Day 56 to 65 July 9 to July 17

Al's days

On July 9 I flew to Minnesota.  My first purpose was to go back for a dedication of the statue that our Rotary club is sending to be installed at the entrance to the Nagasaki Peace Park and Nuclear Holocaust Museum.  You can go to the St. Paul Rotary website to read more about this.  www.stpaulrotay.org.

The ceremony was at St. Paul City Hall and Courthouse.  It was well attended and went well.  We got a view on Channel 11 news.  You can see it at

http://www.kare11.com/video/1729466874001/49497128001/10pm-Newscast-7-10-12

It is about 6 minutes and 20 seconds into the broadcast.


Here are some photos.






I spent the next couple of days working around the house, being a home owner. 

Friday, July 13, Amy and I went canoeing on the St. Croix river.  It was a lot of fun.  It was fun to be canoeing on such a pretty river, but it was mostly fun to do something with my daughter.  I do enjoy spending time with her.

The other reason for going back to Minnesota was to see Amy and her team compete in the Dragon Boat races at Lake Phalen.  She is the captain of the team sponsored by Chinese Americans of Minnesota (CAM).  She did a lot of dragon boat racing when she was in Miami and has used that knowledge and skill to captain this team.  It was fun to be there and see the team race.

Starting the race

The team

It was good to be home, the best part was to see Amy for a while.  But, time came to head back to New York.  I left Minnesota on time on Airtran, but did not get to Atlanta on time for my connecting flight .  Evidently, there were thunderstorms and wind shear in Atlanta.  We flew around for a while and then started to get low on fuel, so were diverted to Knoxville.  We sat in the plane for 2 and half hours while they refueled the plane.  We got to Atlanta about 7 at night.  There was one more flight to New York, but they were overbooked.  So, I spent the night in Atlanta and flew out on Tuesday morning.  It was good to be home, I can tell you.

Sally's comments
I wrote separate entries for the days through the 16th. Al returned on the 17th, and I have no pictures for that day.  We went to Ice Age 3 in the evening.  Not as good as 1 or 2  The animals need to move again, of course, and the evil characters in this movie are a bunch of animal pirates.  The squirrel and his acorn are the most fun (perhaps they should give him his own movie?).  There was a wonderful short before the feature, which starred Maggie Simpson (the baby), and her trials and tribulations of going to day care. 

My recommendation- go for the Simpson short film, and don't have high expectations for Ice Age III.
A pleasant afternoon.