"September 14, 2004"
A couple blog entries I sent from the road did not make it back to Arizona. So here's Sunday's blog entry:

Big day in Northfield yesterday. We had an author's tent set up right outside the bank and the streets were packed five times for reenactments. Gun expert Larry Wilson brought an exact replica of the Remington Rolling Block rifle that Manning used to kill Bill Chadwell with during the raid. I got good photos for next year's proposed cover from the town defender's point of view. I shot one roll of film in the hole behind the staircase, then another roll from behind him. In the second enactment, He stepped out and fired, came back and used a ramrod to eject the shell (something the real Manning did during the fight because a shell jammed), stepped out with others, fired again. I was getting great shots of the smoke, from below and through his legs, crawling around on the ground like a reptile. Wilson fired again, came back to the others and said, and I quote, " I wish he'd fall off his horse. I've shot him three times." Everyone around us laughed.

Met with the president of St. Olaf College on Friday at noon. We are proposing expanding the festival and including more towns and more symposiums, etc. Great meeting. Many ideas and energy. We'll see if we can pull it off. I think we can.

Left Northfield at five, headed down I-35, then across on the 90 to Jackson, south into Iowa landing at my cousin Mike's "cottage" on the banks of Lake Okoboji at sunset. Much fun. Many stories. We're off this morning for the Spencer Fair, Adair (Jesse James robbed a train there) and then landing in Orient, Iowa at a B&B. Meetings in the morning with the Chamber people in Winterset (John Wayne's hometown and Bridges of Madison County-ville). More later.

"Act as if it were impossible to fail."
—Dorothea Brandeh