Minnesota Decoy Collectors' Show

Tomorrow morning I am off to Bloomington MN for the state decoy collectors' get together. The Thunderbird Motel is right across the parking lot from the Mall of America, which is pretty big as malls go. One used to be able to trek right across the parking lot to mallize, but a couple years ago the security conscious types spent a lot of money to put up a chainlink fence, so now one must hop in old NellieBelle and motor over. If so inclined.

I intend to hit an art museum and also visit a couple of area decoy collectors to ogle their goods. The Minneapolis Art Museum has two nice Tahitian period Gauguins and a van Gogh Olive Grove, and lately someone has been throwing some pretty serious shekels their way in order to put together a collection of Oceanic art, another interest of mine. They haven't bought a lot, but it is seriously hi quality, so it is always fun to see what they might have added since the last visit.

I suppose I should check the weather report, it sometimes gets nippy up there. About ten years ago or so, people were standing around outside throwing cups of hot coffee in the air, and the coffee never hit the ground. Just froze and blew away. That was pretty cold, even by the locals' standards. It was -60 a bit north of there, and I guess that was pretty tough on the malarial mosquitoes as I've never seen one up there since.