I'll Miss You Most of All Scarecrow

Oh, what an interesting and fun week it's been. Having ridden the light rail so many times that Mad Dog can now totally imitate the computer-generated woman's voice directing riders to exit left or right, and reminding them to take all their belongings and move to the end of the platform before crossing the tracks (for their safety, of course), and very politely explaining that designated seating is reserved for "persons with disabilities (2 second pause) and seniors," we decided to change things up a bit today and drive ourselves to some exciting weekend venues in the Twin Cities. The first mistake was using the Mapquest directions to get around. We managed to get from our lodging to the Minneapolis Convention Center for the car show with no trouble, thanks to the expert driving skills of Lawless and the sometimes sketchy navigational skills of Mad Dog. Molly and I were of little help, enjoying the drive from the back seat and amazed by the never-ending sound-barrier construction on 35 east, or west. I have no idea where we were. The cowboys, not accustomed to this mode of transportation, were content to follow in their rig.

The car show was, well, manly. We figured the cowboys deserved a couple of hours to do man things since they have been such good cowboys all week. My knowledge of cars doesn't go much beyond "that one is yellow, that one red," etc. I'm still trying to figure out what Minnesota Vikings cheerleaders have to do with cars, but, whatever.

Our next tour of weekend venues was the Minnesota High School Hockey Finals in St. Paul. That's where the driving/navigating got interesting. As anyone not familiar with downtown Minneapolis knows, it is about impossible to find your way out of that area of the city without a GPS and a local resident and some divine intervention. Met with endless one-way streets, heavy traffic and Mapquest directions that said "North and South" instead of "left or right" we ended up on a stretch of interstate that wasn't even on the Mapquest directions. Mad Dog directed Lawless to exit immediately and pull over to figure things out. All the while, the cowboys followed like lemmings, unwilling to overtake us and take control of the situation. Upon exiting the freeway, and totally not knowing where we were, I proclaimed from the back seat, "Look, there's a Super America. Let's pull in there and put air in that low tire. Maybe the cowboys will have a plan to get us straightened out and on the right road to St. Paul." Don't ask me about the mayhem at the Super America. You would have thought they were selling gas for $2.00/gallon for all the vehicles there. Lawless got out to try and put air in the tire. We all stayed in the warm vehicle (oh, did I mention that it was about 3 degrees out?). Cowboy Ric, seeing the struggle Lawless was having with the air hose, got out to help her wrestle the ornery thing and, here's the important part, put three quarters in the dang air thing so it would work. I heard a conversation tonight about a ruthless hose and something about wrestling it, etc. etc. Anyway, when Lawless got back in the vehicle, I asked her what the cowboys said about us being lost. To my surprise, she said, "nothing." I asked if they offered to take the lead in getting us over to St. Paul and Lawless told me they didn't offer. I had a feeling they were just being polite and that this might come up later in the day.

Well, while Lawless and Ric were airing up the tire, Molly and Mad Dog had a navigational revelation and figured something out on the Mapquest directions. We got back on the interstate as if the whole Super America thing was always the plan. (Right, drive several miles the wrong direction to find a Super America to air up the tire.) We drove straight to St. Paul and by some miraculous occurrence, Mad Dog and Lawless acted like they were in their childhood neighborhood. They seemed to recognize everything - streets, pubs, parking lots. We drove right to a parking area near the Xcel Center, got out, walked to a pub and asked to be seated for lunch.

The Irish pub was just the kind of place the group has grown to love this week. The atmosphere was great and the food was delicious, but we sat in the wrong section. The server either hates her job, has a miserable life or just doesn't like cowboys. But, she was the first server we have encountered this week who wasn't over the top on service. I guess that's not so bad.

We made our way to the hockey venue a couple blocks from the pub but it was a freezing, windy walk. This was supposed to be the warm day. Hmmm. Once inside, we discovered the large vendor area. What a great idea this is. Everything in the world related to hockey, and then some. Products, games, food, give-aways and kids, kids, kids. We had a great time. Cowboys Steve and Frank were invited to put on an exhibition arm wrestling match. Steve won, but I think Frank let him. We had a great time visiting with kids and their parents. I can't even guess how many photo requests we had, and so many people knew who we were. We kept hearing, "Hey, aren't you the cowboys we saw in the paper yesterday," and "I saw you on the train." It made us feel like we have accomplished what we set out to do.




















