Todd Swank: A Voyage To Treasure Island

August 21, 2022

A Voyage To Treasure Island

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for August 21, 2022

On Saturday we drove to the St. Croix River to join our friends Karl and Tina for a cruise adventure to Welch, Minnesota for an overnight stay at Treasure Island Casino.

We were nervous about the weather. After a relatively dry summer, our voyage was going to be a potentially treacherous journey due to storms in the area.

Captain Karl reassured us not to worry. He's had a lot of experience navigating storms and said it would just make the trip a bit more exciting than usual. We hesitantly climbed aboard and held on for the ride.

@toddswank Heading to Treasure Island Casino for the Duran Duran concert. #duranduran #treasureisland #minnesota #stcroix #boat #river #storm ♬ original sound - Todd Swank

This video shows the worst part of the storm we sailed through. Karl wasn't nervous at all although we did have to drive closer to the shore for a short time. I on the other hand was terrified.

Eventually the rain stopped and we made our way to the marina at Treasure Island Casino. We tied up to the dock and were ready to settle in for the night. Let the fun begin!

We were excited to see a double rainbow greet us to the area. We thought for sure this meant the rain was over for the night. We weren't quite that lucky.

We were very excited for the main event of our trip. A concert with eighties rock band, Duran Duran, who were in town to kick off their North American Tour. We were ready to get our Reflex on!

It was an outdoor concert and we were pleasantly surprised to see our neighbors, Mike & Laurie, were also at the show. Our happiness was short-lived however as shortly after this photo was taken, some nasty looking storm clouds suddenly appeared on the horizon and they were rapidly advancing towards us. Long story short, we tried to ride out the storm by hiding under a couple different structures, but were eventually told we had to evacuate the premises by security. We huddled inside the casino with thousands of other concert goers and waited a couple hours before we were finally notified the show was postponed. Bummer for us.

We still had fun with Karl & Tina, even though we didn't get to enjoy our eighties rock fix. These 5 birds flew by early the next morning and watching them almost made up for it. Almost.

Lucky for us it didn't rain during our three hour cruise home, so we got to watch for nature as we love to do. Miss Sheri counted 21 different bald eagles during our ride home which she claims is a personal record of ours for this trip. I'm trying to get those results audited, but may just have to take her at her word.

I always enjoy watching the trains go by us as they ride alongside the Mississippi River on the Wisconsin side. I think that has to be an enjoyable trip for the conductor, but then again maybe he's just really sick and tired of it.

Near Prescott, Wisconsin the St. Croix River meets the Mississippi River and you can see their very different colors merge together. We thought it looked like someone was adding creamer into their coffee, but I probably wouldn't enjoy drinking it very much. It's gotta be full of fish poop.

Here were a couple more sights we saw along the way: