OK, enough of my commentary....here's Captain Mauzy:
Well, another weekend under our belt, and what a weekend it was. Princess Jaclyn and I were in Gaylord and Rockford over the weekend.
Saturday we were up and at ‘em early. I got Amy to come and spend the day with us. We picked up Jaclyn around 9 am and were off on the trek to Gaylord. Lots of talking and laughing along the way. It is no longer an interrogation anymore, as we have figured out a lot about each other. I think Lindsey may have touched on this, but I will reiterate it. You are thrown together with a young woman, whom you know nothing about, other than she was one of the 3 (out of 50 amazing young women) to be chosen to represent the Minneapolis Aquatennial. So, fast forward 3 weeks and Jaclyn and I have done 5 events and spent a total of about 48 hours together (not counting the last couple of days of Aquatennial) and you feel like you have known them for 3 months, yet at the same time their crowning seems to be just yesterday, it is a really bizarre feeling.
Sorry, I digress, so we wind up in Gaylord around 11:30 and the Festival coordinator, Kathy Jensen, meets us, lays out the plan for the day, gives us $15, and introduces us to our parade driver, Avery. A little bit about Avery. Avery knows everybody! Everyone screams “Hello” to Avery. Now I don’t know if they are screaming because they like him, or because in fear because of the candy he throws out of his vehicle at 60 MPH....Cripes, that man has an arm. Get some Twins scouts down to Gaylord to check him out (I am not sure he has the best accuracy, but...) Local Gaylord hometown celebrity and WCCO Radio and TV sports guy, Mike Max, hunts on Avery’s land. BTW, I did say earlier that Kathy gave us $15. She explained that its for us to get some food at the festival after the Parade. How sweet is that!
The parade was great and Amy and Avery certainly had a ton of fun in the front of the vehicle. I don’t think they ever stopped talking. Ton of fun. After the Parade we were off to the park, for some food, entertainment and buffalo petting. That’s right, there was a huge Buffalo in the middle of the park, and just let everyone come up and pet him.
Who’s hungry for some buffalo?
The outgoing Gaylord royalty
Now this buffalo is related to the buffalo that was in Dances With Wolves. We sat and talked to the owner for a little bit and he had some interesting stories to tell. I won’t bore you with them, but you can rest assured I will hit my wife and Lindsey with them when they least expect it. We met up with the current Gaylord Royalty and chatted with them also. Then it was off to find some food. They have something in Gaylord called a Chamburger, it is hamburger that has had some spices added to the meat. DELICIOUS. I heard that Chamburgers just recently returned to the town of Gaylord, something about the recipe getting lost, or the original place closed up. Something like that, you know me, if I got nothing I just make it up as I go. Hopefully someone will set me straight about the Chamburgers.Oh, I almost forgot, right when the three of us arrived in the park, some guy called out my name. Now get this, it was my 12th grade teacher from Chapel Hill Academy, Greg Peterson. OK, now I had figured that with all the parades and appearances and stuff, that I would run into someone from my past that I hadn’t seen in years, but you could have knocked me over with a feather. This is a guy that probably saw me at my absolute worst! I think both of us were equally stunned to see each other. But, it was very cool to catch up with what each of us had been up to the past 25 years! WOW.
After the park, we were off to the church for a little rest and light dinner prior to the coronation. We were invited to chill out with the Current royalty, candidates, and coordinators. It was getting quite hot in the park, so we were quite thankful for the A/C.
Then off to coronation. It was held at the Middle School auditorium. Now, this was Jaclyn’s first appearance where she had to speak. I kept reassuring her that she was going to do great, and gave her a couple of pointers, and what not. Now, I had all this stuff in my head that I had planned to say, and when we got up to the stage, I started talking and everything I said had nothing to do with what I had planned. Enough about me. Jaclyn, on the other hand, hit it out of the park. She was excellent! That young woman has nothing to worry about going forward. So, when we got back to the seats, we looked at each other, gave a fist bump, and we both said to each other, good job, I was horrible...it was very funny. I could not remember if I had said her name, let alone correctly. She also, could not remember anything she said. We giggled a bit. They crowned the new girls and we were on our way back to the cities.
The new Gaylord Royalty
So, on the way back to the cities, my brother Randy’s soon to be brother and sister-in-law, were in town and Randy’s finance’s place is on the way back from Gaylord. I had to stop and say a quick hello. So we stopped, and had a fun time telling them of what we do and how we spent our day. Randy even made Jaclyn and I say our speeches from Gaylord. He is still stunned I am doing this. Then we were off, back to Minneapolis, to drop Jaclyn off. Now, it is at this point that Jaclyn looked over to me and said, “Rob, I think this is a little early in our relationship for me to be meeting your family.” I nearly drove off the road.Sunday came a little early for us...I picked up Jaclyn around 9:30 and we were off to Rockford for Rockford River Days. We met up with the visiting royalty at the elementary school and had a nice breakfast and were able to spend some time with the outgoing royalty. Holly had joined us at Aquatennial as a Candidate and I had gotten to know her over the past 7 months. She is a sweetheart. We took some pictures, then off to the line-up and waiting there for us was a nice looking Corvette. I need to thank Doug White and Brian Samuelson for taking care of the vehicle on short notice. Now they had us in the 8th position, and I have to tell you, when you are up in the front of the parade, The kids are waiting for candy, not jacked up on sugar yet, and are sitting patiently with their parents. You still have everyone’s attention. SO that was really fun.
The outgoing Rockford royalty
Oh, I forgot to mention Elwyn Tinklenberg (now I am not getting into any political discussion here....i just like the name). So, I am not sure if Lindsey has mentioned Elwyn Tinklenberg here in the blog yet, but sometime in June, he and Tzvet were going to an appearance and started seeing these signs. So they just started having fun with it. Eventually they started taunting me with this inside joke about Elwyn Tinklenberg. Now, if you know me, you know that is something that will drive me crazy. If there is something funny that happened, and someone keeps going on about it....I want to know!! So, those 2 guys kept it from me until Aquatennial coronation night. Anyways, Guess who was at the Parade? Elwyn Tinklenberg, in the flesh. Maybe this is one of those stories that I should have bailed on before it began. Oh well, at least Jaclyn and I laughed and laughed.Rob, Elwyn and Jaclyn
Then it was off to the Park for more visiting and merriment. I was hungry...Taco in a bag...yum! Talked with the visiting Royalty. And eventually we off to the coronation under the big top. Thank goodness there was a breeze. Poor Jaclyn got a bit of a burn on her back from being outside the past 2 days. Sunscreen, Sunscreen, Sunscreen. This had to be the shortest coronation I have ever been to. If it was more than 35 minutes, I would be surprised. But the did it up right. Oh and this is the first time I have ever seen this: there were 3 candidates, and they became the 3 ambassadors for Rockford. As you all know, when you go to a coronation and there is 1 more candidate than there is crowns, it is a little sad to see. So we were thinking the same thing here, but when we saw the three crowns, Jaclyn and I were both like, “That’s cool!” Now, there actually was an envelope that contained one of the three candidates names. And that envelope, was the representative that is going to Aquatennial next year. Jaclyn and I really liked their coronation in Rockford. Oh, I forgot to tell you, Jaclyn had to present a queens charm again, and again she was great! What was cool about his time is afterward, she looks at me and says, “That was good”. Our princess is going to be just fine!The new Rockford royalty
Wow, what a weekend. And I know Lindsey already told you about Cokato. So Jaclyn’s and my next event is Saturday August 16 at the Lino Lakes Parade. Hope to see you there!
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