The Carolinas: Check and Check

Over the past week I embarked on the great Carolinas Tour. I had been contemplating a trip to Cape Hatteras National Seashore for a while, and when it happened that there was going to be a memorial there for my friend Jenn, I decided that I really wanted to go. The Outer Banks was one of the last things I talked to Jenn about, so it seemed fitting to take this trip for her.  While I was in the area, I decided to also take in a bit of Raleigh to visit the school I attend but had never physically seen, and South Carolina to visit some friends and see Congaree National Park, in my never-ending question to visit all the National Parks.

First stop: Raleigh, where I learned why I can't live in the South.  Only May and it was already 90ºF and fairly humid!  Miserable!  I am told that is considered "spring weather". No thanks!  I walked a couple miles around the NCSU campus, bought some t-shirts, and called it a day. 

Every big institution needs a monolith so you know how important they are.

While they might not be my favorite place for weather, Raleigh sure does make it easy for a vegetarian to eat!  For the first time in my life, I tried Chicken & Waffles, a combination which has long mystified me.  But now I get what's so great about it: EVERYTHING. 

That's right. VEGETARIAN 'chicken' and waffles! It's every kind of confusing. 

Woke up bright and early the next morning for the long drive ahead!  It was about 3.5 hours to Roanoke Island and on to Cape Hatteras!  Which, of course, means lighthouses! I stopped in Manteo, which is a little town on Roanoke Island to see the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse.  I also bought a sundress that turned my skin blue. 

Isn't it cute?

Onward across a scary bridge! Actually the bridge to Roanoke was scary in its own right.  I'm not a terribly big fan of long bridges, and the Outer Banks appears to quite like them.  Good thing the OBX, as they call themselves, is so pretty.   In any case, I made it across a 3-minute bridge to Nags Head, from where I traveled north to Currituck Beach Lighthouse.  I thought it wasn't too far north, but it turns out this is the kind of place where you measure distances in minutes, not miles.  It turned out to be well worth the drive, though.  

Beautiful natural brick!

 A quick climb later, and I was at the top of the lighthouse where it was ever so slightly windy...

Just a bit!

I made it to Kitty Hawk and to the Wright Brothers Memorial just 37 minutes before it closed for the day.  The gate attendant was very skeptical about my still wanting to pay and go in.  She said "you know this means that all vehicles have to be off the grounds by that time?" She didn't understand what an efficient national park visitor I am! 37 minutes to see the markers from the first three flights, tour the visitor center and look at the models of their plane and glider, speed-walk to the top of the monument, take some photos and run down, snap a quick photo of the entrance sign on my way out? Well.  I only needed 33 minutes. 

This is at the top of a very tall hill.  My calves can tell you all about it.

I booked a place for the weekend called the Lighthouse View Motel.  They did not lie.  I figured I would walk over to the lighthouse in the morning. 

A bed, clean linens, and a view of Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. What more can one need?

Ha! Never mind.  It was intermittently pouring rain in the morning.  I didn't see the point in paying $8 to look at a view of...rain and clouds and possibly nothing further away than my hand in front of my face.  So instead, I did what any reasonable person does when it's pouring rain and incredibly windy and just generally miserable.  I took my car on a boat! 

1.5 hours of staring at rain falling while be jostled by the waves. What could possibly be better?

 It was not a particularly fun boat ride as far as boat rides go, but it was free!  And as soon as we arrived at Ocracoke Island, the sky cleared up in time for great pictures of the Ocracoke Lighthouse!  This lighthouse isn't available for climbing, at least not legitimately. 

And me without my rappelling gear.  

 Walked over to the beach on Ocracoke and introduced my brand new Freaky Fuschia (which takes 4 attempts to spell every time) Five Fingers to the water!

They thought it was pretty super.  They hadn't seen the crabs yet. 

Had time for lunch and then decided I'd better head back if I was going to make it to Jenn's memorial service on time! The boat ride back was much nicer. The rain had stopped, so I was able to enjoy some fresh air. 

Apparently there are no little cars on Ocracoke

I made it to the beach location with a couple minutes to spare, and found...nobody there.  Bizarre...did I have the wrong place? Wrong time? I didn't know.  That was disappointing, but I made the best of it.  I had my own little memorial for her, and then I took some photos. 

I'm being followed!

