The Entire List

The entire list of things to do on a date is amended every time we do the program (several times per year). If you really want to see them ALL in one place, here they are. DO NOT PRINT UNLESS YOU'RE PREPARED FOR 20+ PAGES. Be kind...save the trees.

Cooking & Dining

  • Go to the supermarket and split up; each buys random food that the other person does not know about. Come back to your res hall to prepare it. Have a contest to see who can cook the wackiest meal and ask a group of friends to judge. Eat your meal while watching your favorite movie.
  • Make seven-layer bars together.
  • Eat fresh bagels and look at the stars along the river in downtown Northfield.
  • Eat sushi and give it to your friends.
  • Have an outdoor coffee breakfast in Norway Valley.
  • Get a bag lunch and eat it on the bench behind Old Main.
  • Make a bunch of clues and leave them with friends in different places. (Each clue leads to the next.) When your date finds you, have dinner prepared and have a friend serve.
  • Win a bet with your roommate, and then make him/her cook a formal meal for you and your date and serve it to you behind Old Main at night.
  • Set up a Cream of Wheat stand in front of Malt-O-Meal (play the Limestone's song, "Eating Cream of Wheat in a Malt-O-Meal town."
  • Go tubing down a river; float a picnic lunch along and find a spot along the river to stop and eat.
  • Dinner at the K-Mart or Target cafeteria.
  • Dress up formally and go to dinner at McDonald's. Attend an elementary school band concert.
  • Walk through downtown Northfield, each pick a side of the street, split up for 30 min., on your side of the street you have to buy the coolest gift you can find for under $5 for the other person. After that, have dinner at Hogan Brothers.
  • Go to Taco Oasis for Taco Tuesday (49 cents/taco) for a very cheap dinner. Continue on to Target to play free video games all night at their entertainment center set-up.
  • Romantic, candlelight dinner for 2 in the caf & dress up, get escorted to the table & the whole deal.
  • Order pizza, park under the stars, and sit on the hood of the car and enjoy the meal.
  • Blindfold your date, and have them guess the foods you feed them.
  • Have a picnic of chicken from the supermarket deli and watch the sunset over Lake Byllesby in Cannon Falls.
  • Wake up before dawn, get some doughnuts and juice and have a sunrise breakfast outside.
  • Make cookies together, wrap them in colorful paper and take them around campus to your friends, especially during finals.
  • Get a bag lunch from the caf, and go to Rice County Park&play in the leaves and have lunch on top of the cliffs.
  • Make Kool-Aid Play-doh® and eat it.
  • Lay face up, head-to-head on the ground, and try and feed each other applesauce.
  • Give plasma together. Use the money to finance dinner and a movie or give it to charity.
  • Go out to dinner and have a bagpiper serenade you.
  • Dress up in lederhosen and go to a German restaurant.
  • Buy or make a special dessert, and serve it on the 50-yard line of Manitou Field under the stars.
  • Cook for each other.
  • Go to the grocery store, and put together a deli picnic&walk to Riverside Park and play on the swings.
  • Have an ice cream picnic on the beach&any time of the year!
  • Buy an Italian phrase book and practice speaking to each other in a restaurant.
  • Think up a new ice cream flavor, and then see if you can make some and get your friends to eat it.
  • Wear black polo shirts and aprons and offer to refill drinks for people in the caf.
  • Drink green tea in yunomis (ceramic tea bowls) at the Carleton Zen Garden.
