Greater Than The Greatest Show On Earth?

We just got back from a long day in Grand Forks today. Joe mentioned going to the 7 p.m. showing of the KEM Shrine Circus at the Ralph Englestad Arena in Grand Forks and so I figured it would be a nice morning to sleep in today, but the phone rang at 8:45 a.m. and Joe was on the line to tell me he had good news and bad news. The good news was he had a free ticket for me to the circus from his father-in-law, Jim Goldsberry, as he is a Shriner, and the bad news was I had about 2 minutes to get dressed and out the door to drive to Grand Forks. We managed to get there about 5 minutes before the show started.

It was a three-ring circus complete with high-wire acts, tigers, elephants, ponies, and trained dogs. I was just as entertained by this circus as the old Barnum & Bailey Circus back at Key Arena. The main difference between circuses, though, was during the admission they gave the kids rides on the elephants, though we didn't do it this time. The arena was huge compared to the Ralph here in TRF. I was awestruck by the leaps in technology UND has made since I grew up around here. They have Subway, Dominoe's Pizza, and a huge gift shop where all three of us got Fighting Sioux hockey jerseys, matching green for the boys with white and black accents and white for me with green and back accents and an embroidered head of a Sioux warrior on the front.

We hit the road back to TRF about 1:00 this afternoon and on the way back just before the old farm, I drove by a nice brick sign with the name "Black River Lutheran" on it, so I pulled a U-turn and drove down the gravel road to the little church I haven't seen in some 22 years and visited Ray Mosbeck, my Godfather. For those of you "non-Hustad family" readers, Black River is a tiny rural church, one of those white steeple churches you see in the countryside when you take a roadtrip. It has a small cemetery next to it where the pioneering farmers of the area and their families are buried, including my Godfather. It dates back to the last decade or so of the 1800's and the building remains much the same as it did when I left in the early 80s. Aaron wanted to see the inside of the church and surprisingly the doors were unlocked, though nobody was there. We strolled through the church and I pointed out some things to the boys I remembered when growing up, including the sanctuary we had a Christmas program in for Sunday School. I signed the guestbook there and talk about a small world... About three or four lines above my entry was the entry of a couple that had visited last fall from Auburn, Washington of all places. There was another couple from as far away as Oregon and a lady from Galveston, Texas. It's just amazing how far flung the church's ties are given it's size and very remote location.

We just now got back at 3:00 after I took the long way home and showed the boys where I used to ride horse as a boy down the gravel roads around the old farm. They're getting pretty muddy out there and it was a bit treacherous with the Weasel, but we made it through okay. Now we can think of something else to do to keep the TV off for another day, which is challenging, as it has been raining all day for two days now. I didn't know how tough it could be without any TV until we ended up with back to back rainy days. Brings to mind Dr. Seuss. I think I'll read them the Cat in the Hat, as I think that was about two bored kids stuck inside on a rainy day. I hope this weekend dries up by tomorrow, though, so we have a dry football game on Monday. I heard it was going to be cloudy with a chance of meatballs... :o)