Art-A-Whirl happens this weekend in Northeast Minneapolis. If you’ve never been, you should plan on checking it out. If you like art and/or music, you will want to head over to see some bands at Psycho Suzi’s, Grumpy’s NE, The Sample Room, and the 331 Club; and check out all the open artists; studios and galleries all over the area. There is even an Art-a-Whirl edition of the Hotpants dance party on Saturday night. Usually some of the food trucks park themselves in Northeast to feed the hungry art-lovers. I’ll be checking Art-A-Whirl out on Saturday, since Sunday I will be watching people run around in the mud.
Yep, this weekend I’m volunteering at the Tough Mudder. It’s a totally hardcore event that is advertised as “the premier obstacle course series in the world.” When I was at Lutsen last winter with the #lutsenawesome crew we read about it and planned to volunteer for it this year, with intentions to maybe run it next year. Then some friends signed up to run it and now we’re all set to help fill them with snacks and shave their hairs into mohawks pre-race. The thing about this 10-12 mile obstacle course is you’re supposed to skip any obstacle that you can’t handle or scares your pants off or involves water if you don’t know how to swim. It’s something that anyone can participate in, but some of my friends have been training hard for this. Hopefully I’ll get some good pictures of them electrocuted and covered in mud and whatnot.
It should be pretty goofy since there are obstacles called “Just the Tip” and ‘Hold your Wood” and who knows what else. There’s also an obstacle where you run through a field of live wires. We’re actually volunteering at 6 a.m. so it’s going to be an early morning road trip to Somerset Amphitheater in Somerset, Wisconsin. They even provide breakfast for us when we arrive, which will hopefully include some gluten-free, red-meatless, and boozeless options. It’s halfway through the month and I’ve yet so cheat on my May diet so I’m not planning to ruin that this weekend. (I had a close call yesterday where I went for the roast beef on a plate of sandwich meats, but luckily my friends were quick enough to question me.)
When you’re out this weekend checking out all this rad Twin Cities activity, remember that the weather will be approaching 90 degress (!!) and bring some water to douse yourself/drink/wash mud of your friends. Weekends in the Twin Cities are less cool with heatstroke. (See what I did there?)
Photo: a recent Tough Mudder event held in Pennsylvania. Photo by the 621st Contingency Response Wing (Creative Commons).
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