Trip with Dan to Minnesota

This picture is of a neon palm tree - and a more inappropriate image is hard to imagine, given that it was snowing when the picture was taken. This was outside the restaurant where we ate, The Lakeside Tavern, 200 West Lake Drive, Detroit Lakes, MN 56501-3917, (218) 847-1891. They had a special on, two burgers for the price of one, and both were delicious.

These pictures are just a reference in case they are needed, of the staircase for which Dan will be fabricating a handrail in hard maple. It has been installed three times so far, and judging by the odd distances between steps and the fact that the construction crew were breaking up the concrete below it to adjust the stair's position, it looks as if at least one more attempt will be required. Ouch.

Dan asked for pictures showing a "rails' eye view." I hope these are more or less satisfactory.

These pictures are here for their amusement value. "Spunk" merely being a colloquialism for seminal fluid, the idea of a rest area named "The Big Spunk Rest Area" lead me to wonder exactly what had happened here to give it its name.

And as in Iowa, the flags were at half-mast. It seems to me that they idea that flags be hung at half-mast to commemorate the deaths of significant people has been lost. Now they are practically always at half-mast to signify that somebody, somewhere, did something stupid that resulted in their death - or somebody else's, and that someone imagines that this ought to be significant to somebody. I'm quite surprised that according to their (broken?) search engine, "The Onion" hasn't written about this phenomenon (yet).