 As I was heading back to my car, I saw two figures in tie-dye on the beach.  Though I'd never seen them in person, I knew immediately that it was Jenn's mom and husband.  I ran over as cool as one can run on the beach and then stopped short when I saw her husband kneeling on the sand.  He was clearly spreading her ashes on the beach.  Not a moment I wanted to interrupt. I waited what I thought was a reasonable amount of time.  I'm sure by now they'd noticed the person standing awkwardly kinda close to them pretending not to stare.  I introduced myself as a friend of Jenn's.  There were hugs, and tear, and stories, and they insisted that I should come to dinner with the group of them that was going out after the memorial, which, as it turns out, had been moved to an indoor location.  Oops.  But really, I wouldn't have had this happen any other way.  It was amazing to get a chance to talk to them and to hear all of their stories. 

So, this is when I lost it and started bawling. 

Morning came, and it was time to say goodbye to Cape Hatteras.  The sun was shining and the sky was clear; I hated having to leave amid such perfect weather! On my way off the island, I stopped to climb the remaining two lighthouses that I hadn't made it to earlier. 

First was Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, which was in the middle of being painted.  You can see the seam in the photo below between the finished and unfinished halves. 

Artistic framing in order to not get any industrial equipment in the shot. 

This was a gorgeous lighthouse.  Black and white marble floors, red trim and stairs. 

Entrance to the tallest lighthouse in North America!

The view from the top was predictably stunning.  Visibility was so good that I could see the Diamond Shoals Light structure, which is 12-miles off shore (and non-operational these days). Fun fact: Diamond Shoals Light was bought by a private owner at auction a couple of years ago.  No doubt he is going to make it into an off-shore secret lair. 

At the top of the tallest lighthouse in North America! They really want you to know this fact!

 Onward to the 5th lighthouse of my stay in the Outer Banks: Bodie Island Lighthouse.  It's pronounced like 'body', which was news to me, but it helps to think of it as spelled incorrectly instead of pronounced incorrectly. 

Just like in the picture!

 This one was a fully guided tour, which was a little unusual and tedious for a lighthouse climb, but, as always, the view from the top was worth it!

Marshy!

The interior of the lighthouse was very similar to Cape Hatteras with black instead of red, and the Five Fingers were perfect for climbing the lighthouse! 

Don't go getting vertigo now!

Now for the fun part: not pictured is the 7.5 hour drive to Columbia, SC.  That was rather pushing the amount of driving that I wanted to do in a day, but I really wanted to visit Tammy and Robert while I was out that way!  Plus, Tammy promised me waffles!  And boy did she ever deliver.  There were mac & cheese waffles, pizza waffles (made with puff pastry), goat cheese & sundried tomato waffles, brownie waffles, and the rhymiest of waffles: falafel waffles! Robert suggested additions in order to make awful falafel waffles, but Tammy fortunately declined his ideas. 

Can you put it in a waffle iron? The answer is always yes!

 The morning brought more waffles and a science lesson!  Because all breakfasts need more science. One of the kids was wondering about buoyancy/displacement, so Tammy demonstrated with an inverted wine glass in a glass of water.  There was blue food coloring involved, as with all the best science lessons. 

Afterward, I took in a nice hike at Congaree National Park, which I had never heard of until Tammy told me about it.  It was only about an hour drive from Columbia, which makes it awfully accessible for a national park!  There was fortunately a nice boardwalk through the park, because the park's main feature is swampland.  

A peaceful walk through a forest is exactly what this vacation needed, and slightly drizzly weather was great for it.  Not too crowded, not very buggy.  Just me and some trees.  :^)

One last little jaunt up to Charlotte, NC marked the end of a much-needed, action-packed vacation.  1,000 miles of driving, two never-before-visited states, and a national park! Whew!

  

Going underground FOR SCIENCE!

Over Labor Day weekend, I took Jay on the grand Northern MN tour, including a place that I had never been to before but have been wanting to see ever since I found out about: Soudan Underground Mine State Park. It's a mine! That you can tour!  But wait, it gets better.  There's also a physics lab!  It turns out that the best place to study neutrinos is as far away from cosmic radiation as you can get, which just happens to be underground. And there just happened to be a retired mine in a convenient location for FermiLab to shoot neutrinos at. And so the University of Minnesota built a massive neutrino detector there. In the photo above, we're looking at the back of the detector. There's also a pretty fantastically detailed neutrino-themed mural on the right side.  The neutrino experiment is pretty much done now, and they're moving onto to other experiments that can utilize the unique location. 

