Minnesota and Wisconsin June 2018:
Day 3 - St. Paul

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Minnesota and Wisconsin June 2018: [Day 1 - St. Paul] [Day 2 - St. Paul] [Day 3 - St. Paul] [Day 4 - Wisconsin Dells] [Day 5 - Madison]

	Saturday, June 9, 2018: After sleeping in and navigating the dorm showers again, we took our alumni coupon to the Highlander store to find some new Macalester swag. We left with a new short-sleeved shirt for Debbie.
	Then we headed to our van for another small field trip. We passed the Grandview Theater, home of Debbie's first movie date. Does anyone else remember that Eric Roberts classic, "King of the Gypsies?"
	It's a long-standing Bundlings tradition to eat at Leeann Chin when we're in town, so this time we tried the Highland Park location in the strip mall near where the Ben Franklin used to be in the 70s.
	The Highland Park Library on Ford Parkway has tripled or quadrupled in size over the years to become the Highland Park Community Center.
	Here's the old water tower that we saw across the golf course the day before.
	We passed Debbie's junior high school, ...
	... then her senior high school. For the first time ever, it occurred to her that she had never once set foot inside the little historic school that sits on the school grounds. Huh.
	We did a U-turn at the end of Snelling and drove past the football field. Highland Park is home of the Scots whereas Macalester College is home of the Fighting Scots. Big difference.
	Then we passed the new water tower we had seen the day before. Stop the presses! There appear to be TWO new water towers now, rendering one of them actually somewhat new.
	It took numerous attempts but we finally got a good photo of these cool Highland Park bike stands with a depiction of the old water tower.
	Back on campus, we had to search again for a parking spot. This top secret spot on the north Summit Avenue frontage road a block west of campus served us well for a couple of days. (Look carefully in the distance for the gorgeous grey minivan.)
	The original Dayton Hall was torn down long ago, and was replaced with George Draper Dayton Hall, nicknamed GDD. It finally occurred to Debbie that she didn't actually know where it was. A map directed us to its top secret location a block west of 30 Mac, somewhat facing Summit Avenue.
	It was raining slightly when we went to Dupre Hall for the M Club's water balloon launching contest.
	Here are our handsome hosts, including Debbie's friend Steve (left) from when she lived in an apartment building he managed right after her graduation.
	So the goal is to lob one of these water balloons ...
	... at school mascot Mac the Scot.
	Steve handed out ice cold PBRs to the adult competitors and graciously agreed to join our team if we wished to compete, which we did.
	This team demonstrated the proper technique.
	These girls did fairly well for their size.
	Check out the distance on this shot! It helped that they had a ringer on their team. Of course, so did we. Each of the three of us on Team Hoosier Daddy took our turn - Debbie wasn't very gifted, Steve had accuracy, and at Steve's suggestion, Tom was able to hit the sidewalk next to Grand Avenue.
	As the competition progressed, a few extra teams wandered up to play, despite the dreary weather.
	When all the teams were finished, Mac the Scot came up to give some high fives.
	The winning team was hilariously named Scot the Mac, and they posed for their victory photo.
	Back in the room, our hardware store sodas from the day before were nicely chilled, so we started out with O-So Strawberry, ...
	... and then enjoyed a Nesbitt's Honey Lemonade.
	Later in the afternoon, Treg produced another bottle of Scotch, and Karen, Dianne, Nancy, and we happily accepted some.
	Karin showed up with some leftover cupcakes from a family gathering earlier in the day.
	Dianne works for a travel bag company and was good enough to pose with some of her company's packing cubes that we brought along. In related news, this is only a small fraction of our collection of packing cubes. We love these things.
	Many classmates were over in the Wallace Hall lounge watching the three-hour lead-up to the Belmont Stakes, but TJ, Jeff, and Kevin stopped by the 30 Mac lounge for a bit.
	Nancy made a quick shopping run and came back with this excellent button for Debbie, which was just perfect for the woman who brought along six Spotlights, one commencement program, two vintage t-shirts, and four 1984 issues of the Mac Weekly.
