Oh hear that ol' piano

Not many men could carry off a rumpled white suit (might even have been off-white) and badly balanced red tie but somehow Garrison Keillor seems to find the words and mannerisms to make it work. He roams about the stage set of A Prairie Home Companion talking and singing effortlessly and apparently off-the-cuff (though sections of the script were constantly being carried on and off the stage by a man dressed in black, and sometimes handed to Keillor seconds before he read aloud from them.) It all shambled along like a a Dickensian banking office; people wandering in and out of the room carrying pieces of paper and looking vague, one hand running across the forehead, and Garrison Keillor conducting the whole show with a distracted air, like a man just doing his job. Which I guess he is. Of course under the water the feet are paddling furiously, and that's what I loved about it. It was flawless, sparkling and unpredictable without raising a sweat, indeed nothing more than a bushy eyebrow.
We got a mention, which was nice, sitting in our seats high in the second balcony; the only ones left when I got out of bed at six in the morning several months ago to book them online at the moment they went on sale. It was a special night, the first new show of the season so the live broadcast was followed by the annual street dance and meatloaf supper on Exchange Street in St Paul. I'd managed to keep that part of it secret from Carole and the kids, so it felt like a bonus and, for me, worth the flight to get there.
We stayed in a lovely (budget) hotel which used to be a railway station, and we ate our breakfast yesterday sitting on the old station platform. No such luck this morning as our shuttle driver arrived at 5.55am to take us to the airport. Breakfast in Chicago and lunch at Niagara Falls, but that's another story...

Waiting in St Louis

Yesterday we moved from balmy California across two time zones to the frozen tundra that is Minnesota. A restless and hot night in San Francisco in a cheap hotel room (with obligatory paper-thin walls) listening to a drunken tirade from a woman in the room next door. She settled down about 4 in the morning, by which time I was past caring.
Earlier in the evening we'd eaten tomato soup from hollowed-out loaves of sourdough bread and walked through a city of $2 shops on Fisherman's Wharf, caught a tram up the undulating streets and walked a mile back to our hotel, having completely misjudged where it was. The steep leafy streets and elegant houses are quite a contrast to the grubby concrete of Anaheim and the purposeful glitz of Las Vegas.
Our flight to St Paul went via St Louis and sitting in St Louis airport we realised that neither of us has a clue where in the US St Louis actually is. Do you ? Couple this with a growing uncertainty about which day it is and you have the perfect holiday.
The wait in St Louis went on and on, and there was no information. When we eventually boarded our pencil-thin aircraft the pilot apologised for the delay. President Bush had decided to fly through St Louis earlier in the afternoon and all flights were grounded or left circling 50 miles away until he was gone.
Our budget hotel in St Paul is an old railway station, complete with rails running through the lobby and a beautiful vaulted ceiling. No elevator however, so at midnight the four of us had to lug all our luggage up the stairs to our room. No mean feat having not slept the night before.
The kids are taking travelling in their stride, finding our way around airports, organising their own stuff, waiting patiently when the President jumps our queue, being adaptable and creative with a deluge of new experiences. Me, I just seem to get get more curmudgeonly as the years go on, though in a benign way I think.

I've been through the desert with a GPS called Sally

Garrison Keillor (about whom more later) does a great send-up of these devices. It takes him on unwanted detours, argues with him and willfully misinterprets his instructions, but is infinitely patient and forgiving, faithfully taking him (eventually) to his stated destination. We've named ours Sally, and I never want to be without her again when I'm driving. We tell her where we're going and she gives step-by-step instructions to turn left or right on to this that or the other road, anticipating lane-shifts and monitoring traffic flows, giving progress reports and even devising routes that involve as few left turns (think about it) as possible. Amazing. When I divert off her chosen route (as is my habit in life) she pauses just long enough for effect, then says 'Recalculating' with a weary sigh. She tirelessly recalculates, devising ingenious ways to get me back on track whilst giving the impression that my mistaken turnoff was, after all, the best route to our destination. A true friend.