Over the River, Through the Fields, to Grandma’s House

Post for May 20, 2021

I woke up at my sister Sue’s house, enjoyed talking with her, and drinking some of her coffee. That was a few days ago, and I still feel the buzz from her coffee, wow.

My cycling started in the country near her house which has a lot of fields. The fields are similar to the ones I saw as a kid, but the machinery has grown much more than I have.

In the afternoon, I crossed the Mississippi River a few times and felt happy to see how Sauk Rapids Minnesota is redeveloping the riverfront for mere mortals to enjoy. A bigger city next to Sauk Rapids is St. Cloud, and it’s done a lot to keep people from the river. Several years ago, the city allowed a big hotel and convention center to hide the riverfront from downtown. That might be good for business, but to me, it took away millions of memories for ordinary people to walk along the river after enjoying a meal or drink downtown.

I saw a lot more of Sauk Rapids on this ride than I did growing up nearby. It really is a lovely city. And in keeping with the title of this post, I cycled by my Grandma’s house. She’s been gone for decades, but today, I cycled by the apartment building she used to live in. My parents took me there as a kid to visit Grandma. She was a small yet very strong and tidy woman. Even though she and my grandpa never had a lot of money, they raised their kids well, and I like to think she’d appreciate my ride along the Mississippi River, especially the low-cost and hard work.

Today’s song from my playlist is something for Grandma. It’s called Canned Goods. Like the last song, it’s worth listening to this one a couple of times. There are some fun details that only  come out after listening more than once.

Here’s a video clip from today, click the icon in the lower-right to see a bigger version.

To see a closer image of any picture, right click and choose something like “View picture in a new tab.”

4 thoughts on “Over the River, Through the Fields, to Grandma’s House

    • Happy to hear you enjoy Greg Brown as well. For me, he’s as much a poet as a musician, which I like a lot.

    • I got a little wet, but it was like our first day of Ragbrai. After a couple of hours cycling, I get wet from sweat, inside. A bit of rain from the outside becomes barely noticeable.

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