Puzzlers!

Laurie: "We’re going to actually have a mystery photo?!"

(Yep, I’m returning with both the Puzzler and the Quote of the Day!)

Have a nice night!

- Bethany

Working walk …

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"Casual Tuesday?"

Chris, the Bemidji firefighter manning the desk today, looked at our scruffy clothes, and then the big camera around my neck. We told him that we walk and blog about our walks, so as a newcomer to Trail Mix, he gets the top spot.

We had a bit of a working walk today, as Bethany was getting the fire and law enforcement reports, but not just that … we kept running into things that sparked work-related conversations.

Like this cat, who is collared and in a fenced yard:

That sparked a conversation about the new local law that prohibits cats running loose.

I still feel funny about that one. I understand that cats can be a nuisance, and that there are problems with feral cats, but it just feels weird to me to think of cats as indoor pets per se. Mine are, but they always want to be outside, so we have to go "psssst" when we walk inside. I worry about them getting outside and being considered cats running loose. Have you ever tried to catch a cat that just got out?

Actually, one of mine sometimes will just lay in the driveway and I can pick him up. But the other one is craftier. She knows her fun is over if I catch her.

 

We also saw a pair of little dogs. This pooch actually appears to be friendly in this shot, but he and his smaller companion were snarling as if they would like to have torn apart our ankes.

We finally got to see the 10th beaver from the Bemidji Sculpture Walk.

This is "Pagossenima" (Hope) by Gordon Van Wert. The sculpture was delayed because of deaths in the artist’s family.

The heart and tears were added after the protest over Deborah Davis’ "Gaea" beaver sculpture was removed from its spot downtown over concerns that the design on the front appeared to be symbolic of female genitalia. The City Council voted to put "Gaea" back  before Van Wert’s sculpture was installed.

The sculpture originally was planned to be black with beadwork going down the back.

"Where’s the beadwork?" Bethany wondered.

There is a painted design on the back, though, which perhaps is in place of the planned beadwork?

Isn’t this a cool garden? I’m not sure if they have room to sit out there!

In the side yard, there’s another very pretty garden:

And that’s just the view from the alley. I don’t know what the front of the house looks like!

Above and below are plantings along the sides of a sidewalk. I’m not sure what the purpose of the framework is, but I’m curious to see what continues to develop.

Bethany pointed out this pretty porch. We both like open front porches like this. I like the fence, too, which I didn’t really notice before but which matches the porch.

Oops, no mystery photo but we do have Stuff on the Ground:

I don’t think an injured person lost a crutch; it was garbage day today and it was sitting by some bins, so it must have fallen out.

This one was broken anyway, but I actually have a working pair of crutches that I saw propped against a Dumpster near my house. I can’t bear to throw away perfectly good things, or see them get thrown away, so I grabbed them, intending to bring them to Goodwill.

Well, instead they are still in my entry, stashed behind the big Lowry chord organ I also got free but realistically have no room for. So if anyone wants the crutches or the organ, let me know. They both work fine! :)

– Laurie

Guess what? We walked today!

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Well after a way-too-long break, we hit the streets again and got some walking in. It certainly wasn’t an overly grueling walk (although it was rather hot), but, hey, we got out. And that’s a start.

We had a little friend with us, too. Jada, Laurie’s granddaughter, came along. I don’t think she was particularly thrilled to be walking with us, but exercise is good for anyone at any age, right?

This is Jada and Laurie as they observe and comment on a garden across the street:

Laurie could explain this better than me, but apparently, Jada at some point in the past used to play inside of the wire cube things when they were located at Bemidji State University. (Again, I could be completely wrong on this, but I know there was some connection between them and Jada…)

Today’s was more of a working walk as I had to stop and do the fire and cop reports. (Although no one was home at the Fire Hall, so I just did cops.) Thus, we stuck to downtown and didn’t get to the trail today. Maybe tomorrow.

There was plenty going on downtown today!

Peoples Church appeared to be hosting some sort of get-together that seemed to offer activities for kids:

And just down the street, some kids were selling lemonade and treats outside of the Headwaters Unitarian Universalist Fellowship:

It’s always a bit disappointing when we don’t get to the trail, but being downtown did give us lots of floral sights!

(Ok, so that last one wasn’t really a flower but it was cute!)

Anyhow, that was our walk. Fairly uneventful, but it was good for us to get back out there!

- Bethany :)

Pie and coffee with new Florida friends!

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I wrote earlier about meeting Beth Cue, formerly of Bemidji, who now lives in Florida. Well, on Sunday, Jada and I spent two hours at Perkins, where we were treated to pie and coffee by with Beth and her 15-year-old daughter, Rebecca. It was so nice to meet Rebecca, too. They are both sweet and interesting.

I learned a lot about both of them. Beth teaches freshman English at a public magnet school that both her children attend. Rebecca is in the international baccalaureate program and 12-year-old Alexander is in the gifted program. They get a ride to school with their mom every day.

