I didn't see a single apple tree in Apple Valley ... But I did see a lot of other cool stuff

Apple Valley is a town/suburb south of St Paul, MN. Now you may be wondering why I’ve written 2 separate posts about the about the greater Twin Cities area. If I’m being honest though, I highly doubt any of you were thinking that. But I’m going to answer it anyways. Frankly, there are 3 reasons:

1. The Twin Cities aren’t actually as close to each other as you’ve been led to believe. Their city centers are actually 12 miles or a 20-30 minute drive apart. I kinda felt misled when I learned this.  

2. Twins don’t like it when you treat them like they’re the same person, err city. You really need to meet both individually.  

3. These posts already take forever to write and format. Keeping ‘em short(er) not only lets me pump ‘em out faster but also breaks it into more digestible chunks for y’all. 

Alrighty, back to the point of this post. I went to Apple Valley to see my mom’s cousin, Diane, and her husband, Kevin (what a great name). If you remember Cheryl from my Kentucky post way back in May, Diane is her sister. 

Can you see the resemblance between Diane and Cheryl?

I had never met Diane and Kevin, but Cheryl visited the week before I did and talked me up, so they likely had a bit of a sense of what they were getting into before I arrived. 

Whatever they were prepared for though, I certainly dealt them some surprises, starting with the condition of my bike. I knew my rear tire was getting low in Fargo, but figured I could make it to Milwaukee or Chicago before servicing the bike and replacing the tire (as the twin cities shop I had reached out to was unresponsive). Kevin, who has been riding motorcycles for 40+ years, was looking over my bike when I first pulled in and immediately saw that my rear tire was so worn that the threads were popping out - which was news to me.

Yikes! I still had about a half mil of tread when I left Fargo. Kevin let me know that the core of the center of the tire is made of a different material than the side walls so it tends to wear much faster at the end of its life. Will be keeping that in mind going forward.

Seeing that was a pretty scary realization - it quite literally could have gone at any moment - at that level of wear it wasn't even safe to drive it 20 minutes to a bike shop. I think Kevin put it best, saying that God was looking out for me and made sure I ended up where I needed to be. I was lucky to have made it there safely, and that was potentially the best spot I could have landed, as Kevin not only has 40 years of motorcycle experience but also spent almost his entire career as a mechanic. 

With his know how, we were able to get the tire replaced and the bike serviced faster (and much cheaper) than a shop would’ve been. He also helped me out with some other routine maintenance items, including an oil change and chain tensioning and some not so routine maintenance including a gas leak and a disconnected hose. Suffice to say, Harriet rolled out of Apple Valley in much better condition than she rolled in.  

The back wheel came off much easier this time than it did when I had to take it off to get a melted piece of cape out of the brake caliper in North Carolina (realizing I never shared that story with the blog - I'll circle back to it in the future if I ever catch up on this thing). Turns out the secret is propping the center stand up on a 2x4 to get a bit more clearance to pull the wheel out. 

After doing all that work on Harriet, I gave her her first bath in who knows how long (ever). 

Harriet's glow up - enjoying a day with all the bags and cases off.

Diane grew up in Kentucky, near Louisville. She originally met Kevin when her and a friend drove down to the Marines base to pick up her friend’s fiancé who happened to be a friend of Kevin’s. After that, they corresponded by letter for a while before getting married when they were both 19. They’ve now been married 44 years. Diane spent much of her career as a pharmacy tech for the VA, but stepped away from the workforce for a couple years to homeschool their 2 children for a short stretch. Back during the pandemic, she got COVID and Minnesota’s scrambled response led to her becoming a victim of medical neglect. During this time, she suffered 9 strokes that went undetected for 4 days, and she only received medical attention after the family hired a patient advocate who went straight to the hospital CEO. She went through months of physical and occupational therapy to relearn how to walk and talk, which was complicated by most outpatient therapy clinics being shuttered during COVID. She made a pretty miraculous recovery - regaining almost all lost function - but is still not fully back to 100%. She returned to work for a while, but eventually retired due to the cognitive symptoms she was still having. She says she’s less talkative than she was before the strokes, but aside from that most people are unable to tell she’s had a stroke. While this experience has undermined her and Kevin’s faith in the medical system, it has strengthened their faith in God. Nowadays, she spends most of her time babysitting their grandsons, going to Bible study, and knitting/crocheting for family and church ministries.