  • Make spaghetti and watch "Lady and the Tramp."
  • Buy the ingredients for S'mores, go out to Rice County Park and build a fire. Make the S'mores and eat them.
  • Have continental breakfast on a blanket behind Thorson Hall.
  • Walk to Econo Foods with 2 spoons, get a pint of Ben & Jerry's and eat it on the way home.
  • Visit all 5 coffee shops in Northfield
  • Tell your date that you are going fishing. Have the boat ready with two poles cast in the water. At the end of one, have a bottle of sparkling cider and have them reel it in. Have a picnic in the boat and watch the sunset.
  • Go to an apple orchard in the fall&perhaps Fireside Orchard. Some give hayrides or let you pick your own apples. Come home and make a baked apple dessert.
  • Play the marshmallow game with a twist: stuff your mouths full of marshmallows and kiss after each one goes in. First one who can't pucker, loses.
  • Roast marshmallows for people studying in the hall lounges with fireplaces.
  • Have a movie night in your room. Turn out the lights, but have Christmas lights on. Have a carpet picnic with fun finger foods on a fuzzy blanket.
  • Have a coffee house in your room with music, coffee, and an unlit hurricane candle or lava lamp.
  • Go eat at a greasy truck stop where the servers are really sarcastic.
  • Bake banana bread in the middle of the night.
  • Make chili and feed it to your friends outside after traying.
  • See how many different places you can buy ice cream in Northfield over the course of the semester.
  • Lie face up, head-to-head on the ground, and try to feed each other applesauce.
  • Make caramel apples for your friends.
  • Have a hot chocolate stand in front of your dorm.
  • Climb a tree and eat a fun meal up there.
  • Play Nintendo and make Jello®&invite people over for it.
  • Have a lemonade stand&give proceeds to charity.
  • Get a dessert cookbook and whip up some extraordinary treats...eat them after a movie or walk together.
  • Make fondue.
  • Learn to serve High Tea, and have a very elegant tea date.
  • Have a formal dinner party in your dorm room. Make invitations, get dressed up, the whole shebang.
  • Plan a potluck dinner with the First Year Dean, cook something special and have it at her house.
  • Bake cookies together and walk down to President Anderson's house and share.
  • Pick a random house in Northfield and convince the people or person inside that you are wonderful and that they should invite you in for dinner.
  • Go to all the fast food restaurants in Northfield and ask for a different restaurants signature item, i.e. order a Whopper at McDonald's.
  • Go grocery shopping with your date and make dinner together Emeril-style (Bam!).
  • Picnic around campus.
  • Go downtown and buy candles in your dates favorite scent, then go to the grocery store and buy his/her favorite food. Take both to a special place and serve him/her their favorite meal and surround the spot with candles.
  • Take your date to Chapati for dinner followed by a romantic walk through downtown. Stop on one of the Cannon River bridges where your friends serenade you two with Kiss the Girl (from the Little Mermaid movie).
  • Go to the caf for dinner - when you get to your table, trade trays. Follow up with hallway bowling: 10 Dixie cups and a soccer ball.
  • Set up a table and chairs in an open field around Northfield beforehand; bring candles for later. When it gets darker, take your date there and have a friend serve you take-out food you picked up earlier. As you are eating, make sure one of your violin-playing friends shows up to serenade the two of you. After the meal, lay out a blanket and watch the stars for the rest of the evening.

