Why Everybody Loves Winona, a Blog

Okay, I know. That’s a Christmas song, but as the cooler winds started to blow this Labor Day weekend I knew we were rounding the bend into autumn and those words kept sing-songing through my head.

Winona is pretty all the time, but fall is when Winona is at its most beautiful, in my humble opinion. Starting in a week or two, shades of gold and crimson will creep across the bluffs, casting a warm glow on our hiking and biking trails and the very city that sits beneath them. By the end of the month it will be postcard gorgeous here and travelers from north and south will be heading this way to soak it in.

Indeed, if you’ve never been on the Great River Road in autumn you have no idea what you are missing, because even all my fancy words about it being pretty can’t describe it well enough.

But I’ll try. Picture this: On one side of the road you are hugged by the bright blue Mississippi River, on the other side, a symphony of color rises up hundreds of feet. The best stretch is from Lake City to La Crescent, with colors so brilliant they make you catch your breath, and Winona sits right in the middle of that route.

Bonus, at the base of our bluffs, unlike other towns along the way, are hiking and biking trails that will get you off the road and under the canopy trees for some of the most stunning paths I’ve ever seen anywhere. My hands-down favorite are the trails that start behind Holzinger Lodge, a building at the base of the bluff owned by the city.

There, trails snake back and forth up the side of the bluff, and at their peak every inch of it is bathed in brilliant yellow. Every so often crimson or orange leaves flutter down from a giant maple along the way, and this place feels like a dream filled with beauty and solitude. I go here a lot to walk and think and take pictures, and every time I am taken aback by this place like it’s the first time I saw it.

It’s hard to say exactly when those trails are at their most perfect because Mother Nature is hard to pin on a calendar, but I’d say between the the third week in September and the second week in October is when our colors usually peak here.

Take a look at the pictures below to get an idea of what I’m talking about, but trust me, you will be sad if you don’t come see for yourself.

I came to Winona from the Twin Cities almost exactly 16 years ago, and at the time I was a little, um, concerned that a town of 30,000ish couldn’t possibly be as interesting or have as much to offer as the sprawling metropolis I was coming from.

That impression wasn’t helped in the slightest by a woman, also a transplant, told me during my first week here, “If Fleet Farm doesn’t have it, you don’t need it.” Yuk yuk yuk. Now I’d never actually been to a Fleet Farm, but I had a pretty good idea that we were talking about camouflage and John Deere and rabbit pellets, and I spent the rest of the night sulking.

Okay listen, Fleet Farm fans, do not send me angry e-mails. I like Fleet Farm. I even buy stuff there, like bug spray and dog food and Christmas lights. But you have to admit it doesn’t exactly have the same ring as, oh, I don’t know, The Galleria.

So anyway, I spent my early days here missing big shopping malls and miles of restaurants and my favorite chiropractor, and wondering how I would get by without them and why *anyone* would choose to live in a small town.

But as we settled in I started to realize some things… my kids could walk to their elementary school one block away, something people living in sprawling suburbs never dream of.  And I went from spending an hour a day sitting in traffic to getting antsy if their were two cars in front of me at the stop sign. My kids could ride their bikes almost anywhere in town without me being afraid, and they could sign up for any sports or summer activities they wanted without tryouts and waiting lists.

And we found places to eat, and guess what – most of the time it was the same kind of stuff we were eating in Minneapolis except we didn’t have to stand outside for 30 minutes waiting for a table. Things, I realized, seemed to be looking up. We even found a few favorite spots, places where people remembered us from the last time, and this town I had started out dreading was starting to feel downright homey.

Shopping malls and all that started to fade away as something I lamented – I realized that was just *stuff* and I knew where to find it if I needed it. But what I had traded it for was a life, a life that included more time looking at my kids instead of a windshield in a place where my family has an identity beyond our house number on a mail box.

I don’t remember when it happened because the feeling kind of snuck up on me, but one day someone asked me if I liked living in Winona and I heard myself say, “Yes, I really do.” Then I fainted. Just kidding.

But seriously, I realized that the people here are blessed in a way that urbanites can’t imagine until you live it. This community is big enough to have a little anonymity if you want it, but small enough to find familiar places and faces five minutes from home.

