Days 22 & 23 South St. Paul, Minnesota   Miles = 45 Total miles = 5720

These two days I spent thinking about where I live, want to live, versus what I had seen and what’s best for me as a whole. I’m not much of a people person so I’ve avoided the anxiety of big city living but I am getting the hint that though I’m looking for Mayberry, Mayberry isn’t necessarily looking for me. Which can probably be seen in the two days I spent in the Twin Cities. Day 1 I spent hanging out with a sister and her family at what was billed as my hometown’s Fall Festival but would have been better billed as a car show and organized sale of beanie babies and crocheted monkey coffee can covers. Though on this day I saw the most exotic animals of the whole trip, a yak, dromedary camels, Scottish Highland cow/steer (didn’t look), tortoise, goats, lama, and assorted other suburban petting zoo animals. You gotta like animals that alternate between spitting on you and clamoring for free food. Course then there was the people. I only recognized two people from my school days but no one I had been friendly with. It was quite windy so the highlights involved waiting for the vendor tents to be blown over and demolishing the goods. I’ve a bit of a dark humor streak so to me that's good entertainment. It wasn’t as if there was anything that even resembled something that I needed to have sitting on my limited furniture collecting dust. On top of that the collection of restored automobiles pretty much consisted of nothing that interested me. I think I saw about 3 cars, of, say well over 100 cars, that caught my eye. There was at least one Nash Metropolitan, a Buick Grand National, and must have been some other things. I’m more of a Ford Galaxie/Galaxie 500 kinda guy. Granted my dream vehicle is an early 70’s vintage Ford pick-up truck. I think driving a convertible Galaxie 500 for a few thousand miles would be second on the list as ways to see the country. Probably couldn’t carry much more than my motorcycle anyway. Day 2 was a mix of my usual things I do when in the Cities, visiting bits of culture that are lacking in my current place to hang my hat. I rode to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to get some creative inspiration and just a parallel to my usual life. Of course it was after I got suited up before I remembered the forecast called for afternoon rain but I figured I would be able to deal with it. It’s only about a half hour tops to the museum and there were some stops along the way if it was more than I could handle.   I of course ran into the rain, and it rained pretty hard for about 5 miles, which at 70mph isn’t so bad sitting behind a fairing. My pants were wet from the knee down in the front but that was it. It certainly didn’t stop me from going into the Institute of Arts. I was already wearing my usual riding gear, that I had for the last 4,000 + miles. So it wasn’t as if I was expecting to appear all debonair in my leather and Arborwear pants stepping out of a minivan SUV urban cocoon looking as if I might be able to brand calves or repair a barbed wire fence downtown on Hennepin Avenue. Or maybe even herd the free range cattle from the Cub Foods meat section in the off chance that they extricate themselves from their cellophane and Styrofoam. I guess you could say that it wasn’t as if I was polished clean but I also wasn’t going to be mistaken for an honest to goodness cowboy either. My pants dried in a half hour or so and no one pointed to me horrified by my appearance. The Institute of Arts finally had its new wing open and so they had mostly new stuff in their modern art section, plus, a whole slew of ceramics, which interests me most lately. The new wing itself kinda reminded me of a somewhat deserted upscale department store and somewhat difficult to navigate. But then what museum is laid out in an easy to navigate layout? After a quick run through to see what interested me the most—Asian ceramics, modern graphic and industrial design, furniture, (especially chairs) and photography—I went to the Minneapolis Clay Center which has a very good selection of up and coming American potters. One of my teachers that I had in Vermont is represented here and it’s nice to keep up with his work. Then I went to one of my most recommended creative Twin City hot spots of them all—The Axe Man Surplus. Words cannot even begin to describe the Axe Man. This is probably the only place that artists and Unabombers are likely to congregate. The only think lacking is explosives and a lounge area. I had stopped here for some must-haves before my trip so this time I saw little that was necessary to purchase but then its one of those places you have to stop periodically because the variety is so great you have to catalog everything in your mind so that when the need comes up for some obscure detonation device, bedpan, or Super77 spray mount, (which I picked up at a steal of a price) you will be well prepared to find it.

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