6/12-6/19 Captain's Log

Hello all!

Well, it's been quite a busy week in Aquatennial world...the busiest I've had so far. Five different cities in five nights. I feel like I'm a rock band on tour....."Hello Cleveland! Or wherever we are!"

OK, maybe not a rock band. We have yet to acquire groupies. But we're working on it. And a tour bus would be nice. Something with a fridge and a satellite maybe? What? It's not in the budget? OK, fine. I'll keep driving. Granite Falls, here we come!

Back to the start....last Thursday was the Princeton Rum River Festival Parade. This was one I was looking forward to. Princess Jenna and I fought off the Twin Cities traffic and headed up Princeton way where we met up with two of our Senior Ambassadors, Senior Princess Judy Holmquist and Vice-Commodore Patrick Bohmer. They were riding with Judy's daughter who lives in Princeton while Jenna and I rode with last year's Miss Princeton who was our driver in a nice, new, candy-apple red Corvette. Nice.

Princeton is near my hometown of Elk River/Big Lake and that whole area. My sister and her family live close to there as do several high school friends who we saw along the way. 32 years old and I still get heckled by the people I went to high school with. Oh well. It was all in fun.

Jenna and Lindsey in their Corvette....Nice

It was a beautiful night for a parade and (despite the mosquitoes hounding Jenna....nice perfume), we had a great time. Princeton had a very responsive and into it crowd. It's nice when the people you are waving at actually wave back and appreciate our being there. Really makes it fun.

Friday night we had to head to Cambridge for another coronation. Cambridge is a big deal...they have a terrific pageant and have had a lot of success in the Queen of the Lakes program over the years, sending fantastic candidates to Aquatennial every year and winning their share of ambassadors. Attending was almost our whole group....Captain Rob, Queen Charissa, Princess Tzvet plus senior Queen Ann Hair, Senior Commodore Doug Anderson, Senior Princess Judy Holmquist. Ann's husband Doug came as well. He was the Senior Commodore last year and he pinch hit as the escort for Judy.

We also were blessed with a great MC for the night...former Aquatennial Commodore in 2002 and President in 2007, Joe Johnston. A former Captain, Skip Nelson was also there and Skip is kind of our go-to-guy when we have questions and he helped get us trained in this past spring when we had no idea what we were doing! Not that we know now.

Anyway, my point was, this was a good night for me to get it right! I had to do the presentation (after Rob did the introductions) and hand out the Commodore's Awards. All went well (except for one of the award recipients going MIA that is but what can you do?) and we had a great time.

Of note is the Winter Carnival making an appearance and the Queen of the Snows, Brooke Stoeckel and South Wind Princess Erin Smith being from Cambridge. They are good friends of ours and it was nice to see such a warm reception for two great young women in their hometown. It also should be noted that Erin's little sister was one of the outgoing Cambridge ambassadors so you could say it runs in the family. She gave a very emotional farewell speech that was very touching. It's amazing to see what being ambassadors for these communities does for these young women. It's life-changing for a lot of them.

Next up was a photo shoot on Saturday morning. We all gathered at the Rec Center in St. Louis Park to take some shots that will be used during Aquatennial in the program and whatever else they need them for. Another beautiful day, we spent an hour trying not to squint (that was a failure) and smiling so much that it felt like your face was broken. Nobody said this stuff was glamorous! Actually, why would anyone think it's glamorous? I have no idea.

The Group Shot from l-R (back row first)
Jenna, Rob, Charissa, Lindsey, Tzvet
Doug, Ann, Mary, Judy and Patrick

Then we had the St. Louis Park "Parktacular" parade. St. Louis Park is where I call home now so it was nice to see a lot of neighbors and friends. Another great turnout and a great crowd!

On Sunday night, Princess Tzvet and I headed out to Fridley for the Miss Fridley pageant. Fridley is another town I have a connection to (are you getting the feeling I've lived everywhere? Well, I have). My Mom and Uncles graduated from Fridley and that is where almost 40 years ago, my Dad an Grandpa started the family auction business. I mentioned that while on stage and a couple of people came up to me afterwards and remembered my Grandma. Small world.

New Fridley Royalty with Tzvet and Me

Finally, as the world tour came to a weary end, Princess Tzvet and I were off to Paynesville on Monday. Paynesville is about 30 minutes west of St. Cloud (or almost 2 hours from Minneapolis...hello Cleveland indeed!) and a beautiful small city with what I've been told is quite the picturesque little lake, Lake Koronis. Captain Rob's wife, my WCCO co-worker and one of the all-time great people, Amy, has an Aunt and Uncle that live on the lake. John and Sheila Merrill host great parties for the family at their lake home and even though I have yet to make it (I will....just hasn't worked out!), I hear it's just fantastic.

I made sure I mentioned Sheila while onstage in Paynesville...she had two daughters participate in the Paynseville pageant, one crowned a queen, the other a princess. They're great people as was everyone in Paynesville. They can also boast the 2006 Aquatennial Queen of the Lakes, Katie Nelson who was there. It was nice to meet her and showed me once again that the Aquatennial knows what they're doing when they choose ambassadors. These are absolutely terrific young women.

New Paynesville Royalty with T zvet and Me

It was at about this point that Captain Lindsey hit the wall. The drive home was a long one and after getting home at 12:30 in the morning and getting to work at 7:00 AM Tuesday, I was spent. I think we all were. Rob, Tzvet, Jenna, Mary, Charissa....we were all over the place this weekend. Besides what I was doing, we had appearances in Fridley, Cottage Grove, St. Francis, Buffalo, Hutchinson and Albertville. We are in the middle of festival season right now and it's going fast! Believe it or not, we are one month away from Aquatennial! I'm already dreading having to say goodbye to Charissa, Jenna and Tzvet although I'm sure the next group of candidates will produce ambassadors ready to do us all proud.

That's it for now....I'm off to Granite Falls on Saturday with Princess Jenna for Western Fest. It's a day long festival with a morning Queen's Tea, a parade and coronation. Jenna heard we may get to see a rodeo as well. Here's hoping! I'll let you know how it goes next week. In the meantime, see you on the road and here's where we are appearing in the next week:

Brooklyn Park Tater Days on Thursday 6/19
Oakdale Summerfest Grand Parade on Thurday 6/19
Atwater Festival Days on Saturday 6/21
Western Fest in Granite Falls on Saturday 6/21
Howard Lake Good Neighbor Days on Sunday 6/22
Swedish Midsummer Festival (Svenskarnas Dag) on Sunday 6/22
Rose Parade in Roseville on Monday 6/23
Northeast Minneapolis Parade on Tuesday 6/24
Miss Melrose Pageant on Wednesday 6/25
Celebrate Northeast Minneapolis on Wednesday 6/25

By the way...I have more photos. Forgot the darn things at home. I'll upload them later. Oh well.

Captain Lindsey Peterson
2008 Captain
Minneapolis Aquatennial
lpeterson@wccoradio.cbs.com