Even better, the past few years have seen the arts blossom here with the introduction of the Great River Shakespeare Festival and the Minnesota Beethoven Festival and the Minnesota Marine Art Museum and the Frozen River Film Festival, not to mention the abundance of live music downtown at places like Ed’s No Name Bar…  and suddenly the Twin Cities is coming to us for arts and culture. How cool is that?

As a former Twin Citian who couldn’t imagine Winona being half as good as her life in the Twin Cities, let me tell you, I might think it’s cooler than anyone, because I know now this life is more like twice as good and growing.

Winona has room to move and beautiful spots for contemplation

Steamy. That’s a pretty good word for this summer. It’s been the kind of hot where a mist hangs over the river in the morning and clings to the bluffs because the air is so fat with moisture there is just nowhere for it to go. One 85 degree day has rolled into the next for weeks on end, and while the heat has sent some scampering for air conditioning, the rest of us are taking full advantage of Winona’s greatest gem – the Mississippi River.

The Mississippi channels a breeze up through the river valley that transforms a steamy day into a glorious one, and for boaters and swimmers this summer has been a little slice of heaven. No, a big slice. Perfection, even.

The Mississippi along this stretch is chalk full of little islands owned by no one with smooth beaches that anyone can just pull up on to cook some hot dogs and take a dip in the cool water. There is a whole river community of boaters, many of whom have never met before, who form quasi neighborhoods on these little islands for a day or even just an hour to soak in what is unquestionably the epitome of boating heaven.

I know that some places, elsewhere on the Mississippi that will go unnamed, have a reputation for being overrun by rowdy party boats that blast Eminem and devour the peace, but this is not that piece of river. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of people take to the river with their floating nightclub, and I may or may not have been on one of those boats recently, but here’s the thing — we have so much river that there is room for everybody to congregate with their own and leave large patches of peacefulness for those who crave it.

The fingers of backwaters that snake along beside the main channel are perfect for little ones on tubes or those crazy banana boats that usually launch me flying into the water. Water skiers and wake boarders have miles and miles of calm water, and on especially calm nights even the barefoot water skiers are out defying the laws of physics on channels that look like glass.

I love to watch them, but you will never find me being dragged by a boat unless I’ve been kidnapped and I’m being punished for something. Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s easy, right? Well I’ve tried, most recently humiliating myself on a boat of barefooters who somehow convinced me with their cool water tricks that everyone can do it. Um yeah. After I face-planted a few times at 30 miles per hour, drank most of the Mississippi and pulled both my arms out of their sockets I decided that probably wasn’t true.

But I still love the Mississippi – how can you not? As the sinking sun turns the river into a copper ribbon and blue herons glide overhead looking for their night roost, it is impossible to not be struck by the sheer magnificence of what we have here and how lucky we are to have these hot summer days to enjoy it.

Well let me tell you.

People drove all the way from the Twin Cities last week just to see what was going on at Winona’s levee thanks to a home run by Visit Winona.

That home run was attracting replicas of the Nina and the Pinta to our dock where they parked all week long. These are boats that have been all over the Western Hemisphere, boats so awesome, so exact in their design, that one has been used in a Hollywood movie about Columbus. And they came to Winona.

Here is what’s so great about that: For the Columbus Foundation, the company that runs the boats, Winona was one of their most successful destinations during a past tour, and that’s compared to ports even in enormous metropolitan areas that the boats visit. While they only stayed for a couple of days in places like Panama City, Florida, and Rochester, New York, they scheduled extra days to be here because Visit Winona literally told just about everyone in Minnesota that they were coming. And oh my gosh, did people come. There were thousands of people down at the levee last week, some just gawking, others opting for a tour of the vessels.

And here’s what’s so great about that: Winona has a beautiful park along its levee, aptly called Levee Park, with trees and benches and picnic tables and blooming flowers, but it’s a little gem I think even Winonans forget we have sometimes. For Winonans and visitors to town alike, a stroll through Levee Park to get to the boats undoubtedly left them admiring the pretty space and thinking it would be a nice place to while away a little time.

Out of town visitors had to have a moment of admiration for Winona during their visit, not just because of our beautiful levee, but because we had a nationwide attraction sitting at our dock, an attraction that was skipping a place like the Twin Cities so it could stop here for a little longer.

That, folks, is pretty cool.

