My Visit With RedLady!

Red Lady (Nancy) and her husband arrived Saturday night, about 7:40 p.m. Since we live on a remote, dead-end dirt road Tom and I had put some plastic pink flamingos at the end of our drive so she would know where to turn. We did a quick tour of my house and then settled down to the serious business of drinking wine, talking & laughing non-stop while eating steaks from my BBQ, which were burned to perfection lol. She brought me a loaf of genuine San Fran sourdough bread! But I stuck that into the freezer for later and served her my garlic loaf from Kowalski's. (Not that butter-laden garlic-salted stuff - a nice, crusty loaf of yeasty white bread with an entire head worth of whole garlic cloves baked right in.)

The weather was a perfect Fall day, so we could eat on my screen porch. Basically we spent the whole evening out on the porch - drinking multiple bottles of wine before switching over to Kama Sutras (the mixed drink, not reinactments.) We made our drunken phone call to Aisling (L82LIFE) somewhere in the middle of this. I passed on the various "Hi RedLady" messages & virtual hugs I had received. Party broke up at about 1 a.m. - which is way late for me! I am SO a morning person.

Oh, Nancy and I had so much fun! We just click and double-click, ya know? Our husbands also seem to get along just fine so that works out great too!

Sunday was a whirlwind of "see everything right now" that involved touring my town and a bunch of nice homes on the St. Croix River as well as a trip to Redwing, MN to see her grandparents old house, and the train station where her mom used to debark when she visited them every summer as a child. The station is right on the Mississippi so Nancy got to get her feet wet in the mighty Mississip.

We did some shopping in the cute Redwing downtown area then went to The Source, aka the Redwing Pottery Co., home of Nancy's collectibles passion - Redwing Pottery. Poor Nancy! By the time we got to the pottery's Factory Store we were so short of time she had to speed shop. It was like a TV game show - watch contestant Nancy run through a store, see everything and find what she wants most in 2 & 1/2 minutes!!! We felt mean hurrying her along, but we had tickets for a paddleboat cruise with a 4:30 p.m. boarding deadline. So we rushed Nancy. I have no idea how much money she spent per minute of shopping, but it had to be an impressive amount. When we were back in the car and speeding back to Stillwater she had to keep opening her bags to see for herself what she had finally wound up buying, lol.

Tom pushed the speed limit just a little and we figured we would be back in Stillwater with 5 minutes to spare before they pulled up the boarding ramp. As soon as we got just outside town we hit a huge traffic back-up along the river! Huge! Tom jumped off the main road, zipped down some back residential streets and out an alley right in front of the boat dock. Miraculously, there was one parking space right in front of St. Croix Boat & Packet Co. - home of our paddlewheel cruise boat! There were sirens going off up & down the street, lots of Patrol cars out, and all kinds of people standing around on shore but we were in such a hurry to board we didn't really pay much attention. They pulled the boarding ramp up right behind us.

As the boat departed, Tom and I quickly realized that we weren't going North under our famous Stillwater lift bridge for the usual 2 hour tour. So we looked out the back and finally registered that the bridge was closed, with multiple patrol cars parked to block access on both ends, lights flashing. The water was full of rescue boats, lights flashing. Turns out a car had gone off the lift bridge while it was raised (they raise it so the big paddle boats can get past) and into the water! Such a freak tragedy.

So we went south, which is kind of a boring ride. The northern route goes close to some fabulous cliffs & bluffs & islands and stuff. But still, the boat ride was okay. Rubber chicken and roast beef in the dinner buffet. They did have a pretty nice Dixieland Jazz quartet so had some nice music to listen to.

After the cruise it was back to our place where we joined TAR in progress. This is Nancy's and my favorite show so it was great to watch with her! We always talk about applying to be on it as "internet friends" but I feel like I'm too old for some of the stunts, lol.

After TAR (and during!) we drank some more and just had an all-round good time.

Monday morning, since Nancy couldn't find DJ in time for a meet, I got to spend 3 extra hours with her! We finally "did" Main Street in Stillwater, which has some very cute little shops, and had lunch at Madcapper's a bar Tom & I used to go to every week a few years ago. Think " Cheers."

Then we had to say goodbye *sob*. Word to the wise? Never pass up a chance to meet Nancy! She is such a lovely person! Oh yeah. Some of you may know she said she had lost a few pounds with all the stress of having her dog stolen a few weeks ago. Wow! She looks even more gorgeous now than before, totally model slim! I was so jealous of her skinny ass and legs! Nancy is smokin'!

*smooches* to Nancy when she reads this. I forgot to ask her if I could put pics on this blog.