Fall & Winter

  • Have a snow sculpture contest (themes: bathroom fixtures, res hall furniture, etc.)
  • Go traying or sledding or cardboarding down Old Main Hill&have hot chocolate afterward
  • Get some snowshoes and hike through Rice County Park
  • Build an igloo
  • Build a snowman outside of your friends' window to greet them when they get up in the morning
  • Go ice skating in a snowstorm
  • Make snow angels in new snow
  • Grill outside in the middle of winter
  • Build a snowman and a snowdog
  • Build a snowman and snowwoman in front of your residence hall, then go knocking on peoples doors to collect things to decorate them .
  • Ice skate in Riverside Park, Way Park, or Lyman Lakes at Carleton
  • Go for a walk in a snowstorm
  • Play snow soccer, golf, softball, or football
  • Play badminton in the snow
  • Go ice fishing (make sure you have a license)
  • Go sledding in garbage bags
  • Go ice skating at Carleton and have hot chocolate in Sayles-Hill
  • Ice Block Sledding!! Get two ice blocks, put towels over them, and slide down Old Main
  • Rent cross-country skis and ski through the Carleton Arb together
  • Go cross-country skiing anywhere
  • Play basketball in the snow
  • Go snowshoeing and stash some hot chocolate along the route
  • To get the best Halloween plunder, go trick-or-treating precisely one week late. If the people still have leftover candy, they'll usually give you all of it because they are sick of eating it all
  • In the fall, go into town, pick a house, and rake their leaves and jump in the pile. Leave them a note thanking them for the use of their yard. In the winter, go back to the same house and shovel their snow. Leave them another note.
  • Go trick-or-treating for canned food.
  • In the fall, get a bag of tulip, crocus, or daffodil bulbs and plant them in people's yards at night. In the spring, go back and look for them popping up all around town (sometimes called Green Vandalism).
  • Do reverse trick-or-treating - get dressed up and go around giving candy away to people on Halloween.
  • Go trick-or-treating.
  • Walk through the woods at the peak of fall colors and pick up the best samples. Bring them back and make a leaf bouquet for each other (hey, it's cheaper than flowers!)
  • Rake up a big leaf pile and jump in it.
  • Tell ghost stories on the back steps of Old Main at midnight on Halloween.
  • Help decorate each other's room for the holidays.
  • Rake leaves from around campus, put them in bags, and take them to a park for kids (and you) to jump in.
  • Roll down Old Main hill in the fall. Then parade around campus wearing your "Souvenirs". Rolling down twice is good - three times makes you sick.
  • Have a leaf fight.
  • Have a snowball fight and then walk down to Hogan Brothers for a warm hoagie