I have to say this – I’ve lived here for almost 16 years and have watched as Winona underwent the transformation from an unheard of river town to a tourist destination. The visit by the Nina and the Pinta exemplifies how far we have come, and how hard work and vision can reinvent a community into a place that everyone has heard of and every community wants to be.

Vision. The Great River Shakespeare Festival, the Minnesota Beethoven Festival, the Frozen River Film Festival, the Minnesota Marine Art Museum… all have sprung to life during the past decade thanks to vision and the embrace of this city’s leaders, and today Winona is on the lips of people from hundreds of miles away. The Nina and the Pinta are just the latest brilliant tool to beckon the world to visit our little island city and see for themselves why people think this place is so great. And people came. In droves, even. And after lounging on our scenic levee for a spell I bet they could feel that greatness, and I have a feeling they’ll be back for more.

The Nina is an incredible replica of Columbus' ship

I love it when people have good ideas. I extra love it when those good ideas become something real and wonderful.

We in Winona love our river, our bluffs and our arts – they are like the heartbeat of this community. When voters of Minnesota approved the Legacy legislation, nobody celebrated more than this town. Doled out in the form of hundreds of grants, Legacy dollars will improve Minnesota clean water, land conservation, parks and arts, and as luck would have it, Winona has all of those things in spades.

This weekend is Legacy Weekend, a time when everyone touched by a little Legacy money comes together to show off how important this initiative is. If you’ve been looking for a chance to enjoy everything good about Winona this weekend is definitely it. If you’ve been looking for a way to do it for free, you’d better get in your car and get here right now.

Here is what we’re going to celebrate:

Water. Lots and lots of water.

Huck Finn Family Fest at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum Saturday will give kids the chance to wet a line in Mr. Finn’s Mighty Mississippi with a little help from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, while their families bask in the glorious prairie gardens that rim the museum. The DNR will also teach folks how to identify snakes, by the way, which some of us think is supremely creepy but will probably be an awfully big hit with kids. And it’s free, which will probably be an awfully big hit with parents.

Paddle Lake Winona to your heart’s content in a borrowed canoe or kayak this weekend too, with the free boats down on East Lake all day Saturday and until 2 p.m. Sunday. Winona, which is home to the renowned We-no-nah Canoes, is graced with two beautiful, peaceful lakes that create the perfect setting for a serene paddle, and by the time you’re done you’re going to want to buy one of these sleek babies.

History, history and more history.

With a stunning new addition now greeting visitors, the Winona County Historical Society is the belle of the ball when it comes to preserving the legacy of Winona. Saturday you can visit the new History Center addition to hear about the start of land conservation around Winona, which is actually a pretty interesting story about two men and their determination to preserve the splendor of the Mississippi by purchasing its land and protecting it from development.

But the History Center is just one of the interesting offerings of the Historical Society, with the rural Bunnell House and Arches Museum inviting visitors over the weekend too. And down river a bit, the Pickwick Mill in tiny Pickwick will give tours this weekend too, offering a glimpse of one of the flour-milling powerhouses of the past century.

And, of course art. Really seriously good art.

Cultivate your own love affair with the Great River Shakespeare Festival thanks to some free tickets for weekend shows. And I mean free. Now you’ll have to show up at the Winona Public Library and ask for them, and there are only 50 to be had so you’d better show up early. But even if the tickets are gone by the time you get there, have a look around, because that building is really beautiful and a legacy in Winona of its own.

And whether you are going to a Shakespeare performance or not, soak up the vibe at one of the pre-show free concerts on the green at the Winona State Performing Arts Center. Great music, good company and a beautiful setting – free doesn’t get any better than this.

And this Legacy Weekend will be your last chance for a while to see one of Winona’s treasures – the stunning and probably priceless theater drops at the Masonic Lodge. Drops and Drama, Saturday at 1 p.m., makes use of some of about 100 breathtaking theater scenes that have been carefully preserved for a century. This year the production is about Norse mythology, and I’m excited to see which drops will help them set the scene. The drops need restoration and may not be available for a while, so if you want to see what a legacy looks like you’d better do it Saturday.

The truth is that Winona has done a good job preserving its legacy of art and nature, and today we are blessed to live in a place few other towns can replicate. Legacy Weekend just gives us the perfect stage to show off the wonderful things we have and share with the world how rich a legacy can make a city be.

