As I wait for Oliver to make it across the Atlantic, I realized as I was driving home this week that next month with mark forty years since I got my learner’s permit to drive. A few observations:

• Mr. Toad isn’t the only one with a mania for motor cars
• Only two moving violations – one in Florida and one in Wisconsin
• My first used car was a Dodge Colt
• Other makes we’ve owned: Oldsmobile, Toyota, Honda (many times) & BMW/Mini
• My parents loved Volkswagens, but I’ve never purchased one
• The new Mini will likely be my last gas engine, manual transmission car
• It’s really a miracle that so many drivers get so many places daily without more accidents

Be safe and motor on…

The phrase has become a cliché in Minnesota, but I still think the namesake song is one of the prettiest that Prince ever produced.

After Jon Cheng gave them three stars in the Star Tribune and SK’s crew went for a visit, Colleen and I decided to make chef Soleil Ramirez’s Crasqui our latest night out. We had an opening 5:00pm reservation tonight and were a little nervous when the lovely dining room was mostly empty. That changed by the time we left, but please get the word out that this is the real deal. We need to support the local chefs doing good work in our communities so we can continue to have nice things here in our little corner of the world.

Don’t have too much to add to the Cheng review – Colleen loved the sea bass pictured in his story and I very much enjoyed the pork chop with mora sauce and fondant potatoes (that sauce was a perfect pairing to the meat). I had the calentaito cocktail (4 roses whiskey, diplomatico mantuano, banana liqueur, velvet falernum, bitters) and had both the tequeños cheese sticks and the beef empanaditas for appetizers. In the sides section, I had the rice with Venezuelan sofrito, while Colleen had the seasonal veggies (broccolini). With all the holiday sweets still at home, we skipped the dessert section this time.

Housed in a former Catrinas Grill location next to the Starbucks in the West Side Flats apartment complex, Crasqui is easy to get to from downtown Saint Paul and has a large free parking lot accessible from Wabasha. We loved the aquamarine floor and our server was friendly and knowledgable. Named for an island off the coast of Venezuela, this is a nice addition to the dining scene in Saint Paul.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Update: Jess Fleming from the Pioneer Press also had Crasqui in her 2023 favorites story

It’s the time of year when people start looking back at best of lists and pondering resolutions for the coming year. I thought maybe I’d go at this a little differently today: what are the most important days of my life (so far)? A few of these are no brainers, but narrowing it down to seven was tougher than I thought. So out of the 20,064 days up to this point, here are the top seven I picked:

• 01/19/1969 – a Sunday in Lawton, Oklahoma (high: 46F, low: 35F). Baby DK born in the Fort Sill army hospital.
• 12/14/1991 – a Saturday in Saint Paul, Minnesota (high: 21F, low: 10F). Married Colleen at City Hall.
• 10/08/1995 – a Sunday in Saint Paul, Minnesota (high: 59F, low: 35F). Finished Twin Cities Marathon in 4:42:52 – my first of 27 marathons.
• [Date Redacted] – a Tuesday in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Kid one was born.
• [Date Redacted] – a Friday in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Kid two was born.
• 02/04/2018 – a Sunday in Minneapolis, Minnesota (high: 1F, low: -2F). Career highlight – successfully hosted Super Bowl LII at U.S. Bank Stadium.
• 10/8/2018 – a Monday in Minneapolis, Minnesota (high: 54F, low: 47F). Survived an aneurysm on the stadium train platform.

Seize the day! Wishing everyone a safe and prosperous 2024…

The lottery website has been a disaster today – guess there are a lot of people wanting to enter their losing 2nd chance codes from Christmas scratchers…

Realized recently that I need to do a better job of writing up vacation summaries so I have something to go back to in the future when people ask about places we’ve visited. I get so caught up in posting individual things when we are on the road that I know things have been lost. From now on, I’ll still do those posts while traveling, but make sure to write a longform story with a full photo gallery when we get back. Don’t have these for our last two Hawaii trips, but here’s one for our recent quick trip to Nashville…

As I mentioned in my Oak Ridge Boys @ Ryman post, I needed to find a small window in my work schedule to celebrate our 32nd wedding anniversary. With a work concert scheduled on our actual anniversary (12/14), I decided to plan a two-day midweek trip just before that. I asked Colleen if she’d be OK with me surprising her on the destination and somehow we all managed to keep it a secret until she got to the gate.

We flew Delta early Tuesday morning, leaving MSP at 7:15am and arriving in Nashville at 9:35am (I kinda forgot both cities are in the same time zone). Picked up a Chevy something from the National Emerald Aisle and rolled into the Melrose location of Hattie B’s for some Nashville Hot chicken for lunch. Got there a little quicker than I expected, so we wandered the Publix grocery store across the street until the restaurant opened. It’s always fun to see what local items grocery stores carry in different parts of the country.

SK and I had tried the Hattie B’s at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas and I’m glad I picked this one to try in Nashville (Nashville Eater had a bunch of other options for Nashville Hot – Prince’s Hot Chicken and Bishop’s Meat & Three were also in my notes as possible stops). Colleen had the Southern “no heat” option, while I wimped out and tried the mild (which was Minnesota perfect). For sides, we shared the crinkle-cut fries, baked beans, creamy cole slaw and the Belgian waffles with honey butter. Would go back again in a heartbeat and based on the Tuesday lunch crowd, I’d say that’s a common opinion with the locals.

