It took some work to convince my friend Mark to go to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival with me last year. His sole experience with renaissance festivals was limited to his teenage summer job at one in Florida, at which he grilled giant turkey legs. I finally assured him that our trip together wouldn’t expose him to temperatures hot enough to smelt iron ore, and so we were off.
Nordic Ware – a Well-Known Name in Minnesota and Around the World
Nordic Ware is a family-owned, American manufacturer of kitchenware products. Celebrating 73 years in business in 2019, this local company manufactures and markets an extensive line of quality cookware, bakeware, microwave and grilling products and specialty kitchenware that is distributed worldwide.
North American Bear Center
The North American Bear Center in Ely, Minnesota is an ursine Eden, two and a half acres full of everything that black bears like. They’ve trees to climb, clover to loll on, and a pond to go sploosh in. There are bunchberries, chokecherries, and hazelnuts, and plenty more exotic snacks doled out by the caretakers. There are even other bears. To see the bear getting along exactly how it would most like to, you couldn’t visit any place better.
Torgerson Auto Center
Next to your home, your vehicle is the most important thing that you have. Your livelihood depends on it, and, when you’re driving around in a place like North Dakota, your life itself depends on it as well. Your vehicle is also a point of pride. It’s a simple but important pleasure to to drive something that you like.
Getting a great deal feels good too, and when you get one on your next car or truck at Torgerson Auto Center, you’ll know it doesn’t just appear great on its surface. The locally owned and operated dealership doesn’t cut costs by cutting corners or taking advantage of their customers. They do it by tirelessly searching for the best pre-owned vehicles, investing in top quality maintenance tools and equipment, and earning their customers’ trust the only way that deserves to.
Mission Manor
Escape rooms are phenomenal. In one, you are asked to believe you’re in a scenario which requires that you solve a series of intricate puzzles in order to leave within the allotted time. You scurry around like a dog at a deli, looking for anything that seems remotely interesting and straining to see how it fits into the bigger picture. It’s like a real life video game.
RENT
Conservatives in the literary world may claim to prefer their plays unadulterated, but without the occasional update to a classic work we would be missing so much. One would shudder to imagine theater without West Side Story, an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, and we’d all be much poorer off without The Muppet Christmas Carol. Rent, an adaptation of Giacomo Puccini’s La Boheme by Jonathan Larson, is in that same boat, and it’s one of the glowingest examples of how setting a classic in the modern era can so greatly improve upon it. (Let’s keep Madama Butterfly intact forever, though.)