ROCHESTER, HOLD THE MAYO
Chapter 1: Tour de Roch
Doing Evil, Lucifer? Don't Elevate Lions. Down Every Liquor.
The license plate initial game was a fun way to pass the hour and change it took to zip through the rolling farmlands between the Twin Cities and Rochester. I had stopped only briefly to pick up a secret government agent known as Honey Goodtush to provide backup on my trip.
With two bikes loaded on the back and a great summer iPod mix on the stereo, we were en route to Rochester. More affectionately known as The Roch. Mention Rochester, Minnesota to most people and they'll immediately recognize it as home to the world-renown Mayo Clinic. My sister worked there as a nurse in the organ transplant wing and, while liking her job, complained that none of the family ever came to visit. Rather than wait until I needed a new kidney, Ms. Goodtush and I decided to spend a weekend at the Casa Mi Hermana All-Inclusive Resort and Spa.
Tracy is one of my two favorite sisters. Above Twisted Sister and Sister Christian for sure, but I keep the competition between her and our younger sister, Amy, alive in order to get better birthday presents. Although when Amy made me an uncle last year after having Baby Jake, that made it tough to...where was I going? Oh yes. I was glad when Tracy got her first gig out of college at the Mayo. I was the oldest and the good-grade geek all through school. Amy got married and has a baby. Tracy was still looking for something to define herself by and finally found a noble calling that she not only excelled at, but also makes the world a better joint. Granted, it's not as important as creating advertising, but I try not to rub it in.
She met us at the door of her townhome and after brief hellos, spackling ourselves up with sunscreen and pumping up the bike tires (which was more than enough to start me sweating in the near ninety degree temps) we rolled out.
We spent the next several hours winding through woods and fields rippling with summer heat and squadrons of dragonflies protecting tree fairies as they groomed mushrooms in oak stumps. We followed a babbling stream so idyllic I expected to see an overall-clad boy with a straw hat over his face leaning back against his dozing hound, a fishing line tied to his toe.
Just as I was feeling the need to whitewash a fence or steal a pie cooling on a windowsill, we came into the city. They had created a series of bike paths following the river, so you didn't have to cross any roads. Not that we'd have to worry about traffic; on weekends downtown Rochester is so deserted there's not even anyone left to roll up the sidewalks. We did pass by the Civic Center where a huge Jehovah's Witness convention was letting out. Fortunately, all their bikes were still in racks and we were able to pedal out of pamphlet-chucking distance before they could give chase.
We escaped by taking a right at the cemetery where the Mayo Brothers are buried and followed a railway past the prison and into a nature preserve. Here, we dismounted our bikes and took our jelly legs uphill into the forest. A blast of cool air hit our faces around a turn. The source was a large cave mouth kept quiet by a gate of steel bars. Tracy said it used to be used by the Mayo Clinic for food storage. When our eyes adjusted to the smooth black, we made out long rows of alcoves carved into the cave walls, just right for storing barrels of food. Or the hideous mutant offspring of medical experiments gone horrifically wrong. Tracy remained quiet on the subject.
Tracy guided up the maze of footpaths and deertrails past an open mowed field that looked oddly out of place in the woods. This was an old state graveyard where patients were buried at the turn of the century. A group of kids and their dad were playing soccer with a big blue rubber ball in the middle of the field. I fought the urge to yell "Hey, you're playing on the top of dead bodies!" and instead followed my sister further up the hill to the old limestone quarry. Though long since deserted, you could make out the ruins of buildings, including the double walls of the dynamite shack, along the edge of the hill. There was a small cliff that had been created when they chewed into the limestone layers, effectively giving the mountain a crewcut. The sweaty scramble to the top of it rewarded us with a great view all the way back to downtown and the emerald fields of quilted corn draping over the horizon.
"Margaritas."
Honey Goodtush barely whispered the word, but it was enough to convince us that this would be the apex of our bike journey and that Tracy would lead us back into town for a stop at Dos Amigos.
Dining with Tracy is always interesting because she'll inevitably go into some bedpan or bowel related incident just as you're shoveling a forkful of frijoles refritos into your maw. She recently went on a 3am 'procurement' flight to Grand Forks. This was to procure some organs from a donor who was about to have his life support turned off. As soon as it was, they cut him open and my sister got to do great stuff like hold his intestines down so they could get to the kidneys, hold his rib cage back so they could take out his lungs and then she got to stitch him back up when it was all over. Hey, pass the nachos while you're at it.
Stiff with sore muscles and dried sweat, we rolled back into Tracy's townhome by early afternoon. I was convinced the Earth was hurtling into the sun. The air conditioning washed over us as soon as we crossed the threshold and sent us smiling and sighing onto the carpet. I don't think any of us made it past the living room for a good half hour.
It took the sweet sound of ice clanking into a tumbler to rouse me, but I gladly found my feet to help my sister make up some gin and tonics. We stood in her small kitchen, playing bartender, remembering the time I had gotten homemade Play-Doh stuck onto the spackle ceiling of our parent's kitchen and tried to wash it off with a wet washrag.
The bubbling tonic water with the saliva-squeezing citrus kiss was an elixir. I contemplated my drink and asked "If my liver goes out and I need a new one, would you sneak me in at the top of the list?"
"I've already put you down for one." she said.
"That's why you're one of my top two favorite sisters."
"Is it time for your birthday again already?"
[In Our Next Episode: Hot Cop. Hot Dogs. Johnny Lang's Hot Sister.]
9:31:10 PM 
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