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August 2026

I did one million things this month. I am tired. published on aug 31, 2026

fun times

My partner and I saw Sharknado at the Lake Harriet Bandshell. It was our first time seeing the movie, and it was bumpin there. Lots of people showed up. Later in the month, we saw the Odyssey at the Heights Theater. This theater rules because it is one of the only theater from the 20s that hasn't been converted into some event space. There's an organ that gets played before a movie. It's an awesome theater.

We did our numerous walks too at our usual spots. Here's some images from that and other activies.

viginia creeper berries horsemint mutated touch-me-nots cool bug matching colors; xB is like a small 4runner went to a twins game too

I also cut my hair (again), but it's pretty short. I kind of regret it, but my hair grows fast so it's okay.

moving

Moving really took us out. We had already moved a lot of boxes throughout the month, but we still got a lot of shit. We rented a whole truck which my partner's father had referred to as "the beast." The beast treated us well though. My partner drove it and hated it. I was really hoping for the Tully Monster one. That's my favorite U-Haul art. It took all day to move everything in. We also spent three days unpacking. We would stay up until 3am doing so. We're almost done. We just need to get some wardrobes, and it will be perfect.

Like I talked about in my last blog, we're living with our friends that used to live next door in the duplex. We're doing to escape the landlords and save money. The landlords neglected the duplex. My partner brought up a great point when we talked about it with his parents. The landlords were party fun time casual whenever any of us needed anything, but immediately serious business when they needed something (our money). It took them six months to fix a washer, four months to fix the dryer, years to fix the roof, and all while they were up our asses for rent. They'd have the balls to ask for it a day before the 1st. They thought it was funny that the morning glories would destroy my garden. They'd make us fix our own shit like we had asked for the window screens to be fixed, and they'd tell us where the tools to do it were. They went back on many things they said. They were just usual landlord scum. They just pretended to be good landlords because they're not a company. Funny that they think that way because my first apartment was owned by a company and they were tiptop perfect landlords. I recommend them to anyone willing to put up with the neighborhood they're in.

Anyways, we fled the potential roof collapse property to live in a basement with kitties. As I type this, the smaller one (Sera) is sleeping on our couch. She's the best.

My desk is set up, my art supplies are organized, etc. I am all set to update my site again B) Unfortunate that I won't have my garden page anymore. No more garden, but look at these tomatoes from it.

I kept getting hurt during the move. I hit my head about three times. I got stung by a wasp. I did something to my neck which caused five days of painful tingles and prickles around my whole body. Actually one of the scarier injuries I've had. I felt like I was going to lose control of my arms if I moved slightly wrong. War is over though.

Hank visited on our last day.
ojibwe forests rally

Immediately after moving, we packed up to go to the Ojibwe Forests Rally, the only rally in Minnesota. We were trying to get a bunch of people to join, but many dropped out for various reasons. There was still a good group of seven people. Six of us traveled together in two cars with walkie talkies like a Top Gear special. The first night, we waited for the seventh to show up in his Crown Vic. This was the kid we had met at the Cars and Craft in May. I think he showed up at like 9pm which was perfect timing to see the lunar eclipse. Lake Itasca was a perfect spot for it. I forgot to mention that there was no racing (or even parc expose) on the first day of our trip. You'll figure out later that this rally was organized weirdly.

lake itasca visitor center owl visitor signage

We all saw the lunar eclipse and the milky way. It was many people's first time seeing the milky way. It was a perfect night.

While my partner and I got ready to go to sleep, we ran into a whole family of racoons. There was also a barred owl hooting in the distance of course.

hard to see but they're in the middle of the image

We set off early in the morning to get to the first spot. I think this was the crossroads jump which is THE spot in the whole event. The lineup of cars was great. Lia Block in her i20, a GR Corolla, two Peugeots, and Fiestas in the RC2 class.

The other classes had some fun cars too. Super Beetle, VR6 Jetta, MK3 Golf, so many subies, etc. The usual rally lineup of Subarus and weird shit. We immediately became fans of Lady of the Lake which is a Subaru that drowned in a lake at this rally years ago with other drivers. They had finished it only two weeks before the rally.

The Super Beetle was crazy too. My friend and I were talking about how it would sound until we heard something crazy coming. It was the Beetle. It sounded crazy because the exhaust on it is so short (rear engine). I'm so used to seeing those old Beetles do like dirt or desert racing, so rally is a fun, unique environment to see one of them. They're not that rare of cars, but it's still so cool. What was rare was an old 911 that absolutely ripped through the rally. This was the first time that the driver was racing in the US. He usually races in it in Africa, and now he's going on a racing world tour. This particular rally was full of cute stories. Matt Nykanen crashed his BMW at the last ARA rally, and he was rocking a rental Lexus to stay in the same class for the season. He is THE RWD guy. You can tell by how he was trying to push the Lexus. He drove it like it was the beamer.

