Hello and welcome to a St. Paddy's Saturday here at the Wannaskan Alamanc. There's a party tonight at Chairman Joe's!
Kids and I have been adventuring in the balmy, culturally rich Brainerd this past few days. When I was in college, a friend I traveled with taught me that every trip should have something educational, something fun, and if possible, something that is both fun and educational.
Queue up the educational: We got a tour of the local public utilities where my cousin works. She
showed us all the inventory she orders and oversees. Kids marveled at the massive quantities of transformers and coiled cables of all colors and variegations. The funnest fun fact was learning that the individual stoplights - you know, red, yellow, and green - were bigger than our heads!
Queue up the fun: We enjoyed an awesome escape room experience at the Copper Cat! Granny's gone missing, and the big, bad cooking company is on their way to her assisted living apartment to steal her recipe! We had one hour to find Granny's coveted - and well-hidden - recipe before the corporate cooks stole it!
And the big win for fun and educational: We also visited the Brainerd Museum of Pop Culture. Talk about a blast from the past. This was like stepping into a real-life version of the social media craze celebrities are cheerfully partaking in: "What were you like in the 90s?" We were all in awe as we stepped into the public library converted into a museum - a library I visited myself when I was a kid. Everything's hands-on, even the rickety-looking 100-year-old record players that can still crank (literally) tunes. "Oh my gosh! Kids! Look! It's a typewriter!!!" The 8th grader furtively clicked and clacked, while I swayed woozily with nostalgia. The real magic was downstairs, where all the old-school computer games were set up on original PlayStations and Commodore computers. An '80s bedroom decked out in wood paneling had a couple of Speak-N-Spells stacked on the desk. That was my favorite, most coveted toy when I was a kid. I loved spelling. (I still do!) I was even the Nisswa Elementary Spelling Bee champion in 4th grade. (And the runner-up in 5th grade - curse the word alligator.)
While the 8th grader played the original Oregon Trail on an old Apple and the WAKWIR 2.0 played Super Mario on a Super Nintendo, I grabbed the familiar joystick of an ATARI and played Frogger. We enjoyed little treats like Bit O Honey's from the candy dishes sprinkled throughout the place.
Don't forget the Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, a Pole Position spin-off, and Pac-Man.
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Fun
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| Fun and educational |
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