For more information about Legacy Weekend and for a full schedule, go to www.visitwinona.com.

And stay tuned – I’m getting ready to write about a whole different legacy – the kind that a guy named Christopher Columbus started sailing the ocean blue, and that people will get to see up close and personal starting a few days from now…

Winona, the beautiful island city

You asked – I listened. It’s time to talk about donuts.

Not just any donuts, mind you, but the kind that melt in your mouth with their sweet goodness, the kind that will make a line out the door Saturday morning, the kind people in Winona have been dipping in their coffee for 86 years.

Okay, honestly, I don’t dip donuts in my coffee, I think it’s kind of, um, weird. But I know an awful lot of people who do, especially those moist little cake donuts, and someday I’d like to investigate how such a peculiar practice got started. I mean, did somebody accidentally drop a piece of donut in their coffee one day and fish it out and think, “Oh my gosh, this coffee donut is extra fantastic…” Agh, I don’t know, but anyway…

Bloedow’s. Just say it and every single human being in Winona knows what you’re talking about. Sitting on the corner of Broadway and Laird streets east of downtown, the pre-dawn aroma from this bakery has created its own valley, lovingly called Bloedow’s Valley, whose borders change depending on which way the wind blows. I can’t live there, because if I did I’d be in the line at that bakery’s door every morning at 7:30 and, well, I think we know how that would turn out.

The place is legendary. I meet people sometimes who have visited Winona once and somehow stumbled upon Bloedow’s during their stay, and I absolutely swear there are people who say it is why they want to come back.

If you haven’t been there, you might be wondering why. I mean, donuts are donuts, right? Ooooooh noooooo. Allow me to explain: These are old secret recipes that have been perfected since 1924. There are no shortcuts, no mass production, just handmade batches every day that are *still warm* if you get there early enough. Oh man, that’s a.m.a.z.i.n.g.

Which Bloedow’s product is the best will actually spawn debates around Winona, but I think the maple long johns have that contest handily. From the 400 or so that I’ve sampled I’m going to have to agree. There is something about the icing that is really, really special. It’s sweet, but not too sweet, and mapely and rich and and and… sigh. But then there is also the peanut butter roll fan club, and the sugar cookie camp, and the jelly-filled groupies, and frankly all that banter gives one a perfectly reasonable excuse to try them all.

If you don’t believe me that Bloedow’s is legendary, try Googling it some time. It has it’s own Facebook fan page.  People from all over the country have reviewed Bloedow’s on all kinds of travel sites, and folks, that is some real Bloedow’s love. This one from a guy named Ben is my favorite: “Simply incredible. Worth the trip. The long john’s can’t be matched. I can’t even write a full sentence because of the thought of how good Bloedow’s is.” Haha. I feel your pain buddy. I’m sitting here trying to describe how great one of these donuts tastes, when it would probably be easier to drive to every one of your houses and hand you one to try for yourself. Of course, I’d keep one for myself, because all this donut talk has made me awfully, awfully hungry.

I don’t have any pictures of donuts, but I wanted to share a couple of pretty shots from around Winona – man this place is beautiful…

From the air over Winona - gorgeous!

Stunning view from Great River State Park area

Article posted by Minnesota Citizens for the Arts

What a great idea!

Winona community leaders and businesses are drawing both attention and tourists with a weekend of community arts and outdoor events. That may not be surprising. But what makes this weekend unique is that each event demonstrates the impact of the Clean Water, Land & Legacy Amendment approved by Minnesota voters in 2008.

Winona’s “Legacy Weekend” is being organized by the Great River Shakespeare Festival (GRSF), in partnership with the Winona County Historical Society, conservation partners and Visit Winona for July 23-24, 2010.

“Winona has both great outdoors and arts opportunities made possible, in part, by Legacy grants, and we thought it would make a fun weekend to combine them to give people access to all of the great things happening with the Amendment in Winona,” said Laurie Flanigan-Hegge, GRSF Advancement and Community Development Director. “It’s a positive thing for our area.”

The Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment created new resources for land conservation, water conservation, parks and arts. The state agencies given responsibility to manage these funds by the state legislature have just completed the first year of grants made possible by the amendment.