We kept running into family members of the racers too. Nykanen's family posted up next to us at the first spot. The second spot was a turn into a hill, and there was a mom of the driver in 610. They were from the West, and she was there to support him. Spoiler but he ended up winning three spots AND it was the team's second rally. It was cute and awesome.

The second spot was crazy. All of the spectator spots were strange. So in other rallies, we were able to be along the tree line, but at this one, we had to be in the road that the course doesn't turn into. We as a group were very critical of this because if the pace notes are wrong, a car CAN run into a group of spectators. Pace notes are made by a human no matter how professional and qualified they are. WRC pace notes are wrong sometimes. This backfired on us at that second spot once. It was an RC2 Fiesta driven by Raftery who is a GREAT driver. She almost full sent it into us spectators, but she was so good that she was able to brake the car immediately. We were dive bombing away. It was insane. Random note but this rally was FULL of women. Brie Lucio, Lia Block, Madelyn Tabor, Eliza Coleman, Lucy Block, and Aoife Raftery. There's also the women co-drivers that I didn't even list.

car named party w/ trans woman driver; so swag

This spot also had a bear cross the road up the hill. It was a lot of shenanigans. There was also a kid who knew ball. He was like six or seven talking about all sorts of car stuff. He was a huge fan of Travis Pastrana who wasn't at this rally because he broke his leg. He wanted to show up but Subaru said no. We were getting along with everyone at this rally which makes sense. It was all fellow Minnesotans. Many people, including the ones that tagged along with us, were new to rally so we were giving info and tips for everyone. We sold many people on LSPR, and we may have a repeat trip like this but in the UP. Fingers crossed because LSPR was SO good. After doing three rallies, we really think LSPR is the best. Not only are the spots the best, but it's the last one of the season so racers are going super hard to get placed.

We went to the Super Stage at the end of the day which was a paid event, but honestly wasn't worth it. It was a dirt road around where wherever that country music fest is. It was neat to see it because we didn't know what a Super Stage was like, but we'd skip it next time. The wooded stages are more interesting. Here's an image of one of the Strykers competing in their own class, the Stryker challenge. They're making these to meet ARA specs and testing them. We're personally more into the heritage of car rally because it's so much cooler than stupid 4x4s, but these things were interesting. Really freaky looking.

Day one ended with like two or three car fires, so many cars out, and just chaos. The Corolla lost a control arm. The VR6 Jetta had issues. The Beetle rolled (didn't see the evidence until the second day). Just mayhem.

Day two started out at a spot similar to the first day's second spot with a turn. We stayed there to watch one run of it. In this rally, they run each stage twice. The Corolla, Jetta, Beetle, etc all made it back. Lady of the Lake wasn't there though. She was stopped on the track just before the spectator spot.

The very last stage was in Bemidji on roads. We hadn't seen tarmac rally yet. We showed up so early, but that let us claim a spot by the roundabout that they had to loop around twice. The cars that would DNF ran it first for funsies. In that group was the lake subie! Apparently, she had lost a diff so she was "RWD party mode" as the driver described it. It was awesome in RWD. They were ripping donuts and having a great time. Everyone was having a good time. This was the stage to wear out the tires on and break the cars because it's the end! The Beetle on this stage was awesome too.

The spectators around here were fantastic. We had this one guy that was a local who was so curious about the event. Him and the woman he was with were fans of Lia Block, but they knew nothing about rally. We answered all of their questions. We avoided telling him about the Strykers on purpose just to see his reaction. He called them "Batmobiles." To describe this man, he's like a co-op shopper but a cool one. He rode a tricycle for some reason. He was the "yeeaah maan" kinda guy. You can see him in this gif with Lia Block racing.

With the Corolla missing so much time, Lia Block was able to take home the first win for a woman driver in ARA with her co-driver Alex Gelsomino. The tall kids with the mom visiting got 1st O4WD class and Regional overall. Two shoeies!! We found out later that the car with Def Leopard decals was actually the Def Leopard guitarist Vivian Campbell. We kept wondering why they were vibing with Def Leopard so hard. I wish we could tell that one cool spectator guy.

It was a great rally, but I think volunteering for it would be better. My partner and I are considering it.

a spectator had a Stagea GTR; soooo sexy

That night before bed, I was terrorized by one of the raccoons. It kept appearing out of the dark just to walk around, but it felt like it was chasing me.

Day four's mission was to see the headwaters of the Mississippi. It was really pretty even with the gloomy weather. We rolled around in our three cars with the walkies too. The last stop was Treasure City which is a crazy store full of crazy stuff. Most of it is weird animal nicknacks categorized by animal. I wanted a fish salt and pepper shaker, but I have no use for it. RIP

gang gang found hops!

I haven't even been back home for 24 hours as I write this. I miss race car, and I hate bug bites...

art

Here's some things I drew. There's other things coming eventually. I have some emails to send for that.

For some reason, the "I love gars" doodle was huge on instagram.
september

September has the MN State Fair. Amped for the fish pond. Now that I think about it, I might put the live feed on the TV. It's a whole event for me. Otherwise, I'm just organizing and working on stuff for September. LSPR isn't until October.