No Kings Day, Chisago City, MN

 First, it's not misspelled. It is NOT Chicago City, but Chisago City, much as my spell check tries to insist otherwise. If you head north out of the Twin Cities, whether on 35W or 35E, they come together into one just before US 8 peels off heading northeast  to Wisconsin.  On a map of the state that diagonal line becomes horizontal as 8 heads through a series of small towns, the first of which is Chisago City, which has the biggest park along the highway. That is where today's demonstration was held, despite the blustery 41 degrees weather. (In contrast, tomorrow is forecast to be 65 and lovely.)

There's a nice statue in the park, plus lots of trees, grass, a picnic pavilion, and restrooms which were inconveniently still locked for the season. The highway is on the other side of the monument, but there is parking on the three other sides of the park, plus a large lot next to it, and a gas station that was likely getting a lot of use this afternoon, though not necessarily for automotive gas. The group gathered next to the stairs was led by a couple women singing a wide variety of songs, like "This Land Is My Land" and "If I Had A Hammer." There were more I had never heard but enough of the group had that their music carried well.

This gives a better idea of how wide the park is, as well as how much open space it has for celebrations and regular events like a Friday evening Farmer's Market all summer, hosting all kinds of booths spread out with all kinds of merchandise depending on the event. When this was taken demonstrators were about 5 deep along the highway on the end away from us, with the singing group and its audience filling our end more deeply. The far end sports a stoplight for cross traffic from a county road. The walker shown in front of where my friend and I were sitting was not the only walker, and others brought folding chairs as well. We were about halfway back from the highway in the park.

A couple of people brought their dogs along, neither of which I managed to get a decent shot of. One may have been a schipperke, maybe just an adorable mutt, whose owner had prepared it for the event with wearing a torso-covering padded vest. I didn't see if after about 5 minutes as they disappeared in the crowd. The second was a golden brown full sized poodle, recently groomed. I thought its owner could have waited a few more days to take the coat down that far. But hey, at least its ears and tail were warm!

Right under the state flag somebody is holding, to the right of the stoplight, is one of those inflatable costumes that have become so popular since Portland demonstrations last summer. The No Kings demonstration I was at last fall in a different town had several people wearing different versions of them. Considering the wind and the cold, I had thought to see more of them today, since they would be perfect wind blocks for the person inside. Alas, this unicorn was the only inflatable this time. This zoom is kitty corner across the whole park.

We left early due to getting chilled despite dressing as warmly as possible and bringing a blanket. Had we been walking around it might have been different, but for my friend the cold turned rapidly into pain, and I was her driver. We made up for it by leaving along the length of the park on the highway, me honking all the way and her with the window open (car heat blasting on us both of course) waving and yelling encouragement to all we passed.

I just hope the next one is held in warmer weather. You hear that, Indivisible? Maybe the expected huge crowd down at the Capitol can keep the folks in the middle of it warm, but some of us can't walk half a mile to get there and then stand a round for an hour before walking back, not to mention the drive. Small towns are it for us, and there's a lot of wind blowing across fields and lakes out here.