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Aug. 11th, 2002 01:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lsandersonPictures at http://public.fotki.com/lsanderson/mnstf/2002_picnic/2002_picnic/
Yesterday, the day dawned cloudy, camp and cool, but by 8 a.m. or so, the clouds headed east with a swift wind that blew them out of the area. With much e-mailing to and fro over the picnic, I ran out around 10:00 a.m. to do a sausage and blog cooler run. First, up the street to the Wedge, a tree-hugger's dream of retail, the largest food co-op in the Twin Cities. They ustta have an old convenience store, but they've now built and added on until they're almost a Lund's. I always used to shop there for espresso coffee and parmesan cheese, but in spite of their just being around the corner and down a few blocks, stopped when the coffee price at the local Rainbow was cheaper. It ustta be a place where you picked up a stub of a pencil and scrap of paper at the door and then wrote down the price of each item as you put it in your basket. (They didn't have carts then.) I don't think you could buy meat in the store, although they probably sold organic eggs. At some point, the meat crept in, and they now have a wide selection of designer sausages, that a fellow MNSTFer had stocked at a recent meeting. Venison, buffalo, turkey, chicken, and pork, in many different combinations, but not of cheap price. I bought one each of several that looked interesting, and ended up with about $15 in sausages, and two bags of buns, which were more than enough for the sausages.
I then ran to the local K-Mart, the antithesis of the Wedge. It was put in during a crazy period in the early '70s I think, sitting astradle one of Minneapolis's major streets, Nicollet (which downtown turns in to Nicollet Mall of MTM fame). Out here in south Mpls, the city, with substantial amounts of money under the table (I'm sure), let K-Mart build a store across the street just shy of Lake Street. Lake Street ustta be a big shopping street in South Minneapolis, full of stores and car dealers. Then the state drove an interstate highway through the heart of the city, they bypassed Lake and it sat neglected and declining, a backwater street. Unless you go Uptown, further west along Lake, where it comes back to life. Somewhere in all this K-Mart greased some palms and builds a store across Nicollet, where I'm heading to buy a cooler for blog since K. Austin appears to be holing up somewhere (I've borrowed his once or twice).
This K-Mart, where Thong worked for a while, is not generally a nice place to visit. Checking out if you bought anything used to take the better part of an afternoon. And, if you wanted to use a credit card, it used to take the whole afternoon. The general upkeep of the store used to be substantially below midwestern standards. Yesterday, it seemed as if the bankrupcy might have helped. The store looked orderly. They've got self-service checkouts, and somebody helped me through it. (I think I used it once before and while I'm pretty technophilic, I'm still unused to it.) Anyway, I found the cooler, it was bigger than the one I'd found at Targetto, and not bought. It was also about the same price. I was desperate, so I bought it. (Summer merchandise should be 75% off today if it follows my usual pattern.)
Back home, I whipped up a batch of blog, cornered the next door neighbor and asked if I could borrow a cooler for the bheer and pop I had hiding in the fridge. I loaded the car with the leftovers from the Diversicon party, and ran off around 11:30 to stake out the shelter in the picnic area we'd paid for. (The park staff was rather uncertain as about who got the shelter.) I was the first to arrive. I hauled the cooler, and blog, the bags, and my Analog and F&SF over and sat in to read until somebody else arrived.
Laura Jean was the next to arrive, along with her stepfather who had a Weber grill, lots of lawn chairs, a croquet set and other things in the back of a pickup. We hauled everything over by the shelter. David arrived sometime around then, and I went and helped haul the Coke products cooler over.
Note to self: next time, bring big trash basket. Everybody seems to assume any bag is trash and stuff their trash in it. My bag with napkins ended up with trash in it. Clearly marking a trash bag would at least give me the chance to point an jeer.
Next to arrive was Bill. He brought the condiments: tomatoes from his mother's garden, sweet onions, ketchup, mustard, relish, chocolate milk, punch and more ice. He also brought a head of lettuce which we forgot all about and left buried in a cooler.
We set up the picnic area, the chairs and sat. Around two Rachael called, and Laura Jean ran off to give her a ride, pick up different shoes, and pick up Scott's cooler. After she got back, people started arriving. And the wind, which was strong all day, blew strong off the prairies far to the west.
People came, ate, talked, walked up to the falls, drank blog, drank pop, and wandered off all day. Geri and Jeff arrived sometime just after sunset, just after I'd thrown some fresh charcoal on the small grill. About 8:30 the baby tikki torches got lighted, and about 9:00 p.m. we panicked and started cleaning up and moving things back to the cars. The night, was warm and wonderful, very free of bugs for being so close to the creek (Minnehaha) and river (Mississippi). Laura's dad arrived back with the pickup at 9:30 and we loaded it up, got into our separate cars and drove off into the night.