The weekend features a series of arts and historical events put on by organizations that have received grants from the Legacy amendment. (For more times, dates, and locations go to VisitWinona.com):

· The Great River Shakespeare Festival is offering four productions over three days; The Comedy of Errors, Othello, The Daly News, and It Goes Without Saying, with both afternoon and evening shows available, at the Winona State University performing Arts Center at 125 Mark St.

· The Great River Shakespeare Festival is also offering FREE outdoor family friendly concerts at 6:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. These events are made possible, in part, by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board from the Legacy Amendment’s Arts and Culture Fund.

· Theatre du Mississippi, also a grantee of the Minnesota State Arts Board from Amendment funds, is offering “Drops and Drama” at the old Masonic Temple at 255 Main Street, featuring historic 1909 hand painted theatre backdrops presented with great music and dramatic readings. A truly unique experience! (Sat. at 1).

· It’s opening weekend for the Winona County Historical Society’s new museum wing in the History Center downtown (160 Johnson, St., Winona, Fri. 9-5, weekends 12-4). The Bunnell House, an outstanding example of Gothic architecture (on highway 61 at Homer, 10-5 Fri. & Sat., 1-5 Sun.) and the Arches Museum of Pioneer Life, a furnished log home, barn and school house from the 1860s (located between Stockton and Lewiston, 1-5 all three days) will be open for tours. The History Center alone has three floors of exhibits. These events are made possible, in part, by a grant from the Minnesota Historical Society from the Legacy Amendment’s Arts and Culture Fund.

· The Winona County History Center will also host Mike Kennedy on July 24 at 1 p.m. He will give a talk on the lives of conservationist Will Dilg and philanthropist John Latsch in Wanek Hall.

The weekend also features outdoor activities that demonstrate the local uses of Amendment funds:

· The Winona Park Recreation Department will offer FREE canoeing and kayaking on East Lake Winona. The boats are housed at Lake Lodge, which is at the foot of Main Street. (Fri. 4-8, Sat. 8-8, Sun. 8-2). This event draws attention to the new state water testing regimen funded by the Legacy Amendment. With limited funding, many waters in our state, including Lake Winona, have not been tested or cleaned up if polluted. With the new Legacy dollars, every lake and river will now be tested once every 10 years so that clean up plans can be developed and implemented wherever needed.

· The FREE Huck Finn Family Fest will be held on Saturday, July 24 from 10 to 1 along the Mississippi River, (by the Marine Art Museum) and will offer free fishing lessons for the kids provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There will also be kid’s educational activities “How to Identify Snakes in our Area” and “Stream Tables: Create a Miniature River Basin”, offered by the DNR and Winona State University Geology Dept, respectively. The activity highlights work being done with Legacy dollars upstream where clean up plans for the Lake Pepin and St. Criox River watersheds are currently being developed. If implemented successfully, this work will have dramatic impacts on river water quality in Winona and beyond.

· A FREE self-guided scenic tour of bluffs in Winona and the surrounding area show the benefits of $500,000 in new Legacy funding that the Minnesota Land Trust will use to permanently protect similar landscapes along the nearby Root River. Visitors can take a walk to visit Sugarloaf Bluff in Winona’s Memorial Park or go 12 miles south to Great River State Park to experience King’s Bluff and Queen’s Bluff. Each of these bluffs and the valuable wildlife habitat they contain have been previously protected and preserved through state and local efforts.

· Fifty FREE tickets to the Great River Shakespeare Festival shows will be available at local libraries on a first come, first serve basis.

Coincidentally, Columbus replica ships the Pinta and Nina will also land in Winona’s Levee park over this same weekend. The ‘Nina” was built completely by hand without the use of power tools, and Archeology magazine called the ship “the most historically correct Columbus replica ever built.” Both ships tour together as a new and enhanced ‘sailing museum’ for the purpose of educating the public and school children on the ‘caravel,’ a Portuguese ship used by Columbus and many early explorers to discover the world.

The Great River Shakespeare Festival is currently in its seventh season. The result of a unique collaboration between Festival founding directors, civic and business leaders, corporations, foundations, individual donors, and a 300-plus member strong volunteer organization, the Festival has attracted over 60,000 attendees since its 2004 inaugural season. In addition to its professional company productions, GRSF offers free weekend concerts (co-produced with Theatre du Mississippi), a host of education and community outreach events, and this season, its first non-Shakespearean production, the new WWII musical, The Daly News. Call for tickets: 507-474-7900.

