Saturday, January 26, 2008

Bouncing Girls and More at the St. Paul Winter Carnival

The people of St. Paul, Minnesota must figure that if they can't avoid brutal winters, they might as well make the best of it. So they've been having the St. Paul Winter Carnival for well over 100 years, and the 2008 edition is now underway. And there are plenty of events going on that might seem a bit odd to outsiders.

The local newspaper had a headline yesterday, "Winter Carnival holds bouncing girl tryouts tonight." Apparently one of the oldest traditions of the Winter Carnival is having women bounce up and down and doing aerial stunts on a trampoline held by others. The article begins: "THE JOB: A bouncing girl for the St. Paul Winter Carnival. The search is on for women to join the St. Paul Winter Carnival's Bouncing Girl team ..." I just like the term "bouncing girl."

The St. Paul Winter Carnival also features a number of non-bouncing events, including ice carving, snow sculpting, ice skating exhibitions, and for hardy runners, 5K and half marathon races. Oh, and the "Hot Dish Tent" ... I bet that's popular. The Web site says the tater tot casserole is a favorite there.

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