The finer things

  • Check the papers and watch for an upcoming monster truck rally get two tickets (and earplugs) and show up!
  • Gather your supplies of pencils/charcoal/watercolors and sketch paper and walk down St. Olaf Avenue with your date. Scan each house and pick your favorite. Sit down on the sidewalk and draw/paint the front with you and your date in it.
  • Write a story by each composing one line at a time. Take turns until your masterpiece is complete
  • Find a few actors willing to perform a short play; have them perform it for you and your date on a grassy hill while the two of you have a picnic. You get a play and the actors get an audience; everyones happy!
  • Read poetry to each other in unlikely locations - at the water tower, in the caf, Mellby lawn, under the sculptures outside of the Admin Building, etc.
  • Take a Community Education class together.
  • Learn sign language together, and practice signing to each other.
  • Tie-dye t-shirts.
  • Attend offbeat community celebrations like Cabin Fever Days in Cannon Falls, booyas in Morristown, etc.
  • Get an Origami book at the Northfield Library and learn to make paper cranes.
  • Play chess or backgammon in Bridge Square, drinking coffee and looking intellectual.
  • Take pictures of old buildings - find different ways to frame the photos using sticks, leaves, origami paper, etc. Display your artwork in a "Show" on your door, holding an Art Opening and Gallery Talk.
  • Draw a chalk mural on the plaza of Buntrock Commons.
  • Attend a cultural event at Carleton.
  • Make up funny stories or write embellished epic poems about each other.
  • Volunteer on a Presidential Campaign together - if you can agree on a candidate.
  • Attend a local auction together, make a commitment to buy something, no matter how ugly or unnecessary&usually this is possible for less than $1.
  • Visit the Minnesota History Center and the State Capitol in St. Paul&they are free and really neat!
  • Design tattoos for each other and make them with permanent magic markers. If you like them after a week, go downtown and have them done.
  • Make paper snowflakes for your room windows.
  • Tour the Northfield Historical Society and learn about Jesse James.
  • Read George and Martha stories to each other.
  • Play with a magnetic poetry kit.
  • Do artwork on chalkboards in classrooms at night.
  • Go downtown and try your hand at being street musicians. See how much money you can make.
  • Re-enact your senior pictures in Norway Valley.
  • Watch "The Wizard of Oz" with Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon."
  • Rent a horribly bad movie, and take turns ripping on it, like Mystery Science Theatre 2000. (Black Belt Jones is also recommended).
  • Go to the children's section of the Northfield Library and read fairy tales to each other.
  • Decorate a cup or flowerpot, plant seeds or little plants and exchange.
  • Get a star map and lay out on the Soccer Field identifying constellations - make up some of your own.
  • Use puffy paints and make T-shirts together.
  • Buy sidewalk chalk&write poetry for people to read on their way to class, or create fabulous artwork.
  • Finger-paint pictures for the refrigerators of your friends.
  • Buy a bunch of Laffy Taffy and tell jokes to each other.
  • Get copies of your favorite play and act it out.
  • Go to a comedy show in the Pause and laugh until it hurts.
  • Read a Shakespeare play in Holland Hall at midnight.
  • Re-enact "The Princess Bride."
  • Go downtown Northfield with a pad and pencil. Take turns sketching each other in different places and poses. Take the drawings to an Art Museum and donate them.
  • Go to a bead store and pick out beads. Make a bracelet or necklace for each other.
  • Buy crayons and a coloring book. Find a pretty place in town and color all of the pictures. On your way back to campus, tuck your lovely artwork into mailboxes on St. Olaf Avenue.
  • Go to a barbershop or hair salon; design each others haircuts and get them done.
  • Go to a jewelry store and try on wedding rings.
  • Have a dramatic bad poetry reading.
  • Pick out and name stars for each other.
  • Rent a foreign film and make up your own dialogue. (Or do it with an English flick and turn the volume down).
  • Make up poems about each other, and go to the arb and read them to each other by candlelight under the biggest tree you can find.
  • Go to the library and read romantic poetry to each other with a flashlight in an unlighted study lounge.
  • Create a mime act and perform it in Bridge Square on a Thursday night or Saturday. Put a hat out and spend the money you make on a date.
  • In the spring, go down to the track and lie on the pole vault pit and watch the stars.
  • Make up a new language as you go, and walk around town carrying on an animated discussion.
  • Buy a $5 tuxedo and a $5 prom dress from Ragstock&go around town getting your picture taken on prom night in the spring.
  • Attend Thursday on the Square events in Northfield&most are held in the summer.
  • Go to the Chamber of Commerce and check out the rack of brochures&visit some of the local attractions.
  • Go to the Archer House and walk through the hotel, visiting the various theme rooms.
  • Volunteer together.
  • Attend a production at the Northfield Arts Guild.
  • Choreograph a pairs skating routine, and perform it on the grass in a park.
  • Do face painting for kids in downtown Northfield.
  • Attend Open Houses on the weekend together. Check real estate listing in the Northfield News.
  • Get your friends together - write and film a movie in one night.
  • Borrow a telescope from the Physics Department and go stargazing on Old Main hill, or get some binoculars and do the same.
  • Go to a play at the Guthrie or Ordway, getting student rush tickets.
  • Memorize a part of your favorite Dr. Seuss book and go stand in the Pause reciting it, taking turns word by word until they tell you to go away.
  • Get a box of Crayola® crayons and a coloring book - color pictures for your parents.
  • Get two cameras&explore and photograph a new place together.
  • Locate all the sculptures on the St. Olaf and Carleton campuses, walk around and pretend you're snooty art critics and argue about what they mean.
  • Police Academy marathon!
  • Act out a hand puppet/shadow puppet opera.
  • Get a coloring book, color a bunch of pictures with crayons and put them in random St. Olaf p.o. boxes with messages on them like, Have a great day!
  • Design lampshades and paint them for each other's rooms.
  • Take pictures of campus and send them home.
  • Buy cheap fabric or wrapping paper and, using scissors and duct tape only, make outfits for each other.


