Chief Justice Lori Gildea: The Twin Cities is Not "Real Minnesota" from City Pages

Mike Mullen, at City Pages, published this incredibly awesome article about Chief Justice Lori Gildea insulting the Twin Cities, suggesting that they are not "real Minnesota."

Then, they illustrated Justice Gildea's statement.

I think Minneapolis and St. Paul are real Minnesota, but this article is such an excellent overlap of things in my life I had to share it with you here on my blog.

Another thing that's so wonderful about this article is that it comes at a perfect time in our lives! Writing about this article is the great way to break some huge news - we are moving out into "real Minnesota"(which is not what I'm going to call it) because I got a job! This has all happened really fast for us, but I'm excited to have a job and I'm thrilled that it's in Minnesota - although just barely. More details to come!

For another read on Justice Gildea's visit to Brainerd, here's another article from Minnesota Lawyer - much less sassy.

Grandma's Marathon - 2010

This weekend we, like so many other crazy Minnesotans, made the annual road trip up to Duluth for Grandma's Marathon. The weather was beautiful and Calhoun finished, which was amazing because he didn't train. Lucky for him, he has a lot of base-miles under his belt so he survived ad was even able to enjoy a flight at Fitger's Brewhouse.


But, I'm sure lots of people out in the blogosphere are writing about Grandma's and how beautiful it is and how much fun it is. I could also write about how great it was to hang out with family and let the dog swim in Lake Superior, but the real Minnesota story about this past weekend is an amazing place on Scenic 61 called the New Scenic Cafe. We scheduled our Father's Day Lunch at the New Scenic Cafe on a recommendation of a friend of my brother-in-law. The food was AMAZING. It cannot be described. It was delicious and the mimosas were a perfect way to top it off. After enjoying our lunch we strolled around the beautiful flower garden in the front of the restaurant and practiced being nature photographers.

When we got Sogn out of the car we wandered around a bit and tried to take pictures and the next thing we knew, ended up talking with the proprietor and chef, Scott Graden. Turns out he owns a few Chesapeake Bay Retrievers and didn't mind Sogn jumping on him (apparently the dog is going through a phase). He chatted with us about the restaurant and about the location, and even walked us down the road a little to a path down to the shore of the lake where we enjoyed the scenery and getting some energy out of the dog.

The New Scenic Cafe was amazing. First, the food was amazing and totally unexpected for a small cafe just north of Duluth. But I would say that the food was on par with anything that you could order in the new foodie places popping up all around the cities. But the wonderful thing about the New Scenic Cafe that is sometimes missing from new/trendy/foodie Minneapolis/St. Paul establishments is the Minnesota nice attitude. I really felt like once we were there, we had visited someone's house and had an amazing meal. They answered all of our questions about the food and we ate like kings, kept the coffee hot and took the time to show us a dog path down to the shore. On a beautiful Father's Day in Duluth, it really doesn't get better than that.

Not Minnesota-Nice, but Defitely Minnesota-Necessary

We have a fence!

As many of you faithful readers know, when we first moved into our house it had a short chain link fence around the backyard. The fence was fine, but we live on a corner lot and somehow managed to get the landlords to agree to put a fence in this summer. Upgrade! The existence of the chain link fence and the promise of a tall wooden fence is part of the reason we got Sogn, we would not have gotten a golden retriever puppy if we didn't have a fenced in backyard.

What we didn't realize when we lived here for those first few months sans Sogn was that our street is very high traffic - and when you put an adorable, friendly, golden retriever puppy in the backyard it becomes the neighborhood petting zoo.

And, because we're Minnesota-Nice we wouldn't chase people away with pitchforks and gunshots as I maybe would have liked. This "yes, you can pet my dog and let him lick your face" attitude reached it's limit when our nosy neighbor lady actually let herself into the backyard to pet Sogn when we weren't there. To the beat of my heightened heart rate I had to tell the neighbor, well intentioned hippy that she is, that she could not come into our fenced backyard when we're not there.

And finally, after two weeks of construction, we have a beautiful, 6 foot tall cedar fence. We can leave Sogn in the backyard and not worry about neighbors without boundaries or him jumping over the fence to chase the squirrels across the street.

Definitely not Minnesota-Nice, but definitely Minnesota-Necessary.