Contacts:
Pat Mutter, Visit Winona, pmutter@visitwinona.com, 507-474-4151
Laurie Flannagan Hegge, Great River Shakespeare Festival, lauriefh@grsf.org, 507-474-7900 Ext. 116

Attention muscle heads, old car buffs and anyone who likes to eat ice cream while they look at shiny pretty stuff:

If you have not been to Cruise Night at the Lakeview Drive Inn you are missing out. Seriously.

I don’t know how it got started, but every Wednesday night all summer long the parking lot at Lakeview is filled with cool old cars and a sea of people gawking at them. There are hot rods and street rods and flashy paint jobs and some motorcycles to boot, and driving into that parking lot on Cruise Night is like getting teleported straight back to 1955.

But see, it’s not just the cars that do it. The Lakeview Drive Inn on Sarnia Street next to Lake Park is iconic – a landmark – an institution in Winona. It is Winona’s oldest restaurant, opened in 1938 by Emil Berzinski. Emil had this secret recipe for root beer, and nobody knew how he made it but everybody loved it. Back in those days a hot dog was a nickle and a root beer float was a dime, and Emil prided himself on the Lakeview’s homemade freshness. More than 70 years later, Emil’s root beer stand is still going strong, owned by the Glowcsewski family and treated with the same kind of pride Emil poured in 70-something years ago.

A root beer float isn’t a dime anymore, but a car hop will still bring it right out to your window, sometimes even on roller skates. I have to say, I admire those girls a great deal, because if I tried to do that when I was 17 I’d be laying on the ground a lot with root beer all over me. Okay, you’re right – if I tried to do it today it would be even more disastrous. I tip the girls with skates on extra because they’re really good at it, and because I know the only tip people would give me would be that I should take off the roller skates.

Anyway – in a world where chain food has gobbled up mom and pop places and fresh has been overtaken by mass production, the Lakeview Drive Inn has it going on, secret root beer and all. No neon signs, no obnoxious animal spokespeople, no jingles that stick in your head and make you feel like you might go insane (and you know which ones I’m talking about) — just warm, folksy charm and really flippen awesome root beer. And burgers. I love their burgers. And their onion rings.

Sitting at the Lakeview Drive Inn feels like the way this country used to be 50 years ago – or at least what I imagine it felt like (because I’m not 50, thank you very much, but I *have* seen Happy Days). Maybe that’s why Cruise Night became such an incredible hit and all those people started pulling up in their cool rides – Lakeview reminds everyone of the old days and the old ways, the only thing missing was the cars.

Learn more about it for yourself at www.lakeviewdriveinn.com

The Lakeview is filled with old cars like this on Cruise Night

Oh.My.Gosh. Shakespeare fever.  Winona has it, and there is no cure except for a seat in the Performing Arts Center sometime in the next seven weeks or so. The cast from the Great River Shakespeare Festival has been out and about whetting the appetites of Winonans for their beloved festival, most recently at the Champagne and Chocolate event at the beautiful Alexander Mansion, and the tiny teases were enough to put Winona in an all-out frenzy.

Chocolate, Shakespeare and Champagne is a graceful soiree that plies would-be festival goers with, you guessed it, champagne and chocolate, while giving them a sneak peak at snippets from the upcoming plays. Set against the backdrop of the absolutely regal Alexander Mansion Bed and Breakfast, guests mingle with actors and other Shakespeare lovers while they nosh on dark chocolate and bubbly, and the event is supposed to raise a little money for the Winona County Historical Society and build momentum for the festival’s opening day.

People are so enamored with the Great River Shakespeare Festival they were willing to stand *in the rain* to watch previews of the plays. I’m going to hazard a guess that organizers could pretty much serve Hamm’s Beer and pretzels, or tap water in a Styrofoam cup, and people would still flock to this event. I’m telling you, it’s Shakespeare fever, and Winona’s got it bad.

If the Great River Shakespeare Festival plays were soccer teams, we’d all have jerseys of our favorite actors and fans would be fighting outside of the Performing Arts Center over whether Othello could take Egeon. Thankfully that’s not the case, because Winona’s police department doesn’t have time to deal with that kind of thing and frankly, it’s hard to fight in a dress. But if I had to, I’m totally down with Othello on that one.

