Beautiful Bokeh

A Panoply of Things-on-a-Stick

~Chris

We went to check out the Minnesota State Fair this week. Brenda had never been, and I hadn't been in years. All the expected stuff was there, and didn't disappoint. The giant pig was giant. The huge array of food on-a-stick was huge, and on-a-stick. The succulent turkey legs were succulent, etc. We had heard a rumor of chocolate covered bacon but failed to find it. Everyone we asked about it had heard the same rumor but nobody seemed to know where it could be found. Oh well, the bacon-on-a-stick we did find was unbelievable. I could have spent the whole time sitting there eating those bad boys, but we managed to tear ourselves away to go see the sideshow acts. On the way it was a little sad seeing all the modern funhouses, de-fanged as they are compared to the golden age of dangerous funhouses of the past. We enjoyed the sideshow acts even though they, too, were intentionally cheesy versions of the real acts from the old days. The exception was the toothless sword swallower and the fire-eating girl. Those two were for real and really fun to watch.

There was a really fascinating, ancient little person working in some behind-the-scenes capacity, who wasn't actually part of any act (as far as I could tell). I desperately wanted a portrait of him but I got a deadly scowl from one of the MCs when I looked like I was going to try for a shot so I backed off.

I also won a samurai sword when the weight guesser failed to guess my weight within 3lbs. The bad news was that she guessed I was over 20lbs heavier than I am. :(  Oh well, I got a sword. All in all, successful fair mission I think.

More pics on Flickr

Whips, Guns, Tanks & Zombies

OK, so, our friend and "master of the bullwhip" Dante and his partner "Targetgirl" Tina invited us to join them at something called Shooter's Roundup where they were not only going to be doing their whip show but Mr. Dante was also planning on attempting to regain his world speed-whipping record and he needed our help in documenting that. That by itself would have gotten us there but there was also the promise that there might be a real tank we could drive so we were all over it.

The world record attempt turned out require dozens of grueling attempts. To break it, Dante needed to execute almost 4 whip cracks per second for an entire minute and it's hell on his forearm (he had to keep icing it down between tries). It's also so fast that it's incredibly hard to count the cracks. On the second day he got so close that we couldn't really tell until we analyzed the video tape that he'd done it, but he definitely had!

So it  turns out that this Shooter's Roundup is a surreal, M A S S I V E gun event put on by a gun mogul named Larry Ahlman who owns what has to be the largest gunshop/shooting range dynasty in the state. Thousands of people were there to see hundreds of presenters/shows/gun demonstrations/events. It was like a theme park only the "rides" were areas where you could do things like grab a tommy gun and shoot up a car or watch a famous trick shooter do trick shooting, etc. It was so weird. Obviously the crowd was mostly big-bellied people who wish they lived in a red state. I put on a t-shirt with bombs on it and tried to blend in but it was tricky without a big belly.  Still I have to say some of the stuff was a blast.

My favorites:

—Robert & Tina's whip performance...obviously I'm biased but they were on fire and did some amazing stuff that we hadn't seen before, not to mention the new world record.

—Tank driving...driving a real tank is more fun than my vocabulary allows me to adequately describe.

—The .50 cal sniper rifle...for $7 a shot, one could grab the most powerful sniper rifle on earth and combine extreme precision/accuracy with the loudest sound you've ever caused all in one trigger pull. Incredible feeling, and surprisingly, not much recoil at all.

—Zombie Shooting...the best concept had to be from the Zombie ammo guys who would give you a gun and let you shoot the shit out of some zombies. Really simple, great idea. Only wierd thing is that they only had rifles when anyone who's played video games knows the anti-zombie weapon is the shotgun. Still...super fun.