We had to leave my place at 5 AM to get there in time for the tour, which was totally worth it.  We wore hard hats and rode in a mineshaft elevator and learned about physics!  

Ah...wee vacation

Enjoyed a long weekend in the Apostle Islands with my parents.  We left from Bayfield, WI, sailed to Stockton Island, did some hiking through muddy trails, got eaten by bugs, went for a swim in Lake Superior, killed some flies, drank some chocolate martinis, spilled some chocolate martinis, went for a cleansing dip in the lake, ate some burgers...and that was just Saturday.  :^)  

On Sunday we sailed over to Raspberry Island for another muddy, buggy hike and walked around the lighthouse grounds. It was awesome.  I could have done without the bugs, though.  I was their favoritest human snack ever. I even sprayed myself with a hefty coating of DEET before the hikes.  Still ended up covered in welts of various sizes, thanks to the mosquitoes and various breeds of biting flies.  I'm still itching today. 

Still, in the Apostles Island covered in bug bites is better than being not there.  :^)

For the 6th time, I completed the MS 150 bike ride, which is really closer to 146 miles, but at that point I'm not really complaining about being shorted...

Last year's ride was horrific.  I'm pretty sure I've told the gory tales to everybody by now, so let's just never mind that...

This year was a piece of cake in comparison.  Saturday was beautiful biking weather.  I arrived in Hinckley (the overnight stop) the earliest I think I ever have, allowing ample time to set up my tent and relax with some boxed wine courtesy of my team before the speeches/awards/team photo.  

Sunday was a bit rougher.  It rained all day and was rather cold with about a 12-15 mph headwind (nothing compared to last years 20-25 mph headwind), but conditions were ripe for hypothermia.  A lot of people were not able to complete the ride due to the cold. I used a hand dryer to warm my feet at the lunch stop in North Branch.   I made it to the last rest stop still intact and was excited because the last segment is basically a victory lap.  It's only 7 miles long, whereas most segments are 12-15 miles long.  Should be easy!  I was so close! Foreshadowing! 

So, my rear tire went flat about 2 miles from the finish line.  It was my first flat of the entire ride.  I was going to walk it, but a SAG Wagon pulled up after a few blocks of walking, so I got in and took the van to the finish line.  A bit anticlimactic, but I finished (mostly)! 

Framing ALL the things

Whew! I finally have all of my flat-things-that-should-be-on-walls from JoCo Cruise Crazy 3 framed.  Okay, so it's only two things, but you'd be surprised how onerous framing is. 

Part of the problem is that the items I have are rather weird shapes, so regular frames weren't really going to work. 

The first one was so large and wide that I knew it would be a custom-framing job.  I waited until I saw a sale on the same and finally had it done.  Behold! My signed-by-most-of-the-performers-plus-Anne-Wheaton Crazy Water House poster!

The second was much easier to accomplish. The group photo on the pool deck, while some weirdo dimensions like 8x11.75, was poorly cropped enough that I wouldn't be missing anything important by putting it behind an 8x10 mat.  I saw this shadow box and was excited that I would be able to include my JCCC3 challenge coin and dice with the photo! I could have included my totem animal as well (one of a variety of different animals was included in each attendee tote bag) if I had been anything less substantial than a moose with a giant moose rack.  But I'm still happy with the way this turned out.  :^)

Salad, Midwest-style

Jell-o salad comes in many forms. This is ours. 

"Oh, shoot. I bought the wrong pudding for my jell-o salad."

Shortly after I said this to myself last night, I realized how strange it must sound to anybody who wasn't raised believing that gelatin is what makes food a salad and that all dinners should be baked in a 9x13" pan covered for 40 minutes and then uncovered for 10 minutes. 

Jell-O Salad is a regional phenomenon that you will find at every Lutheran and Methodist potluck in the Midwest.  Wikipedia tells me that the Mormons must be having some killer potlucks, because Jell-O salad can also be found in Utah. 