It's just a game

  • Each of you put on your swimsuit and hold a pool party in a res hall tub/shower. Invite people over to join you.
  • Play Marco Polo in a cornfield.
  • Glue quarters to the ground and watch people try to pick them up.
  • Wear horned helmets and pillage a small village.
  • Knock on people's doors and give them pennies depending on how nice they are to you.
  • Go to a mall and have a contest to find the ugliest outfits&bring a Polaroid camera to document the results.
  • Organize a video scavenger hunt.
  • Buy cheap squirt guns and have a water fight.
  • Play hide-and-seek in a cemetery.
  • Play on the playground equipment in Oddfellows Park.
  • Throw a "How to Host a Murder Party." If you do not have a set of instructions with character roles and plot background, borrow one&get people to dress for the part.
  • Skip rocks in the Cannon River.
  • Do cartwheels on the Mellby lawn.
  • Go puddle jumping.
  • Full contact Twister.
  • Play Twister.
  • Roll down the hill behind Hoyme, then play "Dizzy Sticks" (Dizzy Bats for baseball fans). Bend over with one end of the stick against your forehead and the other on the ground. Do circles around the stick, and fall over and watch the sky spin.
  • Have a contest to catch popcorn in your mouth that you throw at each other.
  • Have cider and play "20 Questions" in the gazebo down at the river.
  • Have a semester-long contest to collect the widest variety of pens from restaurants, hotels, etc.
  • Throw sticks in the river and chase them downstream. Have stick races from the bridge to the dam.
  • Get 50 yards of plastic sheeting at a building supply store, buy dishsoap, add water and have your own Slip 'n Slide.
  • Get a bag of mini marshmallows and see how many you can stick to your face.
  • Go to teh Grocery store and pretend you are doing a psychological study on embarrassment. Find out how many people will actually tell you their most embarrassing moment.
  • Get a 12 pack of Diet Coke®, go to a romantic spot and have a belching contest.
  • Play hide and seek in the 24-hour Wal-Mart® in Faribault.
  • Go to a store with electric carts and have a race.
  • Walk around with your date and converse using only lines from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. If someone looks at your strangely say "Ni!" to them. (British accents are a must).
  • Hold an all-night card party at the pumphouse.
  • Have a treasure hunt at midnight with flashlights.
  • Play pinball at Grundy's.
  • Play "Capture the Flag" in K-Mart®.
  • Take a penny and go around to houses and businesses and ask if they have anything bigger or better to trade. Keep working your way up, and see what you wind up with. (Great to do this with other couples)
  • Play Trivial Pursuit® with real pie.
  • Play with a super ball in the stairwell.
  • Tell your date to go hang out in a friend's room and leave a note for him/her on the door that says go to a different room; do this a few times. Ultimately, have them end up at your room with a note that says come in; leave roses set up with a nice note but you are actually across the hall, and you go over when they get the roses.
  • Do EVERYTHING scheduled for the Defeat of Jesse James Days (held the first weekend after Labor Day).
  • Play "Hair Salon." Get some hair spray, sculpting gel and make outrageous hairstyles for each other. Dont let your date see it until you are done.
  • Get a huge jigsaw puzzle at a garage sale and stay up all night putting it together.
  • Go frogging in the wetlands - see who comes up with the biggest one.
  • Buy some crazy clothing and participate in the Jesse James Day re-enactment. Act like you don't know why people are pointing and laughing at you.
  • Make and throw paper airplanes off of the balcony in Buntrock Commons or in the Chapel.
  • Play, :Hey Cow!
  • Grab a couple of rolls of toilet paper and roll them down Old Main hill. Then lie down and roll down the hill yourself, getting wrapped up in the toilet paper.
  • Ride the riding toy in front of K-Mart®.
  • Find a swing set and see who can swing the highest.
  • Play "Sardines" by the pond behind Skoglund.
  • Have a "Come Dressed as Your Date" party.
  • Organize a poker or blackjack game in an elevator. Invite people who step on to join the game.
  • Take a video camera to a public place and conduct interviews.
  • Walk around campus in white sheets and randomly jump out at people, and then offer them candy.
  • Go ding-dong-ditching.
  • Go to Ragstock and create your own superhero outfit&decide on special powers, then go and fight it out!
  • Dress in red and khaki and walk around Target® pretending to spy on them.
  • Have a Nintendo®/Sega® Olympics.
  • Play Sardines in the library.
  • Have a water-balloon fight - even in winter!
  • Make wild animal masks and use the St. Olaf campus as the "Wild Outdoors".
  • Play board games by firelight.
  • Go to the airport and take turns pretending the other is about to leave for along trip - make out in public - no one will care! This is sometimes called the "Good-bye Game".
  • Create a hopscotch board on a sidewalk and play.
  • Go rock hunting.
  • Play in the big mud pit behind Skoglund after a heavy rain.
  • Teach your date how to do something - like golf, chess, 2-step, physics, etc.
  • Make up contests for each other.
  • Play "Randomization" at Target®. Put random items in people's shopping carts without them seeing you. The bigger the item, the more points you receive.
  • Play Hide and Seek, Kick the Can, Capture the Flag, etc.
  • Crush ice on a hot day and have a snowball fight.
  • Play the "Sock Game." At night get a group of people to dress in black; fill socks with flour; divide into teams and hide on campus. When the sock of an opposing team member hits you, you are frozen until you get a sock back from your own team. First team to freeze the entire other team wins.
  • Play "Boomshieka! ( it's a version of "Hey Cow" for people). Go to a public place and yell "Boomshieka!" and see how many people look at you.
  • For a week or so, be each other's "secret admirer." Hide little notes and gifts for each other around campus. All week long through notes you can plan a meeting at the end of the week to "discover" whom your secret person is.
  • Make up new rules for old board games.
  • Watch the movie Tron (1982) and afterward, sneak around your res hall like the characters, pretending you are on some secret mission.
  • Dress up in suits and go downtown with a set of walkie-talkies and play spy vs. spy.
  • Take your date on a group date to Target®, every pair gets one dollar and has to search for the cheapest item and buy it. Report back in one hour and the pair with the cheapest item wins.
  • Race Hot Wheels® cars down St. Olaf Avenue.
  • Gather a bunch of friends, go down to the pole vault mats and play human bowling.
  • Buy a bottle of bubbles down at Econo Foods, walk over to the Arb at Carleton, climb a tree, and blow bubbles on people passing by.
  • Dress up as a superhero and his/her sidekick and run around campus humming the theme song while pretending to save random people from some imagined evil.

