august 2025

minnesota state fair

So the MN State Fair is a huge deal. I didn't realize how much of a deal it was until I moved to Minneapolis. I had heard it in passing, but people from little ol Mankato did not really care about the state fair. I’ve a few county fairs, but the first time I've been to the actual state fair was with my partner. This year was my third time going. I have been converted. I used to poo-poo the state fair cause whatever it's like normal fairs who cares?

This is THE place for absolute debauchery. People in their own world doing their own thing, and I hate them for it.

I went with my partner, and we took an absolute packed bus there. For any MN fairgoers in the future, take the A-Line BRT instead of the 3. Much better and roomier.

The first thing we went to in the fair was the MN DNR fish pond. I had been watching the underwater livestream for many days leading up to my fair visit. I felt like I had met my favorite celebrities. What made me even more excited was that there was paddlefish! I didn’t see them on the stream, but they were there!! Very exciting for me!

Also saw some brook trout which is my favorite trout. There’s just something about the red spots with the blue halo on them. It’s so pretty.

Of course, I bought some DNR merch because I love supporting the DNR. I got two stickers, a pin, and a Cabin Critters muskie. I swung and squeezed the hell out of this muskie. I swung it around so hard that the ACTUAL MAYOR OF NAGASAKI AND THE CITY COUNCIL OF NAGASAKI WATCHED ME DROP IT ON THE GROUND.

Yes. I am not kidding. Shiro Suzuki, mayor of the major city that was bombed by the US in WWII, watched me drop my plushy fish. The reason he was there at all was to celebrate Nagasaki's and St. Paul's 70th anniversary of being sister cities just a decade after the bombing. It's historically significant because it was the first partnership between a US city and a city in Asia. Suzuki visiting St. Paul is part of his current campaign for peace. Before the St. Paul visit, Suzuki met up with Hiroshima's mayor, Kazumi Matsui, and other officials from cities around the world to discuss and urge others for ceasefires. Suzuki is specifically concerned about more nuclear conflict for obvious reasons.

It was super cool to see the Nagasaki mayor visit, and my partner and I were visibly excited. I hope he enjoyed that.

I did a few other fair things like drink too much milk, forget my water bottle at home, and ate the soft serve beer. It was strange.

My partner and I were planning to go a second time on the evening of the last day of the fair. However, something came up. An opportunity that we could not pass up.

rollag, mn; western minnesota steam threshers reunion

THIS PLACE WAS CRAZY!!! HOLY SHIT!!

So, Rollag is like a little unincorporated community that exists just for this annual event. The Sheriff office is a posse. This is the website for the event. My partner pointed out that it was full of charming typos and inconsistent statements. Could we have a fire at our campsite? Depends on the page you read!

This event has been going on for decades, and no one we know has ever heard about it. Our neighbor is the one that asked if we wanted to go. Her partner hadn't even been or heard about it until they started dating. It was the four of us, and we went up near Fargo and camped for a night. This event runs for four days. We could have easily filled out four days of stuff.

So anyways, we're told to wake up super early. We were set to leave by 7am to get there ideally around 9:30 to 10am. It ended up being like 10:30ish, but it was okay! Now, it's summer, so you'd think to wear shorts and sneakers, right? No. You have to wear boots and jeans here. It's either so muddy or so dusty depending on the year. It was dusty this year like Dust Bowl level dusty. It got on everything.

Pulling up to the place, you can see black smoke in the distance. It was so funny to see because at that point, you just drive in the direction that the smoke is and you'll get there. We had some issues with actually getting into the thing because nothing is clear anywhere and the system is sort of self-governing. Most people just know what to do because they go every year. We were new, so we were lost. We took like one million years to find where we were camping. Once we set up, we ventured off to the magical place. We walked five feet, and a tiny bus showed up to take us to the one of the entrances of the event which conveniently had a tractor pulling a trailer full of school bus seats that were bolted into the wood bottom of the trailer. The tractor was always some 60s tractors. The driver doesn't say anything. They just look back at the trailer until everyone sits down. They also look back to indicate that you're at a stop. They felt so enigmatic.

I guess I never explained what threshing is. I didn't know what it was until I went to this event. It's when you separate grain from the plant. In modern times, threshing is done by a combine, but up until the 50s or 60s, threshing was done by a threshing machine. The machine is powered by a steam tractor by placing a belt on the flywheel.

So this event is about the reunion of all these guys that own these old steam tractors. There's some oil and diesel tractors too. It just is about old machines mostly.

Our first stop was to see some of the larger machines that they had there, the steam shovels. Photos and videos taken both on my camcorder and my iPhone.

Steam shovels are powered by a boiler which controls the movement of the shovel's tracks and the shovel itself. It uses the pressure to lift the shovel and release the hatch at the bottom of the bucket. It's so neat!

Off in the distance in this area was an older trencher(?) making some absolutely comical squeaking sounds. Actually cartoon squeaking machine. I called it the noisemaker.