We left St. Paul and headed back to Minneapolis. Navigation was a breeze this time. We decided to stop and the Mall of America and do a walk-about. We headed up to the third floor to explore an area we had not yet seen. The big mistake was walking into the Old Time Photo shop. There was no way we were going to get the cowboys out of there without them paying to have our photos taken with them - - - - - in Dance Hall girl outfits. Mad Dog said something about there being no way she was going to do that. A couple of us were concerned about the absence of a razor on the trip and before we knew it, we were whisked away into the back room where a couple of young ladies started shouting out orders, much like drill sergeants, about where they wanted to see the clothes we were wearing (all four layers of them). Lawless didn't know what to do with the corset. I remember feeling like the drill sergeant put her foot in the small of my back to lace up the thing they threw at me to cover my upper half. Something was said by Molly, I think, about back fat and before we knew it, we were in front of the cameras. After a few painless snaps, we were ripping the dance hall girl costumes off and re-dressing in our much more comfortable uniforms which we had just discussed being really sick of wearing.

The day ended with a relaxing dinner and reminiscing of the week's activities. We've spent several days and evenings together - the cowboys, the street team and several others who have come in for a day or two to join us. It's been a great week. The people of Minneapolis and St. Paul have been a delight. I will never forget the smiles. It's so cool to be doing something that puts a genuine smile on someone's face and we saw so many of them. Working with Mad Dog, Lawless and Molly has been so much fun, and what can we say about the cowboys? Gentlemen always. Friends for life, I hope. To take a line from the Wizard of Oz, "I'll miss you most of all Scarecrow." I just can't decide which of the six cowboys I would say that to. Perhaps all of them.

From my home in Rm. 313 - Bertsch Bark

(entry was written last night)

The Final Day

With no improvement in the weather we decided to stay indoors to find our vacationer prospects. Our first stop was at a car show in downtown Minneapolis. With over 1000 different trucks, SUVs, sports cars and hybrids on display, our Cowboys got most of the attention from the hundreds of people there. One gentleman was so excited to see the cowboys he was going to go home tonight and start planning his vacation to Deadwood!

We then headed to the capital city to interact with the hockey folk, and there were a LOT of them! Hockey is to Minnesotans as leather is to Cowboys - essential! We all walked through the packed hockey exhibition that was coinciding with the high school tournament. It was perfect: moms, dads, kids and cowboys. There was even some arm wrestling to keep our cowboys busy. We then headed back to Minneapolis to roam the Mall of America. After an old-time photo shoot and lots of waving and howdies we decided to end our day. We found our watering hole and sat around to remember all of everyone's favorite highlight from the week. Here are just a few to share.

It never got old to hear people say that they saw the cowboys in the paper, or they saw us downtown riding the light rail, walking into a store and hearing "South Dakota's here", or when people could actually sing our SD theme song.

The passing smiles were the best. Whether it was because they had absolutely no idea what to think about these cowboys or because seeing them reminded them of their own SD vacation.

Seeing that train roll down the tracks with OUR state on it. Rushmore's grandeur and majesty stood out and was the best train in commission.

The cowboys one-liners. We couldn't have written more perfect or suitable things for them to say to the people.

Seeing the reactions and excitement on the kids faces. They would wave, give fives or jump up and down because the cowboys were there.

Having people come out on the street as we were walking by to see what was going on or to say hi. Or when we would walk under the sky walk, they would be sure to stop and wave.

So while it's sad to say goodbye we are left with many fond and warming memories from the week behind us. To know that we got these people genuinely excited about our state just with our presence was worth it all. See you on down the trail, we are moseying back home.

signed ~ Molly Goodnight

SD feels the love...and the cold

With a full and rowdy group this morning, we set off for the train like we always do. This time we had quite the crowd who stopped us outside the mall. At the left, here's a look at the cowboys taking photos and chatting with a few groups.








Our first big event of the day was meeting with Titan Worldwide (the company who works with the transit authority) downtown. We found out the exact times that the SD trains would be at the end of the route. At the end, the trains stay put for about 10 minutes, giving us and Titan the perfect opportunity to take photos. Here's the Tourism group with Tom and Maria from Titan. In case you're wondering where Buddy is, take a closer look at the cowboy in the middle...pulls it off pretty well, huh?









