Ketchup is Hot Sauce?

We decided to take a walk around downtown Stillwater, MN, today.  Of course, we had to wait until noon to do it, so that the heat and humidity would be greatest...The local temp was 96 with a heat index of 106.  This set an alltime record for the area for a high temp.  Wonderful.

So off we went, starting with lunch, of course, on the north end of town, at ChicagodogsMN.com.  Where we had, of course, Chicago Dogs.  Except for Donna, who had to be a little different, and order a polish dog.

The downtown area is about 4 blocks long, with antique stores, clothing stores and restaurants on both sides.  We ducked into some of the stores just to cool off, and the first one was a candy shop:

A couple of orders of toffee and fudge later, we ambled on down the street...and yes, that does say "squirrel turds".

Donna found a kitchen store that was to die for, so we spent a bit of time checking out all the goodies:

Next on our tour was the local co-op market.  They had a great selection of locally grown and organic foods, including the ingredients for a Raz-ma-tazz smoothie, made with blueberries and other tasty goodies!

We needed a respite from the heat, so we stopped at a bench in a lovely park that parallels the St Croix River and downtown. Stillwater is known as the birthplace of Minnesota because in the early 1800's a bunch of businessmen gathered at what would later be known as Stillwater and drafted a petition for status as a territory.  Of course, they weren't just being nice; they wanted a safe place to do their lumber business stuff, as Minnesota has millions of trees.  Probably had more back then, eh? Well, anyway, as we watched people and boats, we heard the alarm for the drawbridge, so I snapped a couple pics:

Notice the huge counterweights on either end of the drawbridge.  These raise and lower inversely to the bridge to reduce the amount of weight on the cables.  Nice job of engineering.

And we finished off our downtown walk with ice cream from Nelsons:

Notice the concentration....Of course, it was still hot, and the ice cream was melting faster than we wanted it to.

So we returned to Bill and Lindas home and recuperated some, then left for dinner at Mama Maria's Italian Restaurant in North Hudson, Wisconsin.

It was still hot outside, but nice and cool inside.

Cara, Bruce, Donna, Gary, Bill and Linda.

Oh, the ketchup thing?   Well....

Where I come from, a bit of seasoning, even an occasional pepper is used to flavor food.  I'm learning that in the midwest spicy food is not generally found, but ketchup is an accepted accompaniment to almost anything that will stand still on the plate.  Tonight I was informed that ketchup is considered to be hot sauce.  I think the cold winters can damage taste buds, yah, ya becha!