Some hats Diane recently made

Kevin lived much of his childhood in New York City before his family moved to Massachusetts after his dad died. While his siblings were very book smart, he had trouble staying focused in class but always had an aptitude for figuring mechanical systems out, which eventually led him to pursue a career as a flight mechanic after serving in the Marines. His career as a flight mechanic - working for North West Airlines - is what originally brought him and Diane to Minnesota. From a coworker at North West, he learned the quintessential Minnesotan tradition of bird hunting (begrudgingly at first), but eventually got very into it before the last of his hunting dogs died a couple years ago. After Delta acquired North West and laid off much of the workforce, Kevin found a new job as a mechanic for the neighboring town's water department. His can do attitude and mechanical know how helped him to climb into leadership positions quite quickly, but he eventually stepped back to more customer facing roles to escape the politics of the job. With Diane’s strokes reminding him how fragile life and health are, he decided to retire earlier than planned, eschewing an extravagant retirement in favor of maximizing the time he and Diane can spend together while they are still in good health. Nowadays, he spends much of his time studying scripture (he’s memorized more of the Bible than anyone I’ve ever met; he’s also working on annotating a Bible for his grandkids), volunteering teaching other veterans how to play the guitar, going to ukulele club with Diane, studying history (he told me all about the American Indian tribes and the early European incursions into Minnesota/Wisconsin), and reading/listening to podcasts (one of his favorites that he shared with me is Blurry Creatures - would recommend if you’re interested in exploring the possibilities around myths, legends, the unexplained  and how they interplay with faith and documented history).  

While in Apple Valley with Diane and Kevin, I got the full Minnesota experience: 

Bonfires & Brews

After a hard days work on the bike, we had some brews around the fire and did some stargazing. Would highly recommend this local St. Paul brew. We talked about how few people can navigate by the stars anymore and how other skills are being lost as we become more reliant on technology.

Watching Football with the Family 

Thursday night football with Diane & Kevin's son Sean and their grandsons (left to right) Owen, Chase, and Jack. Owen was a pirate for Halloween, while Jack was Spiderman and Chase was a "scary frog".   

Yard Work

I needed to get some physical activity in and feel like I was doing something productive, so I volunteered to do potentially the final lawn mowing of the year. 

Ukulele Club 

Diane & Kevin attend a weekly ukulele club. This was a small attendance day - most weeks there are at least 20 people there. Since the club was open to all skill levels, including complete beginners, I decided to give it a go and somehow became more proficient in one night of ukulele than I did in 3 years of trying to learn guitar. 

The Gun Range

As you can't claim you've had the full Minnesota experience until you've fired a gun, Kevin took me shooting at the range. We had limited time, so we stuck to handguns. With his Marines training, Kevin's a deadeye shot and a great teacher. He told me the key to handguns is lining up your sights (you're doing it wrong if your focus is down range) and a slow trigger squeeze (not a pull - it should surprise you when the gun actually fires). I felt like I had a pretty solid outing for it being only the second time I've ever shot and the first in about 8 years - by the end of the morning I was shooting from 30-35 yards out. The cowboy style revolver in particular was a lot of fun.

Riding the Country Roads

Kevin also rides a 650cc bike, but his is noticeably more comfortable and upright for long rides. The downside is that it takes a lot of effort to get the ferring/plastic casing off to service the bike. As South eastern Minnesota doesn't have much elevation change, we rode through the river valleys and coulees of western Wisconsin.

Surrounded by endless corn and soy fields, we rode the coulees as we did circuits through Elmwood, WI. Elmwood is famous for it's numerous UFO sightings that they now celebrate with their annual UFO days. In one of these sightings, a police officer attempted to pursue the UFO and reported that he was shot by some sort of laser beam from it. He died within the year. 

On the way back, we largely followed the Great River Road (contours the Mississippi River which forms the MN/WI border) which offered some spectacular scenery. 

Lake Pepin on the Mississippi - hard to believe only a couple hundred miles north west of here I walked across the Mississippi in 15 steps. 

The birthplace of Laura Ingles Wilder in Pepin, WI - this place is even smaller on the inside than it looks from the outside. Crazy to think that a family of 5-6 lived here. Also can't imagine winters here with the lack of insulation in this house. 

We saw at least 4-5 bald eagles throughout the day, including one that flew up out of a soy field only about 30 yards from us as we rode past. We also saw a cliff where some of Kevin's friends regularly go hang gliding - might need to add that to my bucket list. 

Can't recommend connecting with your long lost cousins enough, 

Kdog