July15

Sunday we went back to to Minneapolis to see Mary Tyler Moore, and for a couple of events. (Can anybody tell me how to change the orientation of photos in Google Blogs?) Both underway when we arrived, we first went to the shores of Calhoun Lake, right in the city, where the Milk Carton Boat Race was being hotly contested. This is not kids sailing a milk carton against each other. It is people fashioning & decorating -complete with costumes - full boats out of milk cartons, (or jugs) to race! It was a blast. There were various categories, and the contestants were of  all ages. A lot were families or companies that put together a boat. The milk cartons were all donated by a MSP milk company. There were plenty of lifegaurds on the scene, and a great announcer who, with what we're beginning to see as a typical MN kind of humor, described the race.  I've made the pictures smaller here so I can fit more in. Please click on them to get an enlarged view. 

Some of the boats are really worth seeing up close. 

There were teams that had a boy and his Dad, & teams of great groups of folks, such as "Need for Speed" on the left. Redemption is the craft you see being guided back after it's first race. The stern had come apart, dumping the female paddler into the drink. Being gentlemen the guys went back, picked her up, and still managed to cross the finish line first. In their next heat the boat capsized and started to disintegrate into individual milk cartons right away, and the guys tried a variety of different techniques to get the remaining part of their boat across the line, including using it as a life raft. one guy, finally manged to get on top, and the rest soon did too. They ended up with everybody on top of a relatively few milk cartons, but coming in 3rd (out of 3.)

The last race was a grudge race, between the organizers of the Winter Carnival and the Aquatennial. Each team got to choose a boat from the competition. The winter carnival choose "Need for Speed", and the Aquatennial, organizers choose a boat built by the Fireman's Fund Insurance company, a craft built more for advertising value than quickness. The fire truck got handily defeated by Need for Speed, and the winter Carnival won the first of these races in the past 3 years. The competitors here had an overwhelming desire to get across the line. There was a crew made up of young women racing a boat called "Olympics Wannabees" That was totally unseaworthy, and dumped sailors off her every time they tried to  get back on. Undeterred, the women just started swimming and pushing their boat in true Olympic spirit. The race was won by a young guy and gal on a small little boat , called Suzy the Cow.

 On the same lakefront there was a sandcastle contest going on. These folks know how to undersell events. We were thinking kids making sand castles out of bucket molds and tall spires. Not quite. This would be better named a Sand Art, or Sand Sculpture contest. The organizers had marked off a large square and inside there were some very beautiful sculptures being created. The one pictured here is of a family member who is competing in the Olympics. There were sculptures of everything from the Angry Birds, to a VW convertible to the more common mermaids and turtles. Almost everyone had a grid map with their drawing marked out that they worked from. Really serious stuff here.