 

More Roadside Attractions

~brf

1880 Town:  Surprise hit!  We had never even heard of this one; when we encountered it in the middle of nowhere it looked unimpressive and we would not have stopped had we not been hungry and looking for a way to photograph the ‘man walking dinosaur’ sculpture on the side of the freeway without actually pulling over on I-90.  (There isn’t a way.)   1880 Town is a fantastic collection of authentic late 1800s buildings and relics.  Most structures are remarkably well-preserved, some having been trucked in from all over the state. Visitors are encouraged to enter the buildings to check out the period-appropriate surroundings (and in some cases, the actual original contents from that exact home or barbershop or saloon).   We bought sarsaparilla from a guy with a handlebar mustache and drank it in the cool comfort of the saloon while a pretty girl sang cowboy songs on stage.  There is also a sizable museum of ‘Dances With Wolves’ set props and memorabilia, as the movie people rented quite a lot of artifacts from the proprietor to make their sets authentic.  That wasn’t so interesting to us so we skipped that bit, but there is a ton of awesome cowboy and rodeo memorabilia crammed into every inch of the main building that was worth poking around in.

Incongruously, there is a ‘50s Santa Fe Train Diner on the premises.  Burgers were passable, but we were starving.
http://www.1880town.com/

“Have you ever experienced a place where the laws of nature seem to have gone completely berserk?  Cosmos Mystery Area. See it. Feel it.  SURVIVE IT.”  Oh, hell yes were were stopping here.  Weirdly, our first attempt at locating Cosmos was a bust:  Charlotte, our GPS, had the attraction in her list of POI, but guided me repeatedly to the same little row of Stepford houses no matter how many times I verified the address.  Could Cosmos’ power extend to scrambling GPS signals?  We finally found a Cosmos brochure in a Rapid City pub, and we followed its ambiguous squiggly line map until we found actual road signs pointing us in the right direction.  Some enterprising college boys constructed a cleverly-built cabin on a wooded hillside and started charging people for demonstrations of the area’s "awesome power".  Water flows uphill, strong men are reduced to weaklings while tiny women seem to have boundless strength, people change height, and things just look weird.  I love these places.  Pressed penny machine was broken, sadly.  http://www.cosmosmysteryarea.com/

Reptile Gardens:  It was for this one attraction that I absolutely put my foot down and insisted we visit.  I remember it being a glorious showcase of creepy and interesting things, and thirty years later it does not disappoint.  The same family has owned and operated it for its entire 70+ years.  They’ve made some really great improvements since my last visit (updated facilities for the animals, no longer permitting children to ride the giant tortoises) but none of the roadside attraction charm has been lost.  There is still a huge pit of dozens of alligators, crocodiles and caymans that mostly lay motionless, piled in what looks like the most boring reptile orgy ever.  Sometimes one will endeavor to heave his bulk over all his friends to get to the pool, which occasionally elicits a hiss from some gator who has been trod upon too heavily.  The dome houses hundreds of varieties of exotic plants, snakes, lizards and frogs, plus a seriously big-ass crocodile named ‘Maniac’, who, at about 16 feet long and 1200 pounds, is among the top three largest in the world.  The story and photos describing Maniac’s transport from Sydney to Rapid City are amazing. 
http://www.reptilegardens.com

Roadside Attractions: South Dakota

~brf

I love roadside attractions.  All kinds.  Back in June when we began planning our road trip to the badlands, CW was the very model of patience and understanding as I sent link after link of ridiculous Americana panoply  that we simply HAD to see on our trip.  Luckily, Interstate 90 in South Dakota hosts a vast majority of this type of thing so it was pretty easy to screech to a halt whenever we chose. Some of these places I had visited 30 years ago, in an RV while on a Griswold-style family Adventure Across America.  I was surprised and thrilled to discover that some attractions were virtually unchanged since my last visit; particularly the Reptile Gardens (totally freaking awesome) and the Petrified Gardens (creepier than I remember).