There are so many variations on Jell-O salad.  Some are common, others less so.  Every family seems to have their own preferred Jell-O salad.  I liken it to a family crest. A gelatinous family crest.  Pudding, Cool Whip, and canned or frozen fruit are common additions to the Jell-O base.  I have never encountered a Jell-O salad with actual vegetables, but James Lilek's Gallery of Regrettable Food suggests that these did at one time exist in the '70s.  Thank goodness the '70s are long gone, because that just sounds crazy!  You can't put vegetables in a Jell-O salad!

Pictured above is the Mandarin Orange Jell-O salad, which contains two kinds of pudding.  My family also has a rather fancy three-layer jell-o salad.  It has a crust and cream cheese and everything!  Why, if the third layer didn't contain Jell-O, it would practically be a dessert.  But, lo! It is not.  Jell-O salad is always a side dish, right alongside mashed potatoes and corn (it's important to get your starch; long winter ahead, you see). 

Oh, and don't worry.  I had a box of the correct pudding at home all along. Phew! Crisis averted!

JCCC3 Photo Book

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3: Day 7

The final day on the boat. :^(  Fortunately there was too much to do to think about the fact that we would have to go home soon! The one problem that I have with JoCo Cruise Crazy is that there is just too much stuff to do!  The official stuff, the unofficial stuff, the unofficial official stuff!  And every bit of it is worth attending, but you can't attend it all! Before departing on JCCC3, I had already come to terms with the fact that I was just going to have to miss out on things.  There was no way to do everything and still sleep (and trust me, me not sleeping would have not been fun for anybody). Even if you were to not sleep, there are often 3 or 4 completely equally awesome things happening at the same time. So getting over "missing out" is something you have to do if you're going to go on a JoCo Cruise Crazy. 

When I learned that David Rees would be teaching pencil sharpening on the last day of the cruise, however, I knew that it didn't matter what else was going on at that time.  I had to be there. I have a pencil that David Rees sharpened for me on JCCC2, and, while I can't promise that I would remember to grab it in case of a fire, it is certainly a beloved possession. So I was excited.  

We made time for one last brief dip in the cantilevered hot tubs that had become one of our favorite spots.  I'm presuming to speak for Jay here, but it was certainly one of my favorite places to not do anything at all.  Brief, though, because I spotted Wil and Anne Wheaton on the pool deck and I didn't yet have Wil's autograph on my poster.  I always feel bad interrupting the famous people when they're just trying to hang out and relax, but I did what any determined person would do.  I asked Jay to ask Wil for his autograph on my poster.  ;^)  I did summon up the courage to ask Anne for her autograph, though.  Because, and I think these were my exact words, "you're funny on Twitter."  So I have Anne Wheaton's autograph on my JCCC3 poster.  I'm missing some of the actual performers, but I have the funny Twitter lady! As an aside, I don't even follow Wil on Twitter. I kind of feel bad about that now.  They're both lovely people.  Like all of the performers on any JCCC, really.  The entertainers are a bunch of highly talented, very friendly, down-to-earth people. 

Oh!  Pencil sharpening! I was so excited about having almost asked a famous person for their autograph that I nearly forgot! We hung around the appointed location with about 10 other people grasping unsharpened pencils determinedly until we finally spotted David Rees.  It was far too windy outside for pencil-sharpening, so we went on a search for an interior location that would work well for us. On this, the seventh day of the cruise, we almost came to regret joining the Elevator Temperance Brigade.  We started on deck 11, went down to deck 5, and then up to deck 14.  The stair people still arrived before the elevator people.  :^)  And we'd found ourselves a relatively vacant bar with ample seating and tables.  David handed out box cutters and sand paper and began the tutorial.  We were also treated to a rather colorful tale of why he'd been a touch slow to get started that morning.  It involved chairs and injuries and mayonnaise that nobody could explain.  By the end, we had beautifully sharpened pencils, using just a box cutter and 200-grit sandpaper!

Beautiful pencil tips!

That evening's concert featured John Hodgman and Jonathan Coulton. Judge John Hodgman laid down the law where internet temptation and dishwasher loading were concerned.  It seems that David Rees' (founder and avid adherent of the WiFi Temperance Brigade) friend and cruise cabinmate had tricked him into viewing something on the internet!  For shame! The court found in David's favor, for the court is a reasonable man. 

Or is he? For the court also sided with the wife of Jonathan Coulton, who insists that silverware be loading into the dishwasher caddy according to type.  I have to question the sanity of a man who rules in favor of nested flatware. It will never be clean.  IT WILL NEVER BE CLEAN!

