Beachcast: Longfellow Beach on the Mississippi River

John and co-host/producer Paula Chesley climb down a 90-year-old staircase to visit Longfellow Beach, an unsanctioned beach on the Mississippi River. Experts will advise you not to swim in it. It's full of agricultural runoff and bacteria -- and the currents might carry you off. Paula gets out the pH test strips to see how the river water compares to kimchi, a substance that is apparently safer to swim in than the river. Paula recounts some river beach history and reveals her rating system for beach quality. John denigrates Minneapolis beaches as places where you can hurt your feet on rocky sand and ingest dirty water. We're joined by Andrew From, a Longfellow neighborhood resident, who tells us more about this lowkey, out of the way, local beach. Andrew talks about his spouse from Montana who thinks it's just fine to get in the river as long as you don't submerge your head. We talk about City Council member Michael Rainville's racism (regarding his comments made a day before our recording). I question Andrew's fashion sense for wearing a "Mini Apple" t-shirt and ask if anyone from Minneapolis has ever called it that. Note: Camera guy Conrad tripped and fell backward over a log, but he's fine now.

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