Raining at noon

I was plotting how to get in an hour or so of some sort of exercise as I peered out into the rain.  But it wasn't really hard rain, the street got completely wet but the driveway under the ash tree stayed dry.  I decided to watch a movie on cable that I have seen before and liked.

That kept me occupied until 2pm when the new generator came on for its weekly 12 minute run (I checked the clock).  I went out to watch the generator for a bit (not much to see) and noticed that it seemed actually mostly dry and 20 or so degrees cooler than yesterday.

I love my bicycle.

BUT, it had rained.

AND, it was still, like totally, overcast.

It seemed OK and it surely didn't seem like it was going to be yesterday's oven but even so, the never get THAT far from home route seemed called for.

So.

Day 20 at the Fair anyone?

The scale back from full Fair mode to winter time storage facility mode continues.  The benches have started to gather themselves into herds awaiting the bench trucks.

Also visible there is one of Pronto Pup stands up on the trailer.  There are about a dozen of those things during full Fair mode and as with many of the food vendors the locations are all temporary.  Many of the other food vendors are in trailers.  The Pups are in these self contained units that come and go on trailers, two to a trailer.

And it apparently doesn't take that large a forklift to load them onto the carrier.

But what's really interesting about the last photo, at least to me, is the University of Minnesota stage on the left.  That's the place where Gopher Athletics puts on their dog and pony shows, bringing, for example, several members of the two time defending national champion 49 games in a row winning streak women's hockey team to meet their fans.

During the Fair it doesn't look quite the way it looks now.  Well, it IS day 20.

No, the "M" is definitely askew.

It looks not the way they want it to look when the public is around.  It looks more like the way the Gopher football team looks after the annual drubbing by Michigan.

Which, by the way, even though they play for one of if not the oldest trophy in college football, the Little Brown Jug, is no longer deemed a significant enough event to actually be played every year.

Michigan always wins anyway, no need to play every year any longer.

The Gophers still do get to play for the pig every year.  After last year's game the M looked the same way it does after the Jug game.  Floyd currently resides in Iowa City.

On the big new tree front, the city came out today and marked the water line in the front yard.