Music & Dancing

  • Go to Swing or Ballroom Club one night and learn the moves. The next night, take a radio out behind Old Main and dance beneath the stars.
  • Play/sing duets with each other.
  • Go to a local reception hall (The Legion), dress up and join a wedding reception, birthday or retirement party.
  • Chaperone a Junior High dance together.
  • Create a Latin Dance Club in your room. Dress up in sexy outfits and dance the night away.
  • Dress up in formal wear and dance in the Crossroads of Buntrock Commons.
  • Play a guitar and serenade your date in front of their residence hall, be willing to take requests.
  • Write a special someone a song, and sing it to him or her in the caf loudly at 6 p.m.
  • Buy a blank tape and make a mix of your favorite songs.
  • Make up songs as you walk along.
  • Get a book of Emily Dickinson poetry and sing the poems to the tune of "Yellow Rose of Texas." (Surprise - it really works!)
  • Serenade elevator riders with violin and cello.
  • Go dancing in the main lobby of the Science Center. Be sure not to drop your date.
  • Find pots and pans and put together a street corner band.
  • Buy a Donny and Marie Osmond record from the used record store downtown and play "The Donny & Marie Show" in your room.
  • Get a hold of a record player, some old 45's, and have a retro dance party in your room.
  • Park in an empty lot, turn up the car radio and dance together outside of the car.
  • Take your favorite songs and change the words to apply to each other.
  • Rent "Grease" and sing along with all of the songs.
  • Dance in the rain, then play in the puddles and go mudsliding.
  • Dress up in 40's clothes and go swing dancing, then go back and watch "Swing Kids" or another 40's movie.
  • Bring a portable radio to the gazebo on the river behind the Archer House and dance under the stars.
  • Compose a song together.
  • Rent "Saturday Night Fever" and learn the moves.
  • Get a bunch of instruments and friends together; play the crappiest music possible.
  • Sing Christmas Carols at a nursing home.
  • Reserve a large room, bring down a stereo and some lights, and ballroom dance in your very own private studio.
  • Ballroom dance in the rain in front of your residence hall.
  • Sneak in Boe Studio A and see how loud you can make the organs play. Give your own (fake) student recital late at night in the music building.
  • Create a beach in your room and have a beach party or luau.
  • Create your own karaoke night in Kildahl lounge
  • Walk around the residential areas of Northfield singing, Um Yah Yah!


