Minnesota arrives in Connecticut, Unopened

People are on the move all the time,  while places are stationary.  There are instances, however, when that obvious observation can be challenged. Houses are sometimes moved from their original foundation to another, miles away. Immigrants to a new country frequently cluster together and over the years form communities strongly resembling their surroundings in the old country: think Cubans in Miami or Chinese in Chinatown. My lovely wife and I recently encountered what appears to be another, but more temporary, variation on that theme. We were exiting The "Steak Loft", one of our favorite eating spots in Mystic, Ct. when our attention was grabbed by the unusually colorful exterior of a tour bus waiting to pick up passengers who, unknown to us, had been dining, in a private room, at the very same restaurant. Walking closer to better see the attractive designs on the buses exterior and to discern what was being represented, we saw a  lone cactus, a lighthouse, a waterfall, some lovely red flowers, a covered wagon, some mountains and on and on. 

The neatly dressed bus driver, from his seat, observed my puzzlement, through the open door and came out. He was a pleasant friendly person who spoke softly and slowly, not unlike Garrison Keeler and, in response to my question, explained that the bus came from Minnesota and that all the fifty two occupants came from the same local rural region outside Minneapolis, that is with the exception of two relatives from North Dakota. As is his wont, he took me on a guided tour around the exterior of the tour bus. The sequence of stylized pictures represented the highlighted destinations of tours offered by his company.  On one side of the bus were pictures symbolizing U.S. destinations: the Statue of Liberty, a Cape Cod light house, Arizona, the Arch in St. Louis, etc., while on the other, attractions in Canada were highlighted: the Canadian Rockies, Niagara Falls, a park in Saskatchewan and so on. This is what he his did for a living. His passengers having finished their meal after leaving the closed off dining room that had been reserved just for them were beginning to reassemble near us and, realizing we were not part of their group, shuffled over and began asking us midwestern Lutherin-like questions about living in a secular, "blue state" abutting the wild Atlantic Ocean. To these distant sojourners, we represented a rare opportunity to sample and observe the local flora and fauna, without the now, all too familiar, separation offered by smudgy bus windows.

I soon came to understand that these visitors did everything on the tour as a group. It was as if they had brought Minnesota and the Minnesotan perspective along with them for protection. They were insulated and hermetically sealed off from the places they visited. Their itinerary did not ordinarily allow them to get their hands dirty with the people who inhabit the places visited. My wife and I by not appearing to be threatening and by having initiated conversation, had inadvertently broken the seal. I had the distinct feeling, following our abbreviated conversation, that they would, very much, have liked to do  more of that, in all the places they visited. 

You don't leave a place when you carry it, turtle like, along with you and, as a corollary, you don't enter a new place if you are unwilling to be exposed.