Last weekend in Loring Park, New Belgium Brewing (makers of Fat Tire & other fine malty beverages) held their Tour de Fat bike festival in Minneapolis. So we hopped on our bikes to check out this fine fest. It was quite the eclectic, crazy mix... people dressed up in all sorts of crazy stuff (anything goes), 2 stages with entertainment & obviously lots of New Belgium Beers to drink. It was a free event, other than the beer... and full of lots of fun! If it hits a town near you, you should check it out! (http://www.newbelgium.com/tour-de-fat) We took in a show knicknamed the "Honeymoon Caberet" & part way in, Mike was pulled up on stage... "yah, you... the tall guy in khaki shorts!" First they did this little trick with a kid... then they thought they'd try it with the over 6 foot guy!
And then he thought he was done.... not quite, he was too good a sport!
Oh what are they up to this time...
All the while, there was a lot of humorous banter between the 2 performers... between them & Mike's expressions, I was crying because I was laughing so hard!
And finally we figured out what she was up to...
After the big show, we wandered around some...
... found a sit-n-spin to try & eventually Mike & Brandon had to try out the area where there are no-so-traditional "bikes" to try out. They were made from anything & everything... some had wheels made of tennis shoes, some were tandems where they were side-by side or back-to-back, some were big bikes with little wheels & others big wheels with little bikes...
...this one was made from a folding chair...
... this was one of the "new ride" commuter bikes that have been launched all around downtown...
& this was a crazy 3-wheeled contraption.
It was fun watching people try to ride the bikes as some were very difficult to ride!
After the big festival, we got the canoe out on Lake Calhoun & canoed through Lake of the Isles over to Cedar Lake. We did the same thing on 4th of July & the kids wanted to go back. As we neared the swim beach, they wanted to jump out of the canoe & swim to shore...
We played / swam at the beach... but kept seeing people come down to the water who were covered in dry mud... like they had been in a mud bath at a spa. So we had to investigate! Turns out there is a natural mud bog just down a path from the beach that people frequent.
The kids had a ball mucking through the mud...
... we opted to not do the full body immersion as others were doing!
And then the toodling on the river began...
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