About 7:30 Saturday morning, Phil and I rose to await the arrival of my brother, Frank, sister Katy and her husband, Larry…..we were off to play tennis. What fun. By 9:15 it was getting hot for us old people, so we packed up the rackets and tennis balls and headed to Perkins for breakfast. There we had more fun, good food and stimulating conversation. Phil and I got back to the house about 10:30 and he looked at me and said, “Let’s take a ride down the river.” I said yes and we were off …. driving down along the Mississippi River on the Minnesota side. We passed through Hastings and on to Red Wing. Next was Lake City and one could hardly count the sailboats….there were so many. Lake City is where the Mississippi River widens into a lake. The ditches and fields along the highway were filled with beautiful, white Queen Anne Lace in full bloom. (That is just one of my favorite wild flowers.) The trees on the sides of the bluffs were lush and green. Our next stop was Wabasha where they were having a summer city celebration. We learned the parade would start at 6:00. After an ice cream cone, we headed to Winona. We found an A&W root beer stand and enjoyed hot dogs and root beer. Then we were off again, back to Wabasha for the parade. (Phil makes all of this kind of adventure so much fun.) He parked the truck and we walked across the street to where a few people were sitting on the curb. There was an empty chair and it was offered to me and soon another one showed up for Phil. (Minnesota-nice, right?) We enjoyed the conversation with these very nice people., and they enjoyed a bit of teasing from Phil. The parade was lead by the usual fire and city trucks with a troop of bagpipe players following behind them. (Phil played the bagpipes in the Zurrah Shrine Band some years ago so he especially enjoyed hearing them). There were lots of queens and princesses from various nearby towns. We did the “parade wave” they were doing. They laughed and enjoyed our waving at them. After the parade and thanking our chair-hosts, we headed home. We crossed the bridge over the Mississippi River and drove up Wisconsin 35 to Prescott. That is where the St. Croix and the Mississippi Rivers converge. Lots of interesting little towns to drive through along the way. The railroad follows the river and some of the little town residents have the railroad tracks running right along their back yards. At Prescott, we crossed back over the Mississippi River into Minnesota. A brilliant orange sunset was ahead of us as we pulled in our driveway about 9:30 pm. It was a great day starting with tennis and family and ending with a sunset. Phil makes these “seat of our pants” adventures wonderful.