Judge John Hodgman: mad man? 

During the intermission, I went outside on the deck to look at SURPRISE! NASSAU! Earlier in the day, it had been announced that we had all the engines at full power heading straight to Nassau, Bahamas to drop off a passenger with a medical emergency.  We were in port for about 45 minutes, engines running, using the side thrusters to stay next to the dock so that the passenger could be unloaded without us needing to tie up. According to passengers on the other ship in port, we were long gone before the ambulance with the passenger had departed for the hospital.  A quick stop, but I did catch some nice photos of Nassau before heading back down to the rest of the concert. 

What little I saw of Nassau. 

Slight deviation in our course.

There were so many great parts in Jonathan Coulton's set.  There was the Fancy Pants Parade, Scarface singing Skullcrusher Mountain, the Helper Monkeys being invited up to sing Code Monkey...so much goodness. 

The fanciest pants that ever were!

The best, and most bittersweet part, however, was all of the performers singing Sloop John B, just as they did last year.  It's a great way to end the last concert (song starts at around 3:20).

We had our final dinner with Nenad as our waiter, where he sang Happy Birthday to Mike Phirman for one final time, with his pretty fantastic voice. 

Nenad was the best!

Later that night was a complimentary cocktail hour to close out JCCC3.  I'd still not managed to find John Roderick to sign my poster and had all but given up hope when Angela spotted him and came running at me "JOHN RODERICK! I FOUND JOHN RODERICK! COME QUICKLY!" Those may have not been her exact words, but the sentiment was received.  I went out to join the line of a few people patiently awaiting his autograph.  He not only signed my poster, but drew little puffs of smoke coming out of the smoke stack on the boat.  They are my most favorite puffs of smoke ever!  

With my Five Fingers, naturally. 

I can't believe how much happened on the last day.  I can't believe how much fun was packed into one little week.  And I definitely can't wait until next year!

Adieu! 

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3: Day 6

The cruise is winding down now.  Just two sea days until we would be back in Florida.  :^(

We tried to keep thoughts of reality and the return thereto at bay and enjoy the last couple of days on the boat. 

First with some free hot chocolate on the Promenade.  

Jay is showing off the many features of his NOT MY D90.

Then with some swimming.

I'm holding Jay's camera above a giant bucket of water.
He may or may not be really nervous right now.

Before the concert, I decided that it was imperative that I go over to Analog Yelp to  review the onboard ice cream establishment "Sprinkles," which is named a bunch of LIES.

It gets one star, but I gave it the second star because it is,
after all, still ice cream. 

That afternoon's concert featured Randall Munroe of the web comic XKCD, the Doubleclicks, and Wil Wheaton. 

Randall Munroe treated us to a presentation based on a story from earlier that week of John Roderick stealing and crashing his father's plane when he was a teenager in Alaska. Randall calculated what Roderick's fate would have been on the other celestial bodies in our solar system. SPOILERS: Roderick dies a lot. 

John Roderick does not fare well on Venus. 

I'd not seen the Doubleclicks before.  They're a talented duo of sisters who play the guitar and cello and make delightfully geeky music.  They have a song that makes fun of people who yell "Freebird" at musicians.  And I was of course sitting next to the smart-ass who thought he should yell "Freebird" during this song.  Oh, the shame. 


Wil did his typical routine that is a combination of heart-warming and hysterical.  And now I know what would have happened if Robocop were a 1980s sitcom. Oh, that Robocop!

We were able to catch a nice sunset from our room before dinner, now that we were heading northward.  And thanks to Jay being super awesome (Freebird-ing aside) and/or insane, I took photos of it using his Nikon D5100, which he let me use for the rest of the trip, perhaps in an effort to see what sort of fancy replacement camera I would buy him when I no doubt dropped his overboard. 

I miss you most of all!

That evening was the second and final formal night for dinner, so we got all gussied up minus the fezzes this time. 

After dinner, there was Super Sekrit Movie Night by the pool, the one time that I will give a pass to the giant annoying screen on the pool deck.  Fun was had, geeky cinema was watched, and I even managed to spot Randall Munroe and got him to sign my poster.  A super end to a super day.  :^)

JoCo Cruise Crazy 3: Day 5

On Valentine's Day, we docked in Sint Maarten, the Dutch side of the island.  The French side is spelled Saint Martin, if you're concerned about island spelling. 

I was really excited to see a Holland America ship when we arrived in St. Maarten.  Zooming in confirmed that it was the Westerdam in the port, which is the boat that I was on last year on JoCo Cruise Crazy 2!  

Still love the blue hulls, even if the average passenger age is 82.

We queued up to get off the ship extra early that day, given our experience the previous day. While in line, we met Jen, who I only knew from internetting with Sea Monkeys.  It was great to finally be able to meet her in person! Hooray for name tags!

No, the fisheye lens isn't getting old anytime soon.

We had booked a tour on the island separately from the ship excursions through Bernard's Tours.  I'd read good reviews on the internet, and knew that they went to both Orient and Maho beaches.  I really wanted to see both of those places and there wasn't a ship excursion that went to both of them.  Booking the island tour through Bernard's was only marginally more expensive than taking  cabs would have been.  We boarded our bus and were greeted by our guide for the day, named "Sexy," who I had read about on the internet, but not in a creepy way.  He had an excellent knowledge of the island and shared interesting facts as he drove.  

Our first stop was to see some iguanas. From pictures on the internet, I was guessing it was just a bunch of dirt with some iguanas, but apparently they have been working on turning it into a proper park and have been putting a lot of effort into landscaping and fencing.  It looks like it's going to be very nice when it's finished.  As promised, there were quite a few iguanas.  The guide fed them iceberg lettuce. 

Technically touching the iguana, but only technically. 

In addition to iguanas, there were quite a few ducks and roosters, which seem to be strangely common in the Caribbean.  

I am such a badass.

Our next stop was brief, at a scenic overlook.  As promised, it was scenic.  

I was pleased to see the clouds were largely clearing off by the time we got to Orient Beach.  We spent about 1.5 hours here, which was a good amount of time to enjoy the beach.  For $10 we had the use of two beach chairs, and umbrella, and received one drink each.  It's not a Caribbean island until somebody has handed you a rum punch.  It rained for about 10 minutes toward the end of our stay and the bathrooms ran out of water (which of course precludes toilets flushing), but the beach itself was beautiful.  

We hopped back in the bus and were driven to plaza-type place that had a pastry shop that our guide recommended (at times we wondered what kind of kick-backs the tour company gets from all the places they took us to, but they were all quality places so I really can't complain).  We were hungry after the beach, so decided to take him up on his recommendation. 

As promised, the pastries were very good. 

Finally, it was time for the entire reason that Jay bought a fisheye lens and what I'd been ecstatic about seeing since I first learned that we were going to St. Maarten: Maho Beach!  The airport on the island is directly across the street from the beach, so approaching planes are flying very low.  Mostly smaller planes fly in, but they do get a few large jets every day.  Our guide had timed the visit so that we would be able to see a flight from Air France arrive.   There were a few planes before the Air France jet, including a Delta jet, so we were able to get quite a few shots.  It was awesome.  The ones that Jay took with the fisheye lens are fantastic. 

Boring lens, but exciting airplane!

After about a 7-hour tour, we were back at the ship.  After, of course, stopping at a little souvenir shop by the port where they had KINDER EGGS!!  And I did stuff my pockets full of choke-y chocolates that are banned in the U.S.  As I didn't particularly want to find out how serious the U.S. is about the $300 Kinder Egg fine, rest assured, they were consumed before we arrived back in the U.S.  And nobody choked to death even a little bit. 

I like to toe lines like that. 

Not only is that a semi-appropriate segue, but it's also the last photo that I took with my camera before dropping it on the concrete pier.  After dropping my camera, it took photos like this one: 

It's artistic, I guess. 

My camera has been sent off to hopefully be repaired.  Jay was kind enough to lend me his Canon point-and-shoot camera. 

Due to not having a camera that could take good low-light photos of movement, I don't have any pictures of that night's concert, which featured Joseph Scrimshaw and Kevin Murphy & Bill Corbett.  All performers were great.  It was the first time that I had seen Scrimshaw because his show on the previous cruise was a late-night  thing and I get very eyes-closed-and-dead-to-the-world after about 10 PM, so I was glad to be able to see him this year.  Incidentally, all of the performers from that night are Minnesotans.  :^)

That night, we returned to find that our room steward had gone all out for the Valentine's Day towel animal!

Aw!