Rebecca is a junior and intends to go into pre-med and enter the Navy, where she wants to become an officer and a heart surgeon. Impressive goals! Her father and grandfather were both in the Navy.

Her main extracurricular focus is drama, and when I told her of our love for "Rent," she excitedly told me that she and a friend are going to perform "Take Me or Leave Me" from the Broadway musical in competition during the school year. We love meeting Rentheads. :)

They said they started reading the Trail Mix blog about the time I wrote about the poor dog I encountered in the vet’s office who was inundated with porcupine quills. That was on Jan. 21:

http://areavoices.com/trailmix/?blog=69051

I still feel sorry for the poor thing. He was such a good sport!

They also said they enjoy the Stuff on the Ground photos we take. That’s great feedback to get. Now hopefully they will leave us some comments as well! :) It would be really nice if they could join us on a walk next time they’re in town. Heck, I suppose I could have suggested a walk instead of pie and coffee. :)

I had a really good quote of the day from Jada, but as I told the Cues, we are not good at remembering quotes (I also told them I had bought a tiny notebook I was going to start carrying around). And of course I forgot this one even after noting that I was going to use it! I just remember it was something that did not paint us Trail Mix walkers in the best light, if I remember correctly. :)  So Beth or Rebecca, if either of you remember, please leave a comment or send me an email at lswenson@bemidjipioneer.com and let me know!

For now, I will leave you with a quote from our spot in the front row (I have misplaced my glasses and need to sit really close!) at "The Boys Next Door" at the Paul Bunyan Playhouse Saturday night.

Following a silly line from Norman, played by PBP Artistic Director Zach Curtis:

Jada: "Why is that funny?

Me, laughing: "I don’t know …"

Jada: "Then why are you laughing???"

Me, laughing harder: "I don’t know!"

 We used to be able to get her to laugh just because everyone else was. Apparently now she wants to decide for herself. :)

Bethany wasn’t feeling very well Sunday, so she didn’t make it to Perkins, but we went over there later and I told her about the visit. She thought it was pretty awesome.

The Cues were set to leave this morning to go back home to Florida, with Beth’s dad heading out with them. I hope they have a good trip back and it was so nice to meet them. It’s great to connect with people who enjoy the things you see, appreciate and write about.

– Laurie

Trail Mix reader from Florida!

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Tonight I met a Trail Mix reader from Florida!

My granddaughter Jada and I were taking in "The Boys Next Door" at the Paul Bunyan Playhouse (great show!), and at intermission we went outside, where we ran into Beth Cue and her husband, Ken. They used to live in Bemidji, where they owned the KOA campground. They now live in Port St. Lucie, Fla., and they’re super-nice people.

Beth said that she and her 15-year-old daughter Rebecca read Trail Mix regularly. She even asked to take a photo with me, which was really sweet. Rebecca wasn’t with her parents, so I didn’t get to meet her, but I did leave my phone number in case they wanted to meet sometime Sunday.

I felt bad that we didn’t walk or blog during this past work week (we were shorthanded and really busy at work), and Beth reminded me that people look to see the new posts, which is an excellent point, since Bethany tend to walk four or five days a week (well, less lately). I told Beth that I had been thinking of that this week and that maybe the entries shouldn’t be tied to whether we walk or not, but to walking, fitness and other related topics too when there’s no walking to write about.

And there wasn’t much of that this week. Walking to the Playhouse to buy our tickets Saturday afternoon and walking back to go to the play Saturday night was about the most walking I did all week. Maybe a week off is why I’ve had this nasty sharp pain on the right side of my lower back since Friday morning! I actually took a cold pack to the play and stuck it between my back and the chair.

I often wish I was better at getting a little exercise in my day-to-day activities. My work involves a lot of sitting (it’s probably good for us that the break room is on the opposite end of the building), and when I get home, which is late, I tend to sit as well. When I was on vacation, I didn’t gain a pound despite eating like a pig, and I would say it was because although I didn’t do a lot of physical activity, I wasn’t sedentary either. We did a few Trail Mix walks, we walked around Uptown in Minneapolis while visiting our friend Ben for a few days, and we were out and about a lot in general.

I guess it shows that a little goes a long way.

Have a great rest of the weekend!

– Laurie

 

 

Walking through Art in the Park

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Who couldn’t find a moment to relax with a chair like this?

On Saturday, Art in the Park got us out for a walk, with Bethany’s daughter Lola and our co-worker Betty also joining us. We met in my parking lot and walked the three or so blocks to Library Park.

Lola also tried the chair, but she apparently didn’t enjoy it as much as I did:

Bethany also gave Lola the chance to put her handprint on the 11th Beaver for the Bemidji Sculpture Walk, but her suspicious gaze showed us she didn’t like that idea much.

Still, Bethany showed her the paints and gave her a good chance to decide. And Lola picked no messy paints!

The beaver is so cute!

Here are some nice things I snapped as we walked through the festival.

