lydamorehouse | Local Tourist At Large in St. Paul

Image: Sidewalk art of a loon and their baby

Last night, Shawn and I walked up Wheeler Street to the Capitol Area Watershed District Office for their 25h anniversary open house and block party. As nerdy as that sounds, it was FANTASTIC.

Shawn, of course, had preregistered us and with that came a set (one for each of us) for a free drink and food. The drinks were from a local brewer who also had small batch root beer, which was AMAZE BALLS. The food came from a Thai food truck that had the crispiest eggrolls I've had in a long time and several very yummy rice bowl options, of which Shawn and I shared the chicken (one was plenty for two.) The entertainment was a women's drumming circle (taiko, as performance, but then they actually brought drums for people to try out and did the actual 1990s drumming circle that I have so many memories of, having spent that time in a lot of pagan and women's circles.)

Taiko drummers

Image: Outdoor drumming and people on folding chairs, the height of entertainment

They had a couple of different activity tents for kids (and child-like adults) and a tour of the facilities. Shawn, of course, took the tour while I played with the kids in the mosaic-on-a-stick. We met up afterwards and she gave me an informal highlights reel, to which one other person tagged along, assuming that Shawn was actually an official guide! We ended up befriending this young woman and had a lovely chat with her about our concerns about the drought, moving here from other places (she was most recently from Michigan.)

They also gave away free cupcakes. We admired the grounds while we ate. Despite what it looks like above, the rest of the building (a converted truck garage) is surrounded by natural plantings, water gardens, and rain gardens. The water feature is really amazing and Shawn said that her tour guide had said that they'd even spotted the endangered rusty-patch bumblebee (which is endangered here in MN) in those gardens.

Image: Unidentified native plant at the watershed district office

The whole thing was very... small town?--in a way that Shawn and I absolutely, entirely adored. Shawn even proclaimed when we came home that this was the best date night EVER.

Today, I'm hoping to talk Shawn into checking out the Armenian festival. http://saintsahag.org/armenian-festival/