In the morning, Barry, Terri, and I went for a couple hikes. I learnt that pickleball has begun to dominate their social life in the same way that it has for most other people over 50.

Then we went to a cold spring, tapped by this spigot. The water is unfiltered, straight from the spring, and tested regularly by the city for safety.

It has been frequented by people enthusiastic about its health benefits and free cost for decades. Barry remembered being taken there by my grandpa. Even though it was midday on a Tuesday, there were a lot of people coming by the spring to fill their five-gallon barrels. The people before us had ten or fifteen of these barrels. They had driven quite a ways to reach the spring. After us a very pregnant woman and her husband rolled up to get their share of spring water. I wonder if it was supposed to be good for the baby.

The taste was nothing special though. Just like tap water. I suppose that it was, literally, tap water.

We came home to a rude surprise. The sump pump in the basement had broken and the basement was about to flood from all the recent rainfall. Barry and I bailed out maybe one or two hundred gallons of water from the sump.

Then it was off to a dinner with all of my family in Minnesota (except Barry who was left to finish installing a new sump pump).

There was Uncle Al and Aunt Lori, Aunt Becky and Uncle Ken, Aunt Barb and Uncle Steve, Cousins Chris, Eric, and Tim, and of course Terri and I, joined later by Barry.

It was great to see everyone. I am blessed to have such a family. Being that I come to Minnesota so rarely, the family was fain to hear what I had been doing these past ten years, what I was planning to do with my life and whatnot.

I picked up some regional Minnesota English. "Parking ramp" rather than "parking garage." Beginning cause-effect sentences with "Being that..." rather than "Seeing as...".

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