Driftless Area: 7 - Nordicfest, Decorah, IA
Norway in an Asteroid Crater
Hey, hey, hey, Steemians. Now you'll get a good glimpse of my town. Thursday 27/7 was the opening of the 51st Annual Nordicfest, the celebration of the deep Norwegian heritage here. People from around here go so far as calling themselves Iowegian, lots of -son and -strom and -dahl surnames. Without further ado, let's see some pictures.
Walking the couple blocks from home to Water Street to meet up with my wife and boy. There are usually day fewer cars parked. The locals say to get our of town this weekend, but honestly this is a tenth of the business Pittsburgh would see for Bloomfield's Little Italy Days when I lived there.
Stalls selling Norwegian food. Varme pølse sounded neat, sausage/meatball link wrapped in lefsa, but it was basically a hot dog in a tortilla.
Flags and a mural.
Seriously not that crowded. Right now.
Here down this alley you can see the floodplain where the highschool sits with its football field. Past that is the Upper Iowa River, and above that you can see the northern crater wall. I'm not making it up when I say it's an asteroid crater. You'll see Palisades Park and Ice Cave over there in future Driftless Area posts.
"Official" Lefsa. Basically a potato tortilla. Not sure what the fuss is.
Pig meat.
Norse dog jokes from the Humane Society. Woof Da!
Street view with the big Iowa sky.
Plenty to do, but with a small child and work, most likely only going to make it to Saturday events.
Not sure what I'm going to do here, but I'm definitely going to do something! Btw, Decorah is the origin of the Story People.
The crowd for opening ceremonies. Luren Singers, Nordic Dancers, and some kids playing dress up as Vikings. About as crowded as Decorah gets for a Thursday. Unfortunately my boy did his first big-boy faceplant up on the hill and I had to bring him home to clean his little scrape and put him to bed, or I would have some pics of the parade.
Saturday
The streets are filling up with parade-goers.
Sure enough, it's a bit more crowded.
Old vintage fire truck.
The local chiropractor. Ha, clever.
Nordic Dancers!
Obligatory Shriner bike clowns.
A Viking ship! See how Scandinavian it is?
A German float, complete with glockenspiel and getmütlichkeit. My video failed, or I'd be able to show you how they get down.
This is a pretty bold claim from Alliant Energy. There is a full-size windmill in town, and a solar farm at Luther College, but the company has a reputation for mystery fees on bills.
The Seed Savers Exchange is like a hands-on museum of heirloom garden plants. As in, you can buy practically extinct varieties and grow them, and eat them.
They handed out packets of free seeds, and mine was a Tigger Melon. Some Armenian fruit with stripes.
A car straight outta Dick Tracy.
This is the Puppet Project, design based on Norse mythology. Real Norwegians, help me identify these!
Tractors, corn!, tractors, tractors, tractors ...
Wacky, waving, inflatable, arm-flailing tube man, wacky, waving, inflatable, arm-flailing tube man, wacky, waving, inflatable, arm-flailing tube man!
Lutefisk-eating Contest
After a cool-off break with my toddler at home, we headed up to the courthouse for the lutefisk eating contest. My wife was away, so I figured holding a squirmy 14.5-month-old while trying to do this was gonna be tough.
Just some of the statuary and the flagpole.
The crowd has just started to roll in.
The bounty! Here's how it works: bracket race to finish your bowl, and everybody gets to pick the bones out first. Winner gets that Grizzly cooler.
Lutefisk! It's just cod that's been keeping in lye. After a good rinse, you boil, it bake it, then add plenty of butter. Salt and pepper to "taste". It's gross. It turns the meat into a gelatinous pile. I like it, though. Just tastes like fish with a throaty vapor to me.
The bald blonde man is actually from Norway. When you finish, you put the bowl on your head. Needless to say, this guy won that round. I knew I was going to lose since I was holding my boy while I did it and these people were shoveling the slimy, odd-smelling mess into their mouths.
We lost.
Nordicfest has tons of activities, and if you don't have to work or you don't have a toddler or your wife isn't away or at work, go! I wish I could have failed at the stone throw and seen more music, but it's so hot! And my boy needed to take a long nap in the AC. There's always future years!
Check out the previous entries for the Driftless Area below!
Check the later links, some of them might still be fresh and piping hot!
1. Decorah-La Crosse
2. Decorah-Waukon
3. Decorah-Cresco
4. Lansing-Upper Mississippi
5. Winneshiek County Fair
Iowa Sucks for Vampires (short fiction)
6. RAGBRAI in Waukon
Vote or don't, follow or don't, resteem or don't. Do what thou wilt. Steem on!
Interesting post. Looks like a good time! When does it end? Decorrah isn't that far of a drive from Rochester, and I'll be that way tomorrow. It certainly looks more lively than the county fair here was!
It ended today, unfortunately. My wife was away during the day and is currently working the door at a bar, and with my boy being very young I couldn't even get to many events. There's always next year! Corn Days happens late in September in Waukon when they harvest! If you swing down far enough, we should do a Steemit vlog!
Awww, that would have been something fun to do! Well, Rochester has music in the park tomorrow night. Guess that will have to do for now.
Unfortunately, my masters degree program starts back up in late August and I'll be teaching on top of it. But hey, we do have Hermanfest in New Ulm (kind of close) which includes beer, polka, and other shenanigans. Being single at this point wasn't necessarily my plan, but it does have a few perks!
When is that?
September 9th for HermannFest, which is just a one day event.
The big Octoberfest is the first two full weekend of October and is the town's biggest cerebration. I've only ever seen Octoberfest there in passing, so it should be fun to actually attend.
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