If you're feeling sporty

  • Bike to Dundas, go out to the west side and watch a gorgeous sunset.
  • Borrow rollerblades and rollerblade along the river.
  • Form an intramural team together - ultimate, softball, soccer, etc.
  • Play catch.
  • Go to the weight room and spot each other.
  • Take a martial arts class together and practice throws on each other.
  • Play one-on-one touch football.
  • Go on exercise dates&running, biking, basketball, weightlifting etc.
  • Invent your own triathlon.
  • Set up your own Frisbee golf or shoe golf course and play it.
  • Go to Way Park basketball court and play a game of HORSE.
  • Go bowling - better yet, join a league together.
  • Get some wormy apples from an orchard and have batting practice on Mellby lawn.
  • Drive to Red Wing and climb the bluff.
  • Bike the Cannon Falls-Red Wing trail (22 mi.)
  • Take mountain bikes up to the Cities, & ride the Minnesota River Valley Trail (It can be picked up right near the Mall of America).
  • Bike until it gets dark, stop at a field, pitch a tent and camp overnight.
  • Go on a jogging date.
  • Go bowling in formal attire.
  • Jump around on the pole vault mats.
  • With another couple, have a 2-on-2 decathlon.
  • Go rock climbing.
  • Go fly-fishing and then find your own romantic swimming hole.
  • Go canoeing down the Cannon River and camp along the way - pack for a 2-day trip and have a friend meet you in Red Wing.
  • Organize a Relay for Life team and raise money to fight cancer.
  • Learn to skydive together at the Stanton Airfield.
  • Attend a Northfield High School sporting event.
  • Canoe the Cannon. Camp in the Cannon Valley Wilderness area.
  • Go to a Northfield Gymnastics Club meet.
  • Dress up in Halloween costumes on a night when it isn't Halloween and go bowling.
  • Rollerblade to McDonald's for an ice cream cone.
  • Borrow a Frisbee and walk down to any of the local parks and toss it around.
  • Call the Jesse James Lanes and find out which night is Moonlight Bowling; dress up in as much white as possible and go bowling.
  • Find some other couples and all get decked out in Twins gear; watch the Twins game in your lounge.
  • Go horseback riding.


Take a hike

  • Walk downtown, tour the art gallery and antique shops, and stop for ice cream.
  • Get some field guides, walk the nature trails around campus and identify all of the plants and trees you can find.
  • Put pumpkins on your head and walk around.
  • Go exploring in the woods and build a fort.
  • Walk through the woods at night&make up scary stories for each other.
  • Pretend that you need to take a survey for a class and ask pedestrians random and weird questions.
  • Go out to Big Woods State Park in Nerstrand and spend a day hiking in the woods and swimming under the waterfall.
  • Take a long walk around the wetlands and have an ice cream cone in the Cage.
  • Blindfold your date and take them somewhere.
  • Walk along the Cannon River and feed the ducks.
  • Go for a walk along the railroad tracks
  • Dress up as Mr. & Mrs. Claus on the 4th of July and march in your favorite parade.
  • Camp for free in Rice County Park.
  • Walk around with your date and converse using only lines from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. If someone looks at you strangely say "Ni!" to him or her. (British accents are a must).
  • Shop all of the Third-Thursday sales downtown.
  • Walk around the dorm and put uplifting notes on all the dry-erase boards on people's doors.
  • Drive around the neighborhoods behind Carleton and pick out your favorite house.
  • Get a State Park sticker and visit the parks in the area.
  • Take a walk in a cornfield, or play hide-and-seek in a cornfield or try to lose each other in a cornfield.
  • Attend garage sales.
  • Go for glider rides at the Stanton Airfield on Highway 19.
  • Hang up a hammock in the Norway Valley trees. Take your date for a walk and have a thermos of hot chocolate waiting there for you.
  • Drive Highway 61 from Red Wing to La Crosse, checking out the leaves in the fall, or go in winter and watch the eagles feed over open water on the Mississippi. Binoculars are recommended.
  • Walk down St. Olaf Ave. and find a neat house. Sit on their front steps and talk about anything.
  • Take a walk on the Cross Country trails.
  • Buy a few bags of candy, wrap treats in paper, and leave them on the doorsteps of your favorite professors.
  • Buy ice cream and walk along the river.
  • Build a fort in the woods at Carleton and equip it with St. Olaf propaganda.
  • Fly a kite at night.
  • Pick flowers together.
  • Give each other a wild makeover including hair dye, curlers, facials, piercing gun and wild wardrobe. Take a romantic walk around campus and greet everyone you pass.