 

Beautiful, often breathtaking photos on canvas … above and below …

Watercolors that are especially compelling to me …

 

And astonishing attention to detail in these impressive works, which are made with flower petals, seeds and other bits of flora …

I don’t think this chair was for sale (I think it was what the artist in this booth sat in), but what a great piece of usable art to have in one’s home. Vincent Van Gogh is my favorite artist; he’s pretty close to a tie with Monet, but The Starry Night, by Van Gogh, is my favorite painting, so that puts him over the edge.

Interestingly, a performer sang "Vincent (Starry Starry Night)" as we went past, and I confessed that when that song came out (by Don McLean, who was my favorite singer in high school), I didn’t realize it was about Vincent Van Gogh. My mother had to tell me.

"I didn’t pay that much attention to the words," I told Bethany and Betty.

I tend to miss things, in general. Like Win-E-Mac. I didn’t know, until McIntosh-Winger and Erskine schools cosolidated in the mid-1980s, about 10 years after I had graduated from high school, what Win-E-Mac stood for.

"They named it after the motel?" I asked my mom, who explained that it represented Winger, Erskine and MacIntosh.

"We’re the E?"

Anyway, Don McLean’s "Vincent (Starry Starry Night) is my all-time favorite song, along with my other perennial fave, "Bridge Over Troubled Water," by Simon and Garfunkel, who rank right up there with Don McLean among my absolute favorites.

This booth just might have been Lola’s favorite:

We spent quite a while here as Lola tried to pick out a toy among the snakes and geckos and turtles and such. But how do you pick only ONE? It was a tough choice! 

Would you believe this Super Mario Bros. sign is made from chainmail?!?

Bethany really liked that one.

Betty gazed at a really cool eagle. The patterns are really intricate.

After we were done with Art in the Park, we walked down Lake Boulevard for a while before hooking left to go back downtown.

We saw this pretty landscaping (above) and stopped to check it out (below):

At St. Philip’s, we noticed how much this fruit tree was blooming, so we went closer and saw the fruit was apricot. I didn’t even know you could grow apricots up here!

There were a bunch on the ground, and I tried one. I’m not a good judge, since I’m not a big fan of apricots, but they were not bad! 

Bethany was looking for the other tree, the one that would pollinate the apricot tree, but I just looked it up now and learned that apricot trees are self-fruiting, so a second tree is not necessary. We learn a lot from our walks. Well, we don’t learn a lot ON our walks — we learn more on Google when we get back!

Okay, Stuff on the Ground Department …

This next one is a little bit cheating. It’s from a parking lot where I thought it looked like the mass murder of Teddy Grahams lying in pools of their own blood.

Yes, I have a vivid imagination. But take heart … Teddy Graham blood is probably just cinnamon sugar.

This mystery photo was a temporary sight, from a store that was preparing for carpet installation Saturday:

Well, that’s all for me. We didn’t walk today (Monday) because I was with my granddaughter in Red Lake Falls while her mom was taking a class in Crookston for her job. Jada and I had a nice time! She showed me all the cool artwork she made in art camp recently.

Have a great week! :)

– Laurie

Following the white (OK, brown) rabbit …

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"Shhhh."

When Bethany shushes me and grabs me to stop me from walking, it’s usually because there’s a bird, a chipmunk or a squirrel nearby. This time it was a rabbit — and one that definitely didn’t want to run too far away.

Above, the rabbit is bounding from its spot in the shade to run across the street from one corner house to another (I think this is Minnesota Avenue).

Then bunny plays Where’s Waldo at the second house, apparently trying to blend in with some dirt.

Finally, we have a mad dash across the lawn …

… and back across the street to the first house.

I left the rabbit alone after this.

"I could keep him running back and forth," I told Bethany.

But that wouldn’t get us much exercise …

Since Bethany showed off my new shade of red this week, here’s a shot of her a bit blonder after a touchup.

Another day of beautiful flowers awaited us. I love unstructured garden areas, like these flowers and grasses above.

The photos above and below were taken in the same yard. The mini-gardens, surrounded by rocks, feel natural to me, but also well planned. These gardeners knew what they wanted.

Now on to some more color …

Again, two from the same house (above and below). Very pretty!

Yes, this is pretty much another photo blog. I wonder if we would lose more weight without the camera … although we rarely stop very long when we’re shooting.

Here’s one that caught my eye because it’s cute!

We noticed this teepee today behind People’s Church and wondered how long it’s been there. Nice job!

Stuff on the Ground today is a fingernail clipper. And again, I forgot to do a mystery photo. Getting lazy!

Looks like they’re doing new brickwork in the sidewalk along Minnesota Avenue downtown. I love these brick sidewalks. It’s one of my favorite things about downtown Bemidij — that and the Sculpture Walk.

There are a lot of things to love that are within walking distance of my house, including the Paul Bunyan Playhouse, where I’ll walk to see "Dracula" Friday or Saturday night, and Library Park, where I will take in Art in the Park Saturday. I wish summer would last all year, but it’s already half over!

– Laurie