With regard to Wall Drug:  Monumental let-down.  It’s not much more than a series of micro-stores selling all manner of horrid souvenirs and some arguably useful but undoubtedly overpriced items such as sun-showers and wine keys (the latter being something I was grateful to have found amongst the snow globes and crappy tshirts).  What they DO have is a good collection of pressed penny machines, a huge tyrannosaurus rex that activates every 15 minutes or so complete with flashing eyes and  Mesozoic mist, a really creepy animatronic cowboy band, and a giant concrete rabbit. http://www.walldrug.com/

 

The Petrified Garden was a place I was very much looking forward to.  My dad was a major rock hound and I have many fond childhood memories of sifting through trays of pyrite, jasper, opals, quartz and other shiny bits.  I remembered the Gardens as a vast playground of amazing fossils, minerals, petrified logs, geodes etc.  I didn’t remember the really cranky proprietor who clearly thought we were up to no good, nor did I recall the curiously religious tone the place had. Weird mashup of  “look at these beautiful million year old ammonite fossils’ and, um... a lesson on what has transpired in the 10,000 years between Creation and Today.  Can someone explain the deal with ‘clean’ vs. ‘unclean’ animals on the ark?  http://www.badlandspetrifiedgardens.com/

Corn Palace:  Not much more than a small stadium/entertainment venue with corn cobs in intricate designs hammered to the outside.  It used to be much more impressive judging from the photo gallery inside; there were pictures taken almost every year beginning in the early 1900s. Used to be a completely wooden structure, the exterior of which was fully redecorated each year using a variety of colors and sizes of corn cobs.  Turns out the city finally figured a wooden building encased in dried corn cobs *might* be a fire hazard, so some time in the ‘20s they rebuilt it for safety leaving a few open spaces for the cob murals. Best things about the Corn Palace was the mind-blowing frozen lemonade, the poster advertising Rick Springfield’s upcoming show, and the bizarre carved characters seated on benches with whom you could have your photo taken but aren't supposed to touch. They were both missing their thumbs. http://www.cornpalace.org/

I miss Zeppelins

I'm not sure what it is about them, but when they weren't exploding violently Zeppelins were seriously bad-ass. I wish there were a way to see what the world would be like if they had evolved to become a mature, more luxurious (if slower) alternative to jets, docking at the empire state building and all that. I don't care what you thought about that Skycaptain movie, that opening scene was amazing. I would honestly pay more for a slower-but-way-more-awesome luxury zeppelin ride across the atlantic if I could. Our friend Dante is an even bigger Zeppelin fan and today he showed us his private Zeppelin museum which was incredible. It's full of scale models and blueprints and all kinds of zeppelin artifacts, and he even has some pieces from the Hindenburg.

One thing I learned today was that some of the bigger zeppelins were like flying aircraft carriers. Well I guess they literally were in that they flew and carried aircraft. They had an internal hangar that contained biplanes (sometimes even without landing gear) which could be launched and return to the ship. How cool is that?

Whip Practice in the Heat

Today we had whip practice outdoors in a park which was in some ways really great because with my long arms I sometimes hit the ceiling pipes at our practice theater. But it was really hot too and so we ended up cutting it kind of short. There was a new family who came and it was fun watching Dante show their adorable kids how to get their first crack. The first time is pretty exciting I don't care how old you are. They also found out that it's possible to hurt yourself too but they took it really well and I think had a great time. I'm sure we'll see them again.

At one point target girl tina showed Brenda how to crack-wrap a stick, and then her arm (!!) and I HAD to get some of that. After a while I figured it out too and she surprised me by moving a little more to the side and extending her finger. I crack-wrapped her finger on the second try and felt like a god damn superhero. No pics of that 'cause I was doing it, not shooting it.

Paaaaaaaancaaaaaakes!!!!

The homeless in Minneapolis rule. It's hard to generalize something like that but the word 'rule' is pretty vague so I kind of feel justified. Anyway we were on our way home from brunch and met a really cool couple of guys who were just back from recycling cans. We chatted with the one in the dress for a while, (s)he was a LOT less shy and had a lot to say about her shoes and how big an asset they were with the can stomping process earlier. She also put on an awesome demonstration of either her kung fu abilities or a really violent dance routine, not sure which.