Town of Sauk Centre

What brings us to Sauk Centre, Minnesota? Family.

This past weekend was a big, BIG reunion involving cousins, aunts and uncles. So we decided to spend some time up here and get a chance to visit Jim's Dad, who is 99 1/2 years old! and in a nursing home. The doctor's scratch their heads as to how his Dad is still alive because his kidneys are barely functioning. Up until a few years ago his Dad was doing pretty good, but lately he has really gone down hill and his quality of life has, too.


Sauk Centre, MN is famous (okay, semi-famous,) for two reasons: Sinclair Lewis, and the Palmer House Hotel.

Sinclair Lewis is a famous author who was born in Sauk Centre in 1885.



He became famous when he wrote the novel, "Main Street", based on life in a small town.



Altogether he penned 22 novels and 3 plays. He was the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature back in 1930.

This modest home is where Sinclair Lewis was raised. It is now a museum.



The name of the street where Sinclair Lewis grew up was changed to "Sinclair Lewis Avenue" and the other sign refers to the "Main Street" that Lewis refers to in his book, AND it is, indeed called "Main Street."


This is the Palmer House Hotel located in downtown Sauk Centre, and it is HAUNTED.







It was built in 1901 on the original site of the Sauk Centre House, the town's first hotel, which burned to the ground in 1900. The Palmer House Hotel was the first building in town to have electricity. It was a first class hotel filled with clientele who traveled by train to the town. Sinclair Lewis worked at the Palmer House, and used it as the model for the "Minniemashie House" in his 1920 novel Main Street. (Per Wikipedia)

The whole hotel is haunted, particularly rooms 11 and 17. Guests specifically asks for these rooms to see if they can experience any ghosts.

There is a small cafe off the lobby and we ate there one day on a prior trip. We found out that there are copies of "journals" that guests have written about their paranormal experiences. They were quite interesting. One woman saw an apparition of a young boy sitting on the stairs bouncing a red rubber ball. Later she found out that a young boy had died at the hotel. If you are interested in some of the stories, click here.

The Sauk River runs through the town and eventually connects up with Sauk Lake. The campground where we are staying is a county park with no amenities, except that it's right on the river, and you can experience sunsets like this over the river.





Of course, there's also boating and fishing. Down the street is a nice playground for the kiddies, and next to that is a band shell, where summer concerts are held each week.



Farther up the walkway is the adorable fountain of a boy and girl sharing an umbrella in the "rain".



I walked a little further to get a shot of the gazebo with the fountain in the background.



Sauk Centre is a typical small town in middle America. I find every place we go, no matter how small, offers something to learn.

He said WHAT?

We drove up to Sauk Centre, MN (located in central MN) on Tuesday. It was overcast most of the day, and rained off and on the last two hours of our drive. We stopped for lunch at Perkins and I was surprised to see that it wasn’t crowded. The restaurant was off the main road so maybe this was the case. I thought we’d be able to get in and out fast because of the lack of customers, but this WASN’T the case. I don’t know if our little waitress just took her time putting in our order, you know, maybe like walking around the block about 10 TIMES, before heading off to the kitchen, or what, but how long does a hamburger/fries and a salad with diced chicken take to make? Seriously?

While we were waiting, I heard this man talking. What first caught my attention was that his voice sounded a little like one of my brother-in-laws. So I looked up to pinpoint who was speaking. It was another customer, an older man - maybe late 60’s early 70’s - and he had the kind of voice that carried. He said, “And you know, SEX SELLS.”

Say what?

He was talking to an even older man across the table from him.

I continued talking to Jim, but couldn’t help hearing bits of the old guy’s conversation like, “I have TWO women in the Philippines. But I can only marry ONE of them.”

Ha!

Then I heard, “Virgin. They have to be a virgin! I don’t want them having sex with everyone else!”

Here’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking he obviously didn’t send a picture of himself to them.

He’s probably thinking that these women are interested in something in his pants.

Yeah, right. His WALLET!

So that made our time go a little faster, tic-toc, waiting for our food. FINALLY it arrived.
It was just okay.

I watched Mr. Sexpot get up and leave the restaurant, with his companion following him, who was this stooped over, old, old man. What gives?

