Saturday Single No. 152

Originally posted October 10, 2009:

The sun is shining, and it’s chilly outside, with a thin layer of snow on the ground. That won’t last long. I imagine by noon or thereabouts, the snow will have melted. By that time – long before then, I hope – the Texas Gal and I will have taken the highway north out of town for a brief Saturday excursion.

That’s something we haven’t done for a while: Take off on a Saturday morning, choose a direction and go. Recently, her coursework has taken priority, and I imagine there were weekends when my devotion to this blog has limited our time. But her list of assignments this weekend is short, and I will be brief this morning so we can head out.

This is not a major undertaking, a Saturday excursion, and we will not drive far. Our first planned stop is the small town of Pierz, not quite forty miles from here. The attraction? Well, there are a couple of antique stores/junque shops that are fun to poke around in, but the main draw is a meat market that offers the best bacon either one of us has ever had. Bacon is a Sunday tradition in our home, and the prospect of stocking up on Pierz bacon has us, well, not quite giddy, but very pleased.

After that, we’ll head east toward Mille Lacs Lake, one of Minnesota’s largest, hoping to see some fall foliage along the way. There’s a quilt shop in the small town of Wahkon that the Texas Gal wants to check out, and I imagine we’ll find other diversions along the way to Wahkon and then on our way back to St. Cloud. And there’s the prospect of lunch in a small-town restaurant where the fries are fresh and crisp and the menu holds a surprise or two.

So to get us on our way, here’s a song by a Canadian band named after its founder, Jerry Doucette, and it’s today’s Saturday Single.

“Down the Road” by Doucette from Mama Let Him Play [1977]