As we continued to stroll the streets of downtown, we found a little girl who was extremly excited to see the "rangers." She and her mom were on the same train as us, and when we hopped off at one of the stops, we left her in tears.









Today, we focused more on stopping in restaurants and bars, talking to people and leaving the handouts at every location we visited. This turned out to be a great game plan because today's high was 12 and trust us, it felt like -12. Below is a pic of the cowboys with the owner, manager and a waitress of The Loon restaurant. The owner insisted on going to get his own cowboy hat from the back, and told us he planned to blow up the photo and hang it on the wall in the restaurant. Be sure to check back in if you're in the area in the future. :)











One thing we were really excited about was that our photo made it in the Star Tribune today, a result from the papparazo that followed us on Wednesday. When we called to request a few copies from our advertising rep, she asked us to stop by the office. Above is a photo of Jim deputizing these Star Trib ladies by a swearing of their intent to visit SD this summer on their vacation. The reward? A sheriff badge. Who doesn't want that?


















Next stop -- St. Paul. We plan on invading the capital city tomorrow just in time for the state hockey tournament...apparently a big deal in the land of 10,000 Lakes.



Until tomorrow. Happy trails.

LL & MDM

Small Town Girl Hits Big City

Having finally cleared up some laptop issues, (brought on by computer illiteracy), I'm ready to enter the previosly unchartered land of blog-ville. That's correct, I have never blogged before. I'm on a need-to-know basis on this stuff.

Mad Dog and Lawless have covered the first couple of days pretty well, so except for an occasional flashback, I'll just share the second shift of today's adventure.

Our week, so far, has been a comical romp from one end of the light rail to the other, trying to coordinate our arrival with the charming cowboys with peak pedestrian traffic. We've had some successes and some cold waits unter the campfires-in-the-sky, awaiting the welcoming blast of the distant train whistle.

Picture below is me with three of the handsome cowboys, hardlookin' everyone who said, "This really isn't cold for Minnesotans."

The "boys" really dressed up for our evening in the city tonight. Notice their really cool black hats.

The evening of fine dining in one of Minneapolis' finest restaurants, Rock Bottom Brewery, was probably the most enjoyable after a very cold day of meeting and greeting the great residents of the city all day. We all thawed out enough to make our way back to the light rail for our last ride of the day back to the other end of the line.

I think my favorite part of traveling around with the guys is the smiles we see all day long when people see them coming. Lawless and Mad Dog talked about people honking, waving and giving thumbs up. That continued today, despite the freezingly uncomfortable cold. Like one lady told us, "You gotta' love a cowboy. Well, don't you?" I couldn't have said it any better.

Laking anything too funny to say at this late hour after a 12 hour day, I'm going to resort to just listing some of my favorite cowboy one-liners. (Sometimes tw0-liners) I'll leave out the quotation marks.

Is this South Dakota?

We lost our horses. Have you seen them?

Oh, you've been to South Dakota? You need to come back. We've remodeled.

Sorry madam, we don't have a taxi but we do have a stage coach.

And another of my favorite photos.

Your small town girl in the big city - Bertsch Bark

The Human Interest Side of Things

Hello again!

I just wanted to share with you some of the random, but interesting parts about our time here.

1. This is what I wore today: Underclothes, a tank top, a t-shirt, a long sleeve t-shirt, under armor, a USD Sweatshirt (gotta represent!) a zip up fleece coat and my South Dakota wind coat. I also wore Laura's running tights, jeans, a long pair of socks and a short pair of socks. We all have gloves, hats and scarves and the cowboys have lovingly titled my scarf "the blanket". If you've seen me in any of the pictures you'll see why.

2. Each of the original street team ladies have a separate nickname from the cowboys. We're all part of their "posse", but Eileen is a fulltime posse member, meaning she brings up the rear of the group or hangs back with the cowboys. Laura and I are the scouts, because we walk in front of them and tell them where to go. I was the original "Lead Scout" but get demoted from time to time depending on how they think my attitude is at the time. :) They also decide to randomly throw snowballs at their favorite scouts. Lawless and I think Eileen is the smartest of us all, and the Cowboys love her the best.

This is just a quick update for the lighter side of our time up here. Eileen will most likely blog soon and tell you all some of her impressions of our time spent up here!

We have to go catch our stagecoach!

