The State Fair is over and that means that compared to last week there were anywhere from 94,076 to 236,197 fewer people within a couple of miles of my house. The first number is the attendance from last Tuesday, the lowest for any single day in the past six fairs. The big number is the crowd from Sunday, the day we went, when an all time single day attendance record was set.
Then yesterday on Labor Day, when we had sausage, the Fair had the largest crowd ever for the 12th day of the Fair, 164,277. I dunno, this seems like a phony record to me. I bet they have had larger Labor Day crowds than that. The trick is that they didn't always have 12 days, that's a relatively recent thing. They start now on a Thursday. I am pretty sure for much of the history of the Fair they started on Friday.
Anyway, another record.
And if you take that many people and the cars that brought them out of the streets around here it makes quite a difference. For example, it turns an extremely busy, always full park and ride lot two blocks from my house into a full for a couple of hours a week church parking lot.
Quite a difference.
And then there's the other big deal, all of the children age 5 to 18 suddenly disappeared from the yards, streets and parks. Instead they are inside all of those school buildings.
Quite a difference.
With everything so much quieter I was able to honor the southwest wind and actually ride towards the south, something I have not been able to do since, well, since the Fair started.
The Fairgrounds is still busy, of course, much, much busier than on a day in November, for example. But much less busy than yesterday.
You don't clean up from 236,000 people overnight. There are still lots of trucks coming and going and the grounds remain officially closed.
Still I got past the grounds without even a hint of an incident and rode down into the big city and over to Minnehaha Falls.
I haven't been there in a while but the Falls have not moved.
There are many years when the Falls nearly run dry in late August.
I was surprised to find that the clean up from the LATE JUNE windstorm is still not complete in Minnehaha Park.
I actually took this last week and didn't blog that day but I as I was downloading pictures off my pocket camera today I decided that I like this old building and it deserves a showing.
Boy we just don't make them like that anymore.
My blog post title was going to be "There Used to be a High School Here."
It was a nice day that day too, but about 15 degrees warmer than today. I have no complaints about today though, it was a very, very nice early fall day, a really nice day to be able to be out riding a bicycle.
1 comment:
It reminds me of Greenway High, somewhat. Turning old high schools into middle schools seems to be a trend -- we've seen it a lot here.
You're quite lucky to have a spot like Minnehaha Falls within riding distance of your house.
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