We arrived at this little county campground, which we have stayed at several times, around 4:00 pm. The campground managers are always there on sight.

Well, not this day.

I knocked on their door, rang the doorbell, but nobody was home.

Now, they KNEW we were coming - I made reservations a couple of months ago. They COULD have left a note on the message board stating which site was ours. But that would have been too smart.

So Jim and I sat in the truck, while the skies darkened, threatening to open up at any minute.

A fellow camper came over and talked with us and offered us the manager’s cell phone number. I called and it just went to voice mail. Uh, hello, can we talk inept?

Of course it started to rain.

We were not happy campers.

Finally, 20 minutes later, they showed up. “Who are you?” she asked.

Jim told her.

“Whatsamatter? You forget what site you’re on?”

“NO,” I replied, trying to keep my temper in check, “You never TOLD me the number.”

“Oh I’m sure I did!” She said as she went into her trailer with her groceries.

I just looked at Jim and said, “She NEVER told me because I would have written it down! As a matter of fact, I requested a certain area and she didn’t say anything to me about it!”

But I just got out of the truck and followed her to her trailer to get our site number. Luckily it wasn’t raining too hard, and we got set up right away.

We DO have satellite here, but no WI FI. This means that Jim and I have to share ONE computer. This can only mean trouble. I might have to arm wrestle him for time on the computer. Even though I was the arm wrestling champ of the 6th grade, beating everybody but one guy (JACK INDURANTE!), I’ve lost my umph! I arm wrestled three guys back in Arizona this past March, and my arm took months to heal!

I give a whoop!

Last Saturday a group of us went to the International Crane Foundation (ICF), located in Baraboo, Wisconsin. There is a nominal fee to get in, and it is the only place in the WORLD where you can see all 15 species of cranes.

This beautiful weather vane beckoned us to the gift shop. Rae, if you want to add this to your collection, just let me know!



The first crane we came upon was this odd looking one with the golden feathers sticking straight up out of its head. This is called a black crowned crane, is 3 feet tall, and weighs in at 8 lbs.




photo courtesy of ICF

We came across this mural and wooden sculptures while walking down the path.



This pond was across from the mural area. It was the heat of the day, and the two cranes were getting relief from the sun by hiding behind some brush under a tall tree in the corner.



This is a Sarus Crane, the tallest of the species at 6 feet, with a wingspan of 8 feet. He weighs in at a whopping 14 pounds!




photo courtesy of ICF

This is a Siberian Crane and stands 5 feet tall, weighing 13 lbs. The oldest documented crane that ever lived was a Siberian Crane named Wolf, who died at the age of 83. Wolf is in the Guinness Book of World Records. (per ICF website)





You may wonder why some of these photos have a large black outline around them like the one above. It's because I tried to take the picture between the gap in the gate and the fence. The other photos are a little blurry because I'm taking the shot through the criss-cross of a chain link fence.

This is a black neck crane, is 4 feet tall, weigh 12 lbs, and was the last of the species to be discovered due to their remoteness of their range in Tibet and India.




photo courtesy of ICF

This is the heaviest of the cranes, the Red Crowned crane, that stands 5 feet tall and can weigh up to 25 lbs!




photo courtesy of ICF

Here is the Brolgra crane, that stands 5 feet tall with a 6 foot wing span. They weigh approximately 13 lbs.




photo courtesy of ICF

The Demoiselle cranes are the smallest of the species, at 3 feet tall and weighing only 4-7 pounds. This crane got its name from Queen Marie Antoinette for its "delicate and maiden-like appearance".




Photo courtesy of ICF

This White Napped Crane is 4 feet and 12 lbs. It is the only one of the crane species that has pinkish colored legs.






photo courtesy of ICF

The ICF grounds were so beautiful with wildflowers growing all over and benches strategically placed.



I don't know what these are called, but I like how they grow all clustered on a long stem.





Baby acorns



The next two photos are white prairie clover. I love how the flowers bloom one right after another on a long stem.