Mad Dog

SD Cowboys - Second only to Nemo

The snowy, wet day yesterday was replaced by freezing temps...a high of 16 degrees! We bundled up and were soon back out canvassing Minneapolis.

We started the day again by riding the train downtown. As we sauntered toward the central area, we came across a ton of kids and school buses at the Target Center to see Nemo on Ice. What a perfect audience for stickers! We even found a few parents in the mix who took the handouts. We were then joined by Wanda, Buddy and Jeff.

We continued further downtown, hitting more of the business crowd. We had this great idea that the cowboys should try to be in the background of the 12:00 newscast of a news station downtown, similar to what people do in Rockefeller Plaza behind Matt and Meredith on the Today Show. To our dismay, we were soon ushered out of the area, with the story of an obscene passer-by from a few weeks before. His antics had prevented anyone else from standing behind the news anchors from that incident forward...what bad luck!

The cowboys were also a big hit with the kids. They took many pics with moms and kids in the restaurant where we ate.

We even saw quite a few people from SD. Anytime they found out where we were from, they were so excited that we were up here. That SD pride follows our natives everywhere!

Back on the train, we ran into business travelers (the train goes by two airport termainals), lots of women shoppers, and plenty of curious passengers.

Halfway through the day, we're gearing up for our afternoon sesssion. Stay tuned for the eveningwear photos.

Outlawfully yours,

Lawless and Mad Dog

SD hits the Streets

The boys are back in town. The boys are back...the boys are back.


The cowboys, that is.


































We woke up to a few inches of snow on the ground, and it was still coming down when we left the hotel. We prepared ourselves for a sloppy, slushy day.


After hopping on the hotel shuttle to the Mall of America transit stop, the six cowboys and three street teamers (Laura, Meghan and Eileen) set off on our first day of the Great Neighbor Getaways promotion. We rode the light rail train to our first appointment...Caribou Coffee. This is where the PR team of Jeff, Wanda and Buddy were meeting with the travel writers of the Star Tribune. We only encountered one little incident on our way....three of the cowboys were sprayed by a suburban speeding past the sidewalk. After peeking through the window to make sure everyone was in place, the cowboys and team busted in on the meeting with no shame. The Star Trib writers were pleasantly surprised, and chatted with our SD boys for a while. After grabbing some coffee, we headed back to the train.






















(This is at the coffee shop...the lady in the middle with dark hair, and the guy in the top right corner are the Trib writers. )


Next stop: Nicolette Mall and Downtown Minneapolis. We spent lots of time going back and forth between the train and downtown, handing out the special deals for our Minnesota neighbors. Not only did we get quite the looks from people on the street, there were a multitude of yells, thumbs ups and waves.


Here are some highlights from our day:

• As a police officer drove by us downtown, he rolled down the window, gave us a thumbs up and yelled, "Yee Haw!"
  


• A city bus driver pulled out his camera phone and took a pic of us AS HE WAS DRIVING!!



• This one's the best...when we hopped on the train mid afternoon, the metro driver Pete announced, "All aboard everyone...this train's goin' straight to South Dakota. Next stop, South Dakota." No lie. It really happened. He's now our new best friend.
  

Here's Pete with our cowboys.

Not only did we hand out our special deals to people on the street, we also plastered kids, adults, retail workers, street cleaning crews and security guards with SD Sheriff badge stickers. By the end of the day, we're pretty much convinced that at least half of Minneapolis was stickered. (That may be an exaggeration.)

While still strolling around downtown, we were pleased to find out that because of our appearance at the coffee shop in the morning, a Star Tribune photographer wanted to follow us around to take pics for a little sidebar in tomorrow's (Mar 6) paper! Sa-weet!!

So what did we learn today? After the lunch hour, there's very little traffic on the light rail. We hit the streets later on in the afternoon. Temperatures had already started to drop considerably, but the spirited group kept everyone laughing and smiling.

Have we mentioned that the coolest sound in the world is the sound of 12 spurs jingling against the Mall of America floor? Seeing the kids sprinting towards the cowboys was really amazing too.

Just goes to show, the cowboys are making all the difference in the world.

Hold on to your 10 gallon hats,

LL and MDM

PS - For any of you who happened to stumble upon this blog and want more info on our Minnesota promotion, visit www.TravelSD.com/Minnesota