	We headed over to the All-Class Social with Dianne, who decided to flag down a golf cart driver to deliver us to the Leonard Center in style.
	We snagged a table in front and classmates wandered up to join us over time. It was here that we discussed that it wouldn't be many more years before we were Golden Scots, the alumni celebrating 50+ years. Dianne declared, "When we're Golden Scots, we're going to own it. We're going to a spa and getting cat eye makeup." So let it be written, so let it be done in 16 years.
	It was open bar ...
	... which put all of us in an extra happy mood. Here are Karla, Lisa, Dianne, and Nancy.
	One of the highlights of the All-Class Social is getting piped to our respective class dinners. Volunteers stood by to lead their assigned classes, starting with the oldest classes, one by one.
	It's time for our cluster to go!
	We paraded through the Leonard Center, ...
	... down the stairs, ...
	... out around Shaw Field, ...
	... and even more around Shaw Field, ...
	... and into Olin-Rice Science Center.
	Dinner was set up in a large open area of the building.
	Dianne suggested that we save seats at our chosen table by laying across as many of them as we could. Debbie was happy to help out. Look for her arm in the air on the other side of the table.
	Check out this cool sculpture hanging over the hall.
	Tablemate Karen took this photo of her and Debbie, ...
	... and this photo of us.
	Across the table were Chris and Pauline. Rounding out our table were Will, Dianne, and Nancy.
	On a table near us was this tribute to classmates who have passed away. It was very sobering.
	Before dinner, Debbie went for a stroll around the building. It's the same general shape as the original Olin Hall, but there is nothing recognizable inside anymore, which seems to be a recurring theme of this story.
	Here's a view of the dinner from the second floor.
	Before dinner, the hard-working reunion committee came up front to be introduced.
	While we ate this delicious dinner, ...
	... a slideshow of Mac photos was shown. Hey, the guy on the left is the same guy we saw in New Jersey two months ago!
	Sadly, the photos that Debbie sent in weren't included, but there were lots of good photos. Here's John's photo of all of his Spotlights, eight of which ended up at our house earlier in the week to be scanned.
	This old photo of Kevin shows just exactly how much his son now resembles him.
	Debbie was amazed to see two photos of Larry's - the tiny store a block from campus where we all went to buy snacks.
	A few well-placed queries resulted in Debbie getting the original photos, shown here. If you look closely at this photo, you'll see that a photo of the notorious Larry actually exists, even if only half of him is visible.
	Here's the store exterior. The original Turck Hall is just barely visible in the distance.
	The In Memoriam section of the program was touching and sad.
	Dino was one of the many classmates whose passing shook us up.
	The mood lightened when Doug and Jenny presented the "Two truths and a lie" segment of the program.
	"Which one of these people had both a freshman year roommate and a sophomore year roommate who dated the same guy?" It was Debbie, but the name of the gentleman wasn't revealed since he ended up not attending.
	When the dinner ended, the Great Mac Get-Together was just getting started. Normally held in a tent on the main lawn, it was moved to the Leonard Center. Dianne and Karen showed up with four delicious martinis for the ladies.
	Shelley got Debbie onto the dance floor to bust a move.
	They were quickly joined by more classmates.
	A woman named Jeanne from the class of 1968 (a Golden Scot!) joined them on the dance floor. Debbie noticed on her name tag that her maiden name was Schilling and they instantly bonded. Jeanne went to get one of her fellow Golden Scot classmates, Barbara, who is also a Schilling, and they posed for several photos together.
	After leaving the Leonard Center, we were cooling off on the front steps of 30 Mac when Dom showed up for his second night of DJ duties at 30 Mac. His playlist was on point and the party was raging in no time. He pulled out a bubble-making gun at just the right moment.
	At 1 AM, the party was still going and had overflowed into the outer lounges.
	With a very early morning departure time, we shouldn't have still been awake, but we were enjoying every possible minute with our friends before calling it a night.
	Eventually, we headed to bed (in the room right behind us in this photo) where we listened to the party in the lounge and another party in the courtyard outside rage on for another hour. We didn't mind at all. Day 4 >