Right now the cast and crew is in Tech Week for the productions, which translated means they are working night and day to put the finishing touches on every lighting, costume and performance detail. It’s a bone-tiring process – if you’re nice you should drop some cookies or energy drinks off at the Performing Arts Center for them this week, and if you see someone from the festival out and about give them a hug – they need it.

I got to sit through part of a rehearsal for The Comedy of Errors last week, and folks, this is going to be big. The set is cool and the performance was vibrant and funny and and and… Okay, I admit it, I’ve got the fever too, but I’m telling you, when you see a little bit of it you can’t help it. It’s very, very contagious and the only cure is to go to the plays. See you there – I’ll be the one with the Othello jersey on

Oh yeah, and if you like money, buy a GRSF button by the end of opening weekend. You could win $1,000, which is enough money to see an awful lot of plays. The button is lovely and worth $5 all by itself, but this year the Will’s Opening Weekend committee has attached a raffle to it that will give somebody a big pocket full of cash. And if you win, remember who told you about it…

And take a peek at this post again Monday to see some of the awesome pictures I took at last week’s rehearsal…

I’ve been holding out on you.

After all these months I haven’t told you about my number one favorite place in Winona – what I think is its best kept secret. But you weren’t ready. Or, well, it wasn’t ready.

It’s a place where you can go to feel the sun on your face and the wind in your hair, where you can gaze across everything that is great about Winona. It’s a place where you can fall in love with nature and Winona and your date, if you bring one. And I suggest you do.

Sound big? Try 500 feet big.

I call it Date Rock.

Garvin Heights isn’t such a big secret – it’s a majestic overlook about 500 feet or so above the city of Winona. Lots and lots and lots of people snake their way up the road at the base of the bluff and Huff Street to get up to the Garvin Heights overlook. It’s great. It’s cool. But we’re not talking about that.

Go up to Garvin Heights, walk out to the overlook, but while everyone else is ogling Winona from the big wall, take the footpath that leads off to the left. It’s okay, you’re not trespassing, but wear good shoes or you’ll break your ankle. What you will hike past is a restored goat prairie, the pride and joy of biologist Carol Jefferson and her Winona State University students. Through an incalculable amount of work, they cleared away garbage and buckthorn to coax the native goat prairie back into existence. Mingled into this prairie is an oak savanna, gnarled oak trees that look like they just stepped out of a spooky movie, especially in the fog. In fact, I’ve scared myself silly up there a couple of times. But that’s another story. Anywhoo, it’s  an ecosystem so endangered there are only about 1% of nature’s original oak savannas left in the world, and Carol Jefferson found one buried on Winona’s bluff.

As you head down the path about 100 feet or so you will see a steepish slope off to the right – it holds a tower of rocks and a little bitty cave. Peek down there if you have sturdy footwear, you can even take a break from the sun by lounging on an enormous boulder hidden there by the trees. It’s pretty, and sort of other-worldly, but this is not your final destination.

Back out on the path, continue just a little farther past that stand of rocks and you will see it – Date Rock, spread out right on the edge of the bluff. It is actually two big, flat rocks, either one big enough for two people and a picnic blanket. On one side, the goat prairie and oak savanna roll off down the bluff, sprinkled with songbirds and brilliant prairie flowers. On the other side is Winona and the Mississippi River in all their glory sprawling into the distance as far as your eye can see. Overhead, red tail hawks and eagles catch the breeze, and as you lay on your back and close your eyes, you might spend a minute or two wondering how a place can be so beautiful.

You take your honey here for a picnic and I’m telling you, it’s a romantic home run. And if you’re afraid of heights, don’t worry, the rock is big enough and set back just far enough from the edge that even babies like me can handle it. There wouldn’t be any way in the world you could fall off unless you do something stupid like hang your toes over the edge, and if you do please don’t come running to me with your broken legs, because I told you not to.

This is IT, folks. The most magical place in Winona. I cannot drive down Huff Street and not look up and see it, reminiscing my wonderful hours whiled away there. Want to know how to spot it? Look up at Garvin Heights, then look to the right for a strange, squat little tree that looks like it’s sitting by itself. What you’re looking at is the tree right next to Date Rock, but trust me, the view is better from up there.

A prairie flower near Date Rock

Misty Oak Savanna