Minnesota

(For some reason, all of the pictures came out in reverse order, so please read the pictures from bottom to top and the text from top to bottom.)
When I said I was going to MN on a tour of the Marvin Windows factory, everyone here said, "Ohhh, MinneSOOOta" in a Prairie Home Companion accent. Once our group, which included a Bostonian, an Australian, and a lapsed Utahn, among others, got there, the first thing people said to us was, "My you have interesting accents."

We first toured the Cardinal glass company, in nearby Menomenie, Wisconsin. Basically, they pour sand into a container at one end of the line and take rectangular pieces of glass out of the other. One picture shows Jerry looking into the furnace: over 3000 degrees. Even outside the furnace my earrings were hot. Another picture shows something along the line, I think the molten glass floating along a bed of molten tin. (Nope: this was later, when the glass had cooled and was being carried along by rollers.)

We flew to Warroad in an 18-seater plane, a new experience, and fun, which I hadn't expected it to be. (Me, with major acrophobia, enjoying being up in a tiny plane with nothing between me and the ground!) Warroad is even smaller than Marlborough, but 2700 people work in the Marvin plant. The Marvin family is much in evidence: they gave the library, the fire station, the new assisted living facility, the two hockey rinks.... They take good care of the town, and the town appreciates it.

What else? Good food, and lots of it; good company; and I felt strong enough to do a lot of the walking around the plant (no pictures of the Marvin plant in case I was a corporate spy). Would I go back? Ya, sure.