Let's Get This Show On The Road

The orchestra rolls out of Minneapolis today for one of our regular tours playing away from home. Even if you live in the Twin Cities and pay pretty close attention to our schedule, though, you may not have heard about this particular tour. We won't be going to London or Berlin or Vienna, or even to New York, Boston, or San Francisco. No, this tour will see us play a series of packed concert halls and auditoriums in Jackson, Marshall, Willmar, and Cokato.

Oh, come on. You've never heard of any of them? And you call yourself a Minnesotan? These, of course, are all towns in southwest Minnesota, real prairie towns (in fact, Marshall is not far at all from Walnut Grove, where Laura Ingalls and her family lived on the banks of Plum Creek,) and our orchestra has been making a point of playing in such places for years. (Why we do it in February, I've no idea. For the extra challenge, perhaps.) Last season's outstate tour took us Up North (yes, that's supposed to be capitalized,) to Brainerd, Bemidji, and Hibbing, and the year before that, I think we were in Pipestone, Northfield, Sauk Centre, and Willmar again.

Now, there are lots of good reasons for hauling our considerable mass around the state on a regular basis, beginning with the fact that Minnesota has always been a state that values its rural roots, and where folks living in areas that might be considered backwaters in other states are surrounded by as much culture and art as denizens of far larger cities in other parts of the country. No matter where we go in the state, it seems that the locals pack whatever venue they have available to see us, and you've never met nicer folks. There are a lot of myths and half-truths floating around about our state (thanks, Garrison, thanks a heap,) but the one about Minnesota Nice couldn't be truer. In fact, I'm willing to predict right now that at least one of our tour stops will see us get off the bus and walk smack into a backstage buffet table loaded down with cookies, cakes, and bars baked up specially for us. You don't get that kind of hospitality at the Musikverein in Vienna, let me tell you!

From a purely personal perspective, I love these tours. Road trips through the rural Midwest are one of my favorite leisure activities, and I always skip the official orchestra bus and drive myself, preferably accompanied by a few friends who will spend the entire trip begging me to stop driving 20 miles out of our way to photograph things like this:

That's in Frazee, by the way, up in the west central part of the state, on the road to Fargo. It's made of fiberglass and 30 feet tall. It's the coolest thing ever, and back in 2002 or so when former MN Orch violist Kerri Ryan and I visited it, we spent about an hour basking in its presence. We also checked out the world's largest otter in Fergus Falls, the world's largest loon in Vergas, and a truly bizarre statue of St. Urho with a grasshopper impaled on his pitchfork in Menagha. Last season's tour of the Northland gave me a chance to snap pics of more Paul Bunyan statues than you can shake a blue ox at, and a few years back, I even drove through a dense morning fog for more than an hour to visit this one-of-a-kind attraction in Kelliher...

Yep, that's big Paul's grave. (Yes, they know he was fictional. Quit ruining it for the rest of the kids, wouldja please?) It sits in a little park just a few yards from the tiny town's main (only?) intersection, hidden away under some pine trees. The headstone reads simply, "Here lies Paul, and that's all."

Sadly, my guidebook to such things tells me that there won't be a lot of strange animal statuary and Bunyan memorabilia on this year's trip, and even the Ingalls Museum in Walnut Grove appears to be closed in winter. Still, though, I never seem to have trouble finding things to admire in these small towns, and I'll do my best to bring you along for the ride as we travel. We leave this afternoon for Jackson, and we'll be back in Minneapolis Sunday night. Between now and then, I'll try to bang out a post-concert blog post each night, and keep you informed as to any vitally important roadside attractions we encounter along the way...