Post 7- St. Cloud to somewhere near Stillwater

After getting lost trying to find Holly’s house, I swallowed my pride and called her. She was even waiting for me outside (I had to call several times). I met her sister, her little birdie and she took me to the community garden at St. Cloud that she volunteers at and then I met her friends, Maggie and Paul. We cooked dinner with produce that we gathered from the garden and drank local Minnesota beer (this is a common theme). It got late quickly and before I went to bed, I made plans to meet up with Paul and Maggie in the morning. I met them at the local coffee shop, Meeting Grounds, at around noon and I met another friend, Kelly, who worked there. Holly joined us there for lunch and when Maggie had to leave for an appointment, Paul and I went shopping at local bookstores and vintage shops. I found a bunch of old greeting cards and a handmade journal so that I can write when the computer is not handy. We went over to Paul’s house and listened to old records, of which there were many to choose from (David Bowie included).
Maggie got home and we snacked on bagels topped with cream cheese and Kim chee. I decided that I wanted to make Eggplant Parmesan for dinner for everyone, so I called Holly and asked her to pick four ripe eggplants and a bunch of basil. We went to the grocery store for supplies and high-tailed it back to Holly’s to get started on the preparations. Paul and Maggie were of great help, I don’t think I would have finished it before midnight otherwise. I suggested that we go bowling that night because there was a special that night ($15 for bowling until midnight, and free pizza and beer for a couple of hours). Kay, who was the other couch surfing hostess in town, came over and we began a long night of debauchery. After eating a delicious dinner, we rode our bike posse over to the bowling alley. We drank as fast as we could in order to get our monies’ worth and played three fun-filled games of bowling. There were a lot of pictures, funny moments and some beer spilt. We went back to the casa, and hung out for a little longer, even though Holly had to leave early that morning for work.
I woke up extra early that morning and woke Holly up; it took me hours to get all my things together, probably because I was hung over. I stopped by the coffee shop on the way out of town, said goodbye to Kay and Kelly and was on my way. The countryside was full of corn, and soybeans, but there was a bald eagle munching on a dead raccoon in the middle of the street. I made a song about Amish people, and got lost on one of the millions of country roads, that change names every five miles. At that point I decided to just follow Highway 10 into St. Paul. After heading south for about ten miles, I met up with the freeway and found a salad buffet in a town called Becker. I also mailed off a couple of the postcards that I had previously acquired.
The road was uneventful for a long time and the shoulder disappeared in each town. As I got closer to the Cities, I started to get nervous about the road (there were on-ramps seemingly about every half mile at this point). I passed a sign that said no bikes allowed in a town called Coon Rapids and I had to remove myself from the insanity. There was a White Castle, so I was obliged to get some sliders; I wasn’t sure how I was going to get to St. Paul that night. After my gut bomb, I found a park and ride nearby and waited for a bus to come. Holly was nice and made arrangements for me to stay with her friends, Stephanie and James, so I told them that I was on a bus heading their direction. I was dropped off a few miles away from their house, so I pedaled over there. On the way to their house, I met a man who had a monkey on his shoulder; he had the monkey defanged and it was wearing sport pants, go figure.
Stephanie and James were also waiting on their front stoop for me to arrive, and I was exhausted. They offered me yet another variety of Minnesota beer, and we hung out at the house, and made dinner. They had made up a nice futon on the floor upstairs, and I was very happy to have yet another comfortable bed to sleep in. I was excited for the next day because one of my favorite songwriters, Daniel Johnston was performing at First Avenue that night.
The next morning, I got a ride into Minneapolis from Stephanie and had coffee at Dunn Brothers; there was a nice, upbeat guy working there who gave me directions to some of the local places to check out. I walked across town to Electric Fetus to buy tickets for James, Holly and me. Tickets in hand, I strolled over to the Art Institute (which was free that day) and checked my bag in. The first thing that I saw was the Doryphorus, one of four statues of David of which the others are located in places such as the Vatican. The museum had an extensive collection of art from all over the world, spanning thousands of years of history. My favorite exhibits were a series of hanging scrolls from China depicting mountains, villages and floral motifs. There was also an excellent collection of Buddhist art, sculptures, and artifacts. I left the museum nearly four hours later, ate Vietnamese food, and caught a bus to the Sculpture Park near the Walker Museum. The park was beautiful; it had interactive sculpture including a large kinetic piece that you can climb on and a giant spoon bridge with ten foot cherry on top.
