SD 1925-1960: Another five-ish weeks, another Minnesota trip, and so much more!
But first, brunch.
Gay brunch is very important for the month of the June, which is the gayest month, on account of it being when I was born. Brunch is also important all other months.
Work changed up its annual Drag Bingo event with Drag “Singo” which involved marking off songs on Bingo cards (the host was nice enough to identify the songs for us). I almost won but work wife won instead, so I still got some free coffee out of it.
I saw another excellent live show of Hey Riddle Riddle at Lincoln Hall featuring the Chicago Pope. Everyone loves Chicago Pope!
Had some more gay brunch with questionable messages.
Went to an inflatable themed furry Pride party, as one does and learned some important lore about Boykisser.
Gay lunch on a patio is also important.
Then it was time for our annual Fourth of July Minnesota roadtrip by way of the Wisconsin Dells!
CONvergence was good! The coffee shop is back! Matt got to play board games with Patrick!
I didn’t make Matt and Dane dress up but my last minute costumes came together pretty well. Since I spent a lot of money buying a leather Wario hat at IML I decided to spend not very much money buying a cheap Wario costume that came with an inflatable belly (I didn’t quite understand how the valve worked and had a hell of time inflating and deflating it). It was very popular. It didn’t come with a mustache like it was supposed to so I improvised one with black masking tape. I need to work on that as I’ll probably use it again for Halloween. And Brandi surprised me with great a Waluigi costume of her own.
We did a wild board game creation exercise in the Quantum Sandbox. It was a lot more involved and directed than I expected which resulted in an actual playable game at the end but was a bit much for S’s attention span. He did do a fantastic job as chaos gremlins adding new rules (and a wizard) to Body: A building game.
Day two I whipped up a Krobus for a group Stardew Valley costume with Abbigail, Caroline, and Vincent. There were at least two other large Stardew groups but I was feeling a bit shy and never managed to get a photo with any of them.
Friday night we also had quite the four hour fondue dining experience that would not end despite the cries of the damned/children.
On Saturday it was time for me to don The Master’s robe from Manos.
Fun! And as usual we packed up early Sunday morning and headed out but that doesn’t mean I can’t still dress up cute while Matt does whatever Matt does.
Then to brunch at Pizza Lucé to see my mom! Followed by a shopping trip at the Mall of America for some of that sweet, sweet sales tax free clothing.
And then onto Duluth for Superior hiking, drinking, and boats, boats, boats!
And grocery shopping! I’m so crazzzzzzy.
Have I mentioned before Duluth is a cool city?
It was our first time overlapping with the Festival of Sails. The event itself was ticketed and pricy, but the DECC was doing a pirate themed bar on a balcony overlooking the event which was very worthwhile.
Boats! And giant rubber Duckie!
Somehow we’d never taken Dane to the train museum, so we did that this trip. The excursion trains were all sold out, so hopefully we can do that next year instead.
More Duluth being pretty action.
There were fires in Canada which made for some very poor air quality. The haze and smell was real bad.
It made Katie sad.
Remember the past? I don’t.
Speaking of the past, Amazing Grace closed several years ago and Taste of Saigon is gone as well, but there are new and different businesses to visit. As well as the same old ones.
Some Fitger’s for the road. I vaguely remember writing words here once and not just dumping photos, but that can’t be right, can it?
And then back to Chicago via the Dells!
Ah, Chicago, sweet Chicago. Home of back patio grilling, new throw pillows to match our new couch, and work ice cream socials where we match the paper dishes.
Attended a very cool fundraiser put on by Bit Bash on the Wild Mile which featured several locally made games which we got to play out on the Chicago River and projected onto a building, including Traintracks Combat which takes place at the California Blue Line stop. I’ve been there!!
Speaking of trains, I love ’em! Dane and I went to Chinatown for dinner for a friend’s birthday and made a pilgrimage though the Jackson piss tunnel.
Also hit up a speakeasy bar in Chinatown that had an amazing matcha cocktail with a cold brew float and was very #aesthetic. Unfortunately the bright sun going into the dark bar made me think I was getting a migraine with aura and dying. Great party though!
And then I celebrated the opening of the new Lawrence, Argyle, Berywn, and Bryn Mawr stations with Derek and Jeremy the next day!
I love trains! I also love making really stupid faces. I keep doing this weird biting my lips thing so sharing this bad photo to help keep myself accountable.
The unique light box silhouettes they have at each station are really cool and kind of want them to add them to every station in the system. Would be a great art project!
Ok, well this has been many photos and some words. See you in three to sixteen weeks.