The big hit of the park are the Whooping Cranes. You can hear them "whooping" all over the park. At 5 feet, the Whooping Crane is the tallest North American bird that can fly and weighs anywhere between 14-17 lbs. There are approximately only 400 of these birds in existence, but the number is increasing thanks to places like ICF.






photo courtesy of ICF

Because of the limited number of whooping cranes in the Wisconsin area, fledglings are taught how and where to migrate by following an ultralight flown by a pilot dressed in a white costume to look like a parent whooping crane. Watch this short clip to see this fascinating procedure.



I leave you with this series of photos of sculptures of a crane taking off in flight.

Family Fun

Our annual family camping weekend consisted of 25 adults, 2 children, 3 babies, 11 tents, 1 trailer, hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken, kabobs, beef, pop, water, booze, booze, oh, and did I mention, BOOZE? People came from Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Florida, and North Carolina.

Just sitting around shooting the breeze. The arrow is pointing to our son, Jason.



Two of my cute nieces, Carrie and Becky.



Camping is all about roughing it. Here is my nephew, Eric, changing one of his babies on a camping chair.



Isn’t she just adorable?



This is my daughter, Jessica, brushing my granddaughter, Lily’s teeth, with no water, OUTSIDE!



One night Ron and Karen brought out two sets of "skis". Each ski had 4 handles attached to ropes. So picture a person putting a foot on each ski. Now picture FOUR people standing on the SAME set of skis, and holding the ropes. This is what it looks like.



The object of this "game" is to have everyone lift their feet at the same time and move forward. Sound easy? Uh, it's not. The leader calls out "Right", "Left". Ideally when the word is called out, you would lift the correct side with the handle, bend your leg, and thrust forward to move the ski forward. I laughed so hard that I couldn't catch my breath. At one point my sister-in-law, Dorie, who is standing behind me in the picture above, fell off the skis, and the ground wasn't level. That's all I saw was her butt and legs up in the air. It was hysterical. Then she had to scramble up and get back on the skis as we were racing the other team. Although if you look in the background of the photo below, you can see that they weren't doing too well either, as someone is lying on the ground! Click to enlarge the photos to see the true silliness of this!









Nothing like a good campfire to sit and gaze at, or roast marshmallows for smores.



Usually smores consist of graham crackers, Hershey's chocolate squares, and roasted marshmallows. Karen introduced me to Keebler fudge stripe cookies



Just use those and marshmallows and call it a day! They also went back to the old fashioned way with graham crackers, marshmallows, and instead of the squares of chocolate, used Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. They are the connoisseurs of Smores!

I played around with the fire photo above in Paintshop Pro to get this.



Another night we all made ice cream in ziploc bags. It was a lot of fun! Here's the recipe:

What you'll need:

a.. 1 tablespoon sugar
b.. 1/2 cup milk or half & half
c.. 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
d.. 6 tablespoons rock salt
e.. 1 pint-size plastic food storage bag (e.g., Ziploc)
f.. 1 gallon-size plastic food storage bag
g.. Ice cubes

How to make it:

1.. Fill the large bag half full of ice, and add the rock salt. Seal the bag.
2.. Put milk, vanilla, and sugar into the small bag, and seal it.
3.. Place the small bag inside the large one, and seal it again carefully.
4.. Shake until the mixture is ice cream, which takes about 5 minutes.
5.. Wipe off the top of the small bag, then open it carefully. Enjoy!

Tips:

A 1/2 cup milk will make about 1 scoop of ice cream, so double the recipe if you want more.

Here's the group making the ice cream.









If that wasn't enough ice cream, there was an ice cream CAKE for my son-in-law, Dave's, birthday.



We all sang Happy Birthday to Dave. Here he is talking and cutting the cake at the same time. He's so multi-talented!



You may have noticed that we're all wearing the same shirts. No, we don't have the same taste in clothes! It was time to order a new T-shirt; it's been about 10 years since our last shirts came out, and some of us, ahem, have grown out of them, and there are always new members joining the family. Like these cutie pies.





Here we are in all our t-shirt glory!



And finally, if this isn't the epitome of a good time, I don't know what is!



(The penis water bottle was given to me as a gift [thanks, Lenore!]. I bequeathed it to my single niece. It looks like a good time was had by all!)