I have a friend who's really into thrift stores. She heard there's a particularly good one in a tiny town known as Wanda, MN. Being bored, I decided to investigate. "Wanda", incidentally, is Ojibwe for "forgetfulness", and that's what this place was named after! I decided I had to take some pictures to preserve its memory.

Since every midwestern town seems to need at least one grain elevator and one water tower, I suppose I'll include the water tower too, just for the sake of completion.

I had planned on a beer plus a meal at a rural bar. See, I like to think I can sit down at any bar anywhere and at least drink a beer. Indeed there were two bars in town, and one doubled as a "supper club". But, the whole town was CLOSED! Locked up tight. Even city hall was closed. wtf?

Eventually, I found the one business that was open: the BANK! Here a quite attractive teller (even through a lot of makeup) gave me the lowdown on the thrift store. Long story short, it's only open from April til October. So I missed it by a couple of weeks. But now I know exactly where it is.

It looks like it either used to be a school, or it shares the building with one.

So there you have it! My 15 minutes of Wanda.

On the way back, I had to stop to photograph this barn. It spoke to me. I think it was saying: "OH SHIT!"

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