Somewhere else is some old Mack dump truck backing up to dump whatever this other old shovel put in the back. It's just a place where people are playing with big old stuff, and there's a lot going on with piles of coal strewn about. There's also just people driving golf carts and doo-hickeys around just everywhere. There were like two or three mini trucks and a Geo Metro too!

We wandered off to this area in the trees. As we walked, there were distant steam whistles. This was just a constant thing. Within the trees were buildings and buildings full of old engines running. They squeaked, whooshed, popped, and banged. The air was thick with smoke, but it was part of the atmosphere! It was so easy to get lost in the machines. You could easily sit and watch one go for hours discovering all of the little bits and bobs that moved and why they moved the way they did. These engines were truly everywhere, and it was so loud.

Along with many engines, there's various old vehicles littered everywhere too.

Along with all of the wacky little things going around, there's two steam locomotives circling around the whole place. Yes. Actual steam locomotives. They're pulling cars with wood benches built into them full of people.

One of the two locomotives is the Soo Line 353 which resided near my house! She used to be my neighbor! WMSTR volunteers restored her in 1978, and she's been running since.

I'm trying to find information about the second smaller locomotive, but I cannot find any info! We managed to ride the Soo Line 353 on the second day.

While riding the train, we saw the thresher parade starting. We were sad that we missed it the first day, so it was really funny that we were missing it AGAIN. This place is somewhere where you wander and stuff just happens. There's something happening at every corner kind of organically. We did see the cool part of the parade though. They end it on the large steam tractors which is what we cared the most about.

It's really hard to separate the days in my retelling of events because it all melded together for me. Apologies if my back and forth is confusing.

The night that we camped was the sparks show with the steam shovels. This is where they take the sawdust from the various sawmills (yes, there's sawmills), and they throw bags of sawdust into the fire boxes of the steam shovels which creates sparks in the smoke stack. The sunset that evening really highlighted the smog that surrounded Steamer Hill.

I'm gonna be so real though. I was way too stoned during the spark show, so that night I was really not there mentally. I was fascinated by the stars when we got back to the campsite, but my partner had to hold my hand when we wandered back. I did not sleep long in our tent, but I slept HARD. My partner did not sleep well mostly because we were at an incline in the tent. He told me the next morning that he was hearing steam whistles late in the night which is the funniest thing ever. The haunting steam whistle in the night... the ghost train on Steamer Hill...

Oh, I forgot to mention the food. There's food at this place. It's made by volunteer church ladies. It costs a reasonable amount and it goes back to the event which itself is a non-profit. This made the merch pretty cheap too. Breakfast was BANGIN!

There's a fairly large standalone boiler there that powers two engines and a steam hammer. It is the Montana boiler, and if you see a static smoke stack in the distance there, it's probably that. One of the engines it powers is the old PBR engine that used to power the PBR plant. There were two, and Rollag has one of them. The other one was scrapped I think.

One of my favorite things at this place was the Snow engine. It's 600hp, and was used to compress natural gas in Pennsylvania. It's double-action meaning that it fires on both sides of the piston. Originally, it had two pistons, only one of them is used at Rollag because of issues acquiring the piston rod seals for the second one. The flywheel is 18 feet in diameter and looks as if it's two identical casted pieces that were bound together by a shrunken piece of metal almost like a butterfly bandage.

It's such a cool engine that has an amazing groove.

This event was so insane. I felt like I was in a different world. I came back to Minneapolis feeling like it was all a dream. I was actually transported into a different dimension. The first night back in my own bed, I fell asleep with the sound of steam whistles and the Snow engine stuck in my head. I blew my nose, and it was black.

I went back to normal life wishing that I could go back.

What am I going to do now???

august vibes

I don't really have music for August because I listened to a lot of radio. MPR News, RadioK, + Jazz88, my beloveds.

last couple notes on august

My partner and I got our bikes fixed just in time for it to be cold. He rocks an old 60s Schwinn and I have a Kona Worldbike. My bike's pretty badass not gonna liiieeeeee. It's a fun bike to ride. Super smooth and looks cool. I want to get Pirelli tires for it in the future just because I think putting Pirellis on it would be so funny. I'll also swap out the grips and seat. The seat hurts my ass so much. Thank you REI Labor Day sale for a good deal on a seat and helmet too. Eventually, it'll get a rear rack. I am thinking a straight steel or aluminum no paint would be kind of cool. Everyone does all black, but I think the matte black frame with plain metal rear rack would look cool.

I do live in Minneapolis, and it was in the news recently because of a shooting. I haven't looked into it much beyond what I have heard from others. I am pretty careful of what news I consume because I can easily be pretty messed up. For moral reasons, I don't like to remember the names of the shooters and such. It's important to figure out their motive, but I am not a cop myself. I do agree with the ban on assault weapons. I want to get too much into it. The vibes of the city had god awful vibes right after it happened. Cops from several other suburbs, like far suburbs, were in town. It just felt bad, and I feel even worse for the parents who lost their children. CHILDREN! This fucker killed kids. God awful, and it makes me mad.

september

Some happier things. A couple days into September, and it's already feeling like fall. Days with highs of 54° make for cozy nights where I sleep really well.

