100 Things To Do In Minnesota Before You Die

Hello and welcome to a May Saturday here at the Wannaskan Almanac. Today is May 4th. Oo! "May the Fourth be with you!"

Despite the grouchy, pouty weather that's been giving us nothing but sleet, wind, and cold, with intermittent rays of false hope, the calendar dutifully holds steadfast, dropping one paper square at the end of each day. Summer is coming numerically if not meteorologically.

If you're feeling especially depressed this weekend, I invite you to start planning your summer adventures. I'm a bucket list kind of gal and there's nothing like some good adventure-planning to lift a mood out of the doldrums. A book I wholeheartedly recommend for fellow bucket listers and adventure planners is 100 Things To Do In Minnesota Before You Die by Julie Jo Larson. This book is chock full of all kinds of things you can do all over Minnesota. 

Last weekend, I nabbed my own copy of Larson's book while purchasing a Paul Bunyan peanut butter cup the size of my palm at Fancy Pants Chocolates in Brainerd, Minnesota, earning me a signature from chocolatier and Fancy Pants proprietress Nancy Williams for bucket item #16: Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth at Minnesota Candy & Chocolate Stores. While Nancy, who's mastered the art of the chocolate-covered potato chip, gets a shout-out in the book, other candy stores fill my mind with possibilities. Just off the top of my head while typing this, there's the Blue Ox in Nisswa, the multiple sweet spots in Park Rapids and Candyland in Stillwater. It makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

The book's divided into themes: Food & Drink, Music & Entertainment, Sports & Recreation, Culture & History, and Shopping & Fashion. If you need more guidance, you can select "Activities by Season," try one of the suggested itineraries, or, heck, jump to the back and utilize the index.

Perusing the book, I'm filled with all kinds of warm feels of bucket list spots I either recognize or have already done. For example, #2 calls us to "Enjoy the Igloo Bar at Zippel Bay" and #5 begs us to "Enjoy a Patio Lunch at Sage on Laurel" (also in Brainerd.) Of course I want to "Try a Slice of Pie at Rapidan Dam Store" because I will never tire of anything with the word "dam" in it. "But, honey, if we're going to see an actual dam, then we have to go to the dam store and try some dam pie!" 

I'm delighted to discover a drive-in movie theater in Long Prairie. I don't know where Long Prairie is, but I'm adding it to my list! I didn't know there was a Minnesota Music Hall of Fame. Just last weekend, my cousin and I were discussing a potential #Paris2025 trip. She told me about Monets the size of my house. Thanks to this book, I can now justify a "research trip" to Winona to see Monets at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum. The museum's website tells me that the theme for 2024 is Freshwater. "A year-long suite of exhibitions and programs that explores bold and often under-told narratives, examines fresh new perspectives of water, and features game-changing artists who help us better understand our relationship to this precious resource."

#57 - Bike the Paul Bunyan Trail has been on my list for a while. The kid in me thinks my own children would love to #82 - See the World's Third-Largest Nutcracker Collection, replete with sniggers about cracking nuts. "How big are these nuts?!" "If this is the third largest, can you imagine the second or the first largest in the world?"

While I'm not a huge fan of shopping, anything involving yarn, wool, or the phrase "handspun" is a must-see. On that note, I've got two of my own recommendations: Darn. Knit. (anyway.) in Stillwater (best newsletter ever) and Bonnie's Spinning Wheel in St. Cloud.

But wait! There's more!

Miss Julie Jo actually has 2 volumes of 100 Things To Do In Minnesota Before You Die - which means there are 200 things you could add to your summer plans. My friend Sue, who's friends with Larson, shared with me this week that she's hard at work on a third volume. I, for one, can't wait. It's sort of like farmers' anticipation of receiving the seed catalog in the winter months.

In Julie's own words in the back cover blurb, "Grab a friend or two, a copy of this book, and experience four seasons of great adventures where the journey is as meaningful as the destination."

Have book, will travel
See 100 Hundred MN'y things
I am not dead yet.