After Hattie’s, Colleen asked to go to Third Man Records, which I had totally blanked out as having a Nashville location (the other two are in Detroit and London). Turns out it was less than ten minutes away and we were browsing the small, but awesome store in no time.

In addition to the 1947 Voice-o-Graph recording booth made famous by the Neil Young album A Letter Home, this location also had a Mold-A-Rama machine “CURRENTLY OUTFITTED TO SCULPT A FIRE-ENGINE-RED MINIATURE MODEL OF JACK WHITE’S CLASSIC WHITE STRIPES-ERA AIRLINE GUITAR” and a performance space called the Blue Room Bar.

There wasn’t a ton of merchandise for sale, but there was a very high percentage of things I wanted to buy. Colleen made a record in the Voice-o-Graph, which pushed out a single side 45rpm platter, just as advertised. I restrained myself and only purchased a few stickers, but some of the clothes were very tempting. If Jack hadn’t made me so upset about his phone policy, I probably would’ve spent way more money there.

Next up, Colleen had a recommendation from a friend about the Johnny Cash Museum. It was also within 10 minutes of Third Man, so we parked in a lot nearby and were browsing the insightful displays early in the afternoon. Before this trip, I wasn’t super familiar with the layout of the popular downtown Broadway area, but this museum was just a block away from all of that (and also across the street from the main Goo Goo Cluster store, which we also visited).

The museum was well worth the $26 admission price for fans of the Man in Black and we both learned quite a few new things about him. It’s not a huge museum, but I think we spent about 90 minutes looking around (lots of pictures in the gallery below). The gift shop was a bit of a let down – don’t think either of us ended up buying anything.

We packed up and drove to our hotel to check-in and get ready for dinner. I had originally planned to book us at the Four Seasons Nashville, which was in development at the same time as the Four Seasons Minneapolis that I helped open. Instead, I got a reservation at the “Saint Paul Hotel of Nashville,” the Hermitage Hotel. Opened in 1910, this 5-star beauty is one block from the Tennessee state capitol and was home to the War of the Roses women’s suffrage movement.

We valeted the lovely white Chevy and went up to our very nice, historic room on the fourth floor (yes, we had room 420). Not much of a view, but the king-sized bed was very comfortable and there was an awesome chaise lounge at the foot of the bed that I loved. The fancy bathroom had a shower and large soaking tub, along with a TV built-in to the mirror (which was honestly kind of weird). We received turn down service, then headed to our dinner reservations at the hotel restaurant, Drusie & Darr by Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten (who also had a restaurant in Minneapolis at the Chambers Hotel from 2006-2009).

With our early 5:00pm reservation, we were the second table to be seated in the large, beautiful space. The host and our server were friendly and knowledgable. We ordered the burrata with cranberry compote as a starter, then had the simple prep salmon and cod with a side of mashed potatoes. The soy miso sauce served with my salmon was amazing. The little anniversary chocolate insert that they served with our dessert was a nice touch. The room had filled up by the time we left for the show (the bar was busy the entire time).

The Ryman was about a four block walk from the Hermitage, an easy ten minute hike in the relatively warm December evening. I already talked about the show itself in the other post, so I’ll just mention that the line to get in stretched all the way down the hill to Broadway, but moved quickly. After the show, we walked around the outside of building, but areas were blocked off by the tour busses. I had planned to have after-show drinks at the Nashville outpost of Attaboy, but we were tired and just walked back to the hotel and went to sleep.

My original plan was to sleep in on Wednesday, then hit Shotgun Willie’s BBQ for lunch before heading to the airport. Instead, I woke up early and took a solo walk around downtown, starting at the state capitol, then heading down to the Cumberland River and back up Broadway. Got pictures of city hall, the Cathedral of Seven Sorrows, Nissan Stadium (home of the Titans), the Hard Rock Cafe and the Nashville Apple Store, which is literally right next to the Ryman.

On my way back to the hotel, I stopped in at Rise Biscuits Donuts and picked up some breakfast sandwiches. Since we were still full at checkout, we decided to hit Shotgun Willie’s at the end of their hours (Wednesday through Sunday, 11am until 3pm or sold out) and go to the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere first.

Located about 20 minutes south of downtown, this zoo had some of the best interactive exhibits we’ve ever seen. Colleen got to feed and interact with a flamboyance of flamingos and we LOVED the Lorikeet Landing exhibit, where we made many new nectar-loving friends (including one guy who wanted to nest in my coat pocket). Other highlights included white rhinos, very active meerkats, a gibbon island and some cool saddle-billed storks.

Shotgun Willie’s was about 30 minutes away from the zoo in East Nashville (near Attaboy), but it also allowed us to drive by the Grand Ole Opry complex. Willie wasn’t kidding about the “or sold out” part of their hours, as we had a limited selection of what was left at 2pm. Colleen got the last of the chicken, while I tried the brisket. For sides, we had dill pickle potato salad, baked beans, cole slaw and Texas sheet cake. The staff here was amazing and they had a steady flow of people wanting to get the last bit of BBQ for the day.

It was a quick drive back to the airport and everything went smoothly from there (thanks, Delta!). Our plane back was an Airbus A220, which I don’t think I’d ever flown before. It was super nice and still had that new plane smell. Loved having the 2+3 configuration in the main cabin – Colleen and I had the A and B seats in our row and didn’t have to share with anyone else. A nice end to a nice trip…