All in all: weather was wonderful and I think everybody had a great time. It was certainly a wonderful MNSTF picnic.
Yesterday, the day dawned cloudy, camp and cool, but by 8 a.m. or so, the clouds headed east with a swift wind that blew them out of the area. With much e-mailing to and fro over the picnic, I ran out around 10:00 a.m. to do a sausage and blog cooler run. First, up the street to the Wedge, a tree-hugger's dream of retail, the largest food co-op in the Twin Cities. They ustta have an old convenience store, but they've now built and added on until they're almost a Lund's. I always used to shop there for espresso coffee and parmesan cheese, but in spite of their just being around the corner and down a few blocks, stopped when the coffee price at the local Rainbow was cheaper. It ustta be a place where you picked up a stub of a pencil and scrap of paper at the door and then wrote down the price of each item as you put it in your basket. (They didn't have carts then.) I don't think you could buy meat in the store, although they probably sold organic eggs. At some point, the meat crept in, and they now have a wide selection of designer sausages, that a fellow MNSTFer had stocked at a recent meeting. Venison, buffalo, turkey, chicken, and pork, in many different combinations, but not of cheap price. I bought one each of several that looked interesting, and ended up with about $15 in sausages, and two bags of buns, which were more than enough for the sausages.
I then ran to the local K-Mart, the antithesis of the Wedge. It was put in during a crazy period in the early '70s I think, sitting astradle one of Minneapolis's major streets, Nicollet (which downtown turns in to Nicollet Mall of MTM fame). Out here in south Mpls, the city, with substantial amounts of money under the table (I'm sure), let K-Mart build a store across the street just shy of Lake Street. Lake Street ustta be a big shopping street in South Minneapolis, full of stores and car dealers. Then the state drove an interstate highway through the heart of the city, they bypassed Lake and it sat neglected and declining, a backwater street. Unless you go Uptown, further west along Lake, where it comes back to life. Somewhere in all this K-Mart greased some palms and builds a store across Nicollet, where I'm heading to buy a cooler for blog since K. Austin appears to be holing up somewhere (I've borrowed his once or twice).
This K-Mart, where Thong worked for a while, is not generally a nice place to visit. Checking out if you bought anything used to take the better part of an afternoon. And, if you wanted to use a credit card, it used to take the whole afternoon. The general upkeep of the store used to be substantially below midwestern standards. Yesterday, it seemed as if the bankrupcy might have helped. The store looked orderly. They've got self-service checkouts, and somebody helped me through it. (I think I used it once before and while I'm pretty technophilic, I'm still unused to it.) Anyway, I found the cooler, it was bigger than the one I'd found at Targetto, and not bought. It was also about the same price. I was desperate, so I bought it. (Summer merchandise should be 75% off today if it follows my usual pattern.)
Back home, I whipped up a batch of blog, cornered the next door neighbor and asked if I could borrow a cooler for the bheer and pop I had hiding in the fridge. I loaded the car with the leftovers from the Diversicon party, and ran off around 11:30 to stake out the shelter in the picnic area we'd paid for. (The park staff was rather uncertain as about who got the shelter.) I was the first to arrive. I hauled the cooler, and blog, the bags, and my Analog and F&SF over and sat in to read until somebody else arrived.
Laura Jean was the next to arrive, along with her stepfather who had a Weber grill, lots of lawn chairs, a croquet set and other things in the back of a pickup. We hauled everything over by the shelter. David arrived sometime around then, and I went and helped haul the Coke products cooler over.
Note to self: next time, bring big trash basket. Everybody seems to assume any bag is trash and stuff their trash in it. My bag with napkins ended up with trash in it. Clearly marking a trash bag would at least give me the chance to point an jeer.
Next to arrive was Bill. He brought the condiments: tomatoes from his mother's garden, sweet onions, ketchup, mustard, relish, chocolate milk, punch and more ice. He also brought a head of lettuce which we forgot all about and left buried in a cooler.
We set up the picnic area, the chairs and sat. Around two Rachael called, and Laura Jean ran off to give her a ride, pick up different shoes, and pick up Scott's cooler. After she got back, people started arriving. And the wind, which was strong all day, blew strong off the prairies far to the west.
People came, ate, talked, walked up to the falls, drank blog, drank pop, and wandered off all day. Geri and Jeff arrived sometime just after sunset, just after I'd thrown some fresh charcoal on the small grill. About 8:30 the baby tikki torches got lighted, and about 9:00 p.m. we panicked and started cleaning up and moving things back to the cars. The night, was warm and wonderful, very free of bugs for being so close to the creek (Minnehaha) and river (Mississippi). Laura's dad arrived back with the pickup at 9:30 and we loaded it up, got into our separate cars and drove off into the night.
All in all: weather was wonderful and I think everybody had a great time. It was certainly a wonderful MNSTF picnic.