I meditated for about an hour under a row of trees that had hundreds of wind chimes strung up throughout them, the sound was mesmerizing. I talked with my friend Sandra, who lives on Martha‘s Vineyard about doing a little work on the island, and then Stephanie called me to come and pick me up. We went back to the house and met Holly there, who came down from St. Cloud to come to the show that night. We made caprese (open-faced tomato, basil and mozzarella sandwiches) and had a couple of brews before we rode bicycles down to the show.
Daniel Johnston was incredible; he puts on a great show for a disturbed man who’s right arm can’t stop shaking. He was only able to strum about five songs on his guitar before he had a backup guitarist accompany him. Holly introduced a friend of hers to me, who happened to be the guy that I talked to earlier at the coffee shop. James and I reminisced about old Nintendo games throughout the show. We rode our bikes over the stone arch bridge, which overlooks the Guthrie Theater and the old mill that was the backbone of the city back during its’ formative years.
I slept well again on the comfy futon, Holly also stayed at the Stephanie hotel. In the morning, Holly and I hit the town. We went to the local swimming hole, Hidden Lake and enjoyed basking in the sun. There just so happens to be a mud hole that you can jump in and cover your body in the muck. We got completely covered in the grayish colored soupy mess and walked back over to the beach to people watch the pasty Minnesotans. Then we drove over to St. Paul to Degidio’s Italian Restaurant, to try and meet up with a friend of a friend. He wasn’t working, so we had bloody mary’s and a gambled $5 worth of pull tabs. I won back a dollar and decided to save my huge winnings for pin ball later. There was a band called Vampire Hands playing at the Turf Room that night, and this time Stephanie decided to go instead of James, go figure. The opening band hadn’t started yet so Stephanie, Holly, Desiree, Andy and I went to the nearby bar and played pinball and pool.
When we went back to the show, the second band was playing and the venue was packed like a can of sardines. I enjoyed the music, it made me want to stomp around and clap my hands. When Vampire Hands came on, I moved closer to the stage; I was within punching distance of the stage. Holly moved closer to the speakers, which was fine because I was in full stomping swing for the rest of the show. I can’t remember having so much fun dancing around; it was nice to be in a large city again with all the night life surrounding me. We walked the mile back to Stephanie’s house and Holly, Andy and I crashed hard, sharing the same floor space.
The next day was a little harder getting going, and we went down to the Farmer’s Market in St. Paul to get some local produce. I bought jerky, broccoli, and a fresh loaf of bread. It was Saturday, and there were two barbeques going on that night; I joined Holly, and I met a large group of women who had prepared some delicious sausages, veggies, and desserts. I talked with some of them about my adventures and how I my trip had led me there. We then moved on to the second event where Stephanie and James we at; there was Minnesota sweet corn, ribs, and more sausage. I was tired, and had trouble keeping my eyes open the whole evening. We made it safely back to the house and crashed once more, this was starting to become a pattern and I told them earlier that if I didn’t leave the next day then I would never leave.
In the morning, we all went to the NE Minneapolis neighborhood that James and Steph were going to move to and ate breakfast at the local bar (which had bloody mary’s with meat sticks in them). We stopped by Desiree’s house, I got a tour of it, and then they took me back home to get ready to leave town. It took me a while to get ready because James gave me a set of attachable handle bars that you can rest your forearms on (arrow bars?). I had been experiencing severe numbness in both of my hands’ fingertips, so this contraption is supposed to help with that. I left town at around 4 pm and rode the bike path to the beautiful town Stillwater, on the St. Croix River. I was trying to make it to Red Wing before dark, but had to stop a few miles north of Prescott because it was getting dark. I slept under a picnic shelter that evening at the Regional Park, because I didn’t want to pay the $15 to stay at the campground. As I finished setting my tent up, I noticed that there were little glowing lights floating around the area. I had no idea what they were, at first I thought that there were animals looking at me, but when I saw the same, eerie flashes in the trees, I knew that they were some sort of glowing insect. I then remembered that Holly told me to not keep my food with me because there were cougars, and as I was trying to sleep I just remembered that. In fact, I couldn’t sleep because I kept hearing things moving in the nearby bushes, so I moved my tent closer to the middle of the picnic shelter and put my food about thirty feet away behind the trash cans. I then felt safe, and promptly fell asleep.