Tourists

Or poll monitors and get-out-the-vote operatives.

We're in a battleground state! Who knew?

So there was an Obama rally downtown today. Christy and I were going downtown for other reasons -- but we took the rapid, hearing that traffic would be terrible and there would be no parking anywhere. (There wasn't any parking at the rapid station, either. It was packed!)

There, a nice woman from Rochester wanted to know where we had come from to drum up votes. And on the way back, this dude started talking to us... and decided we were his new friends. So when we walked by the rally (Bruce Springsteen was playing!), he hung with us. When we left, we decided to go get a cup of coffee -- and he came along. We invited him to dinner, too, but I think he felt like he was intruding at that point (and it was nice that he didn't come).

But he took our e-mail addresses. And I just think it's cool that he had the guts to start chatting with a couple of gals in a strange city and make them his friends. Or at least his temporary acquaintances.