Jazz--Now Hills

Winnipeg—Jazz, Duluth—Hills. It's a long way between these two cities. And they are very different, besides being on different sides of the border with different cultures. Winnipeg was a lot of fun. Duluth looks like it will be much slower for the night we are here.

The second night of the jazz festival in Winnipeg was more to our taste than the third group the previous night. Flo and the Flosoul Band in a cabaret had much more identifiable music, R & B. Turns out she is a member of a local Anglican church. We ended up sitting with three of her friends, a woman from Jamaica who had studied in the UK before coming to Winnipeg, and two other friends who were there to enjoy the jazz. We had the pleasure of meeting Flo after her performance.

The second act, Divine Brown, from Toronto, I believe, was brassy and bold, loud and extreme. She had a bit of Tina Turner about her, in a short dress with good legs, and her voice carried well, though it was muffled a bit by a sound system that needed some adjustment.

We had dinner at Earls, which our innkeeper, April Kassim, had words about. I said that Earls appears to be a place where one obviously goes to be seen. We sat next to a group that I assumed were beauticians. All in their 20s, two having their birthdays. Nice, but a bit cheap. 2 guys, five women. The others in the restaurant, outside in the lovely night air, were a few gays, lots of sportsmen, and lots of very good looking women...who were dressed in very high heels and very short skirts. April says the place is known for its very good looking female servers and very popular among the fashionable, if somewhat knock-off, crowd. Good calamari, dry ribs, pad Thai for Ben, salad with mangoes and chicken for me. Half liter of Okanagan Chenin Blanc. Bad, very bad, martini. Lime instead of lemon, vodka, not gin. Should have sent it back.

We had a good walk about Winnipeg. Along the Assiniboine River Walk, a walk we took yesterday, we were asked to participate with two women and a guy in a sexual sandwich! And a bit further, we stumbled on a gay cruising area. Further along we learned about Louis Reil, the province's first premier in 1869 when it sent folk to Ottawa to complain about being annexed into Canada by the Brits in the Confederation of 1867 without their permission, to be immediately given provincial status as Manitoba and a federal subsidy. Happy Ending. At la Fourche where the Red and Assiniboine come together, we watched clouds gather and stood under a huge tent listening to yet more jazz as hail fell in 1/4 inch (5 mm) ice pellets.

Got a couple of small sandwiches from the local market and walked back through the muddy trail to the Columns. The sexual sandwich though had vanished! Bologna.

No trouble at the border. Crossing Minnesota, not much of great interest. Very pretty. Some lake views. Thunderstorms always in the distance. Met a couple from California on their way to Vermont via Ontario who were walking their corgi at a lake-shore rest area on US Route 2.

Duluth, massive hills alongside Lake Superior. Matthew Burrow's 1890 Inn very Victorian with lots of stained glass, woodwork. Burrows made his money in the clothing business. Not as grand as the Columns, older by 15 years, but still shows the wealth of this old city, now mainly a transshipment port. I think I shall be Victorianed out by the time we get home though the innkeepers are delightful here and I await a brownie.

We shall go to Grandma's Restaurant for dinner along the shoreline of Lake Superior.
Duluth, of course, is tiny compared to Winnipeg, perhaps a tenth the size. But it clearly has history and all the downtown buildings are connected by skyways against the fierce winter.

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Dinner at Grandma's verandah outside was ordinary salad and hamburgers. But we got to see huge ore and coal carriers enter and leave the port as we ate.