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With school looming in the very near future, that can only mean that Ki Chi Saga Days have to be near. This weekend to be exact. Starting Thursday, there will be an all city garage sale that runs until Sunday. There will be a cribbage tournament at the Wagon Wheel Cafe and a community picnic held at RiverBank at 6 p.m.

Friday, Frankie's will host their fishing tournament. Frankie's will also be hosting a BBQ after the weigh-in at 5 p.m. There will be a sand castle building contest at Paradise Park and after the contest stick around for a family friendly movie under the stars.

Saturday, Ki Chi Saga Days really gets rolling. Beginning with 15 and 5 K runs that starts at Zion Church at 8 a.m. (registration is at 7 a.m.). You can enjoy music in Moberg Park while strolling among all of the wonderful vendors and food booths. Saturday also will have a kids fishing tournament (see the schedule of events), an Ojiketa Regional Park tour, and the crowning of the 2009 "Little Miss". There are just too many events to list, so be sure to look at our extended pages of this year's Ki Chi Saga Days in this edition of the Press.

The weather is supposed to be spectacular, so hopefully we will see you there!

We here at the Press have just learned that the helicopter rides at Ki Chi Saga Days have been canceled.

On Saturday, September 26, there is something really cool taking place at Lakeside Elementary School in Chisago City.

Great River Greening will be planting a rain garden at Lakeside. What is a rain garden? Rain gardens are made up of native plants that act as a filtration system which retains storm water. The slowing down of storm water runoff allows the pollutants and sediment to settle in the rain garden before reaching our lakes.

Individuals, community organizations and corporate groups are welcome to participate in the restoration event. Lunch will be provided for pre-registered volunteers. You will receive confirmation one week prior to the event with directions and details.

You might remember a while back when Chisago City did a similar planting at Water Tower Park. To register, call 651-665-9500 ext. 11 or email to [email protected].

Once again my ignorance shines through. This past weekend, my family packed up and headed south To Florida? Not this time. Branson? Sadly no. East Saint Louis? Close, but no. We headed to Iowa. I know what you are thinking, how does he get to go on such extravagant, lavish trips? He must be made of money... Yep, lucky me.

Why would someone pile into a vehicle and drive four hours just to look at corn. A lot of corn. Well, it just so happens we have a very good reason. Her name is Evelyn Silver and she is my grandmother. If you have ever read my column, you know how much she means to my family.

Back to my ignorance. In my 35 years of driving back and forth to Iowa, I have constantly been looking for the magic shortcut. The magic portal if you will, that you take a turn and mysteriously shave 20 minutes off of your commute or more. For the last 5 or 6 trips, I have had my eye on a turn that I am convinced is that magic portal. The turn would skip an entire town and poke you out way, way south of town. How can we go wrong? There is a sign that says Ostrander this-a-way on both ends of the town that I am trying to avoid.

So here we are, driving south to Iowa and my blood pressure is on the rise. Not from driving, but from following some farmer's wife for 23 miles. Mrs. Farmer is not your ordinary driver. She had her pedal to the metal at a whopping 39 miles per hour.

Having had enough of this, I decided to take that secret path I have dreamt of. Off we turned, giggling on how dumb the drivers behind us were, following Mrs. Farmer into oblivion. Soon we passed through Ostrander and we had to be making such good time. A few miles passed and no sign directing us to turn. A few miles more. A few miles more. Soon the blood pressure was ready to blow. We turned around and still couldn't find the turn. Now I was starting to panic. We are going to die out here on a country road that we can't get off of. The movie "Children of the Corn" kept creeping into mind. I finally gave up and turned on a dirt road and headed east. We stayed on the dirt road for miles and miles before finally poking out on the highway we were on before. I could really make this an outlandish story and tell you that we pulled out behind that same farmer's wife....but I am positive she was already at home cleaning up after dinner.

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