I love fall a lot. It's one of my favorite seasons. I even have a shrine on my site for fall. Summer did not last long enough though. I'm kinda freaked out that it's almost fall already. Where did all of my time go? It feels like it was just December. I really don't understand it. I did nothing. I mean I did a lot like I attended a lot of things. I had a pretty packed summer. We played tennis, went places, etc. I'm just kind of grieving the time I have lost. There's a lot of things I wish I did like I really felt like I haven't been able to get in my garden in the way I wanted to. I really feel like it was just planted.

My day job is pretty packed for September. It means more money, but less time for myself. I will continue my flip phone stuff to gain more time. I have been pretty bad with my iPhone for the past couple of days. I have been making more art. I have been pretty inspired, but not motivated. I always have the opposite issue. I am always so motivated, but I lack inspiration.

I have a lot of art I want to make. I don't remember if I mentioned it on this blog, but I know I have on the micro blog. I am trying to make a nice illustration portfolio, and then I want to code my own portfolio site. It's a bit overwhelming, but I am excited to do it.

For September, I want to try to bust ass on that portfolio because for fall/winter, I want to embrace some indoor hobbies. I like doing a lot of things both inside and outside. I get a big overwhelmed by how many hobbies I have, so I need to lay them out and pick ones I want to do. Stuff like crochet, coding, etc. I wish I could do all of them at once, but I cannot!

I often struggle with cooking deep into winter because I get pretty depressed. I think I want to gather winter recipes starting now, so send me any if you have any! Preferably without beef and pork for my partner :)

things i am looking forward to

I have a couple trips coming up. My partner and I were going to go to Chicago, but we didn't. We'll probably go sometime in the future.

My partner, his parents, and I will be going to the North Shore in November. I won't say exactly where until after I get back, but it'll be great. I've been to Duluth a couple times now, and that's still the farthest north I've been. Northern Minnesota has always had this mystique to me because I am from Southern Minnesota in the prairie. Conifer tree forests are like the coolest thing to me because I never see them! It's a little dorky of me. The trip being in the late fall is going to be sooo cozy. It'll be just off of the lake too so loud waves and extra cold. I had to take advantage of the REI sale again to buy thermals. I am considering mukluks. They seem cozy and are really warm.

Before that trip, we have a trip to the UP of Michigan for rally racing. I know nothing about the build regulations, so I am just gonna assume yay Group B is back. I really don't know what to expect, but I am so excited.

I am also looking forward to the cozy vibes that the combination of a snow storm and downtown at night bring. The lights of the buildings glow in the snow, and it makes nighttime look almost like daytime. It's so bright with a purpley blue hue. I love it.

I am also looking forward to being able to walk around at night after snowfall. As a fem-presenting individual, it is the only time that I am pretty safe anywhere in the city. I am not particularly scared being in Minneapolis, but I still have to be aware and cautious at all times. Summertime at night is a no-go depending on the area. Right after a snowstorm though? I can go anywhere I want! I also just love the vibes. I am also looking forward to the squeaky snow steps. It's the type of snow that glitters.

My house has a wall-mounted gas heater from the 60s. She is named Bertha. We have a special guy that maintains her, and he's super cool. He does work on gravity furnaces, boilers, and all of the weird stuff. I love Bertha, and I am looking forward to the smell of warm air she emits. Not excited to light her or smell the gas though. It's a pain to light her. Our landlord uses grill lights, but my partner and I found that matches obviously work better. You have to turn her on full blast basically, strike the match into the gas, and eventually her fan will kick in.

I am getting ahead of myself though. Fall has to happen first. I'll be making my butternut squash or pumpkin pastas. I'll write out the recipes because I love making them and they're super easy!

I am looking forward to the fall leaves, seasonal acorn spice Mrs. Meyers soap (my fave scent), carving pumpkins, Halloween, making fall/Halloween art, etc. I am just so amped for fall. I love fall a lot and I love squash and everything about it. My iron ranger boots come out in the fall. They're the quintessential fall boot for me.

closing

I write these blog posts over the course of a couple days, so sorry about this one being long. I had a lot to say. My partner's 2025 year of Radical Whimsy is in full swing, so everything is exciting. I also write this almost as a stream of consciousness. Typos and weird sentences are probably common because I am not trying to be super serious or professional on here. This is my own safe space to chill!

I also want to say that it is so nice and refreshing when people drop by my site and they're so nice. People on major platforms are kind of extra mean these days. Bullying is back, and everyone is just party poopers. You all that sign the guestbook or comment on my Neocities page are just so kind. I love it, and thank you! You all make the internet fun again!