If you're still bored

  • Find a monkey/ape costume and wear it while trying to climb the rock-climbing wall.
  • Tape something random on top of your car such as a pop can, purse, etc. and drive around while people honk at you and try to tell you something is on top of the car. Act like you have no clue what is going on.
  • Find some old magazines and each of you cut out pictures representing significant events in your own life. Arrange them in chronological order and tell your life story.
  • Get copies of your favorite old time cartoons that you two grew up with and laugh, all over again
  • Go to Elko and see a NASCAR race.
  • Organize your own A-thon: jump-a-thon, rock-a-thon, etc.-a-thon. Raise money from your friends and give it to a charity.
  • Set all of the alarm clocks in a store to go off on 1-minute intervals.
  • Watch the clouds and make up stories about what you see.
  • Put a note in some guy or girl's PO box saying "Meet me on the soccer field at 10:00." See what happens.
  • Clean someone's room for them&mints on the pillow and everything.
  • Watch the Discovery Channel but turn the volume off and do your own voice-overs.
  • Go for a one-way bus ride on Northfield Lines. (Make the entire circuit without getting off).
  • Go to the Humane Society in Faribault and play with the pets.
  • Fill the hall bathtub with goldfish; make fishing poles with hangars, string and paperclips. Use bread as bait. Go fishing!
  • Hold a rummage sale together.
  • Go downtown to Bridge Square and people watch - make up stories about the people who are there.
  • Wash each other's feet - give a complete foot makeover, including toenail polish.
  • Pretend to get in an argument and ask others to help solve it.
  • Compliment people's shoes.
  • Make out.
  • Chase squirrels.
  • Go to Northfield High School and greet students as they leave.
  • Set up a Cream of Wheat stand in front of Malt-O-Meal. (Play the Limestone's song, "Eating Cream of Wheat in a Malt-O-Meal Town.")
  • Go to the Mall of America and play "101 Fun Things to do in an Elevator".
  • Have a beach party at the ponds behind campus.
  • Give each other 80s hairstyles. Use as much hairspray as possible.
  • Get on an elevator and announce to everyone very loudly and proudly, "I've got new socks on."
  • Do this repeatedly and see how people react.
  • Go to the grocery store with a video camera and interview people. Ask them to describe everything in their carts like they are doing a commercial.
  • Dress up, test drive a convertible and drive through town slowly with the top down waving like you're someone important in a parade. Make a sign for the car if you want.
  • Do crossword puzzles in the empty, lit St. Olaf football field.
  • Get together and write letters to your congressperson detailing your opposition to something stupid.
  • Go to a farm and ask if you and your date can be farmers for a day (I.e. feed the pigs, milk the cows, etc.)
  • Ride the bus to the airport and watch planes take off and land - make up stories about the people getting on and off of the flights.
  • Find an atlas in the Library and plan an exotic trip together.
  • During the fall, catch leaves as they fall off of the trees - one year of luck for every leaf you catch.
  • Look at people far away - be a ventriloquist and imitate their dialogue.
  • Go to a funeral home and try out your favorite caskets. Tell the salesperson that you "have a bad feeling in your gut" about the next week.
  • Read the "Book of Questions" to each other&there are several varieties&
  • Fly a cheap kite as high as you can (make one of your own from sticks and newspaper).
  • Sit on a curb near the St Olaf entrance with a sign that says "____ or bust" with really outrageous places on it. See if you get any rides.
  • Give each other hand massages.
  • Dress up in 60s clothing from Ragstock and collect stares from people.
  • Pick flowers and deliver them to someone you don't know.
  • Do a devotional together.
  • Get matching St. Olaf lion tattoos.
  • Lie down in a field and find things in the clouds.
  • Go to a pumpkin patch, pick a pumpkin, and carve it together.
  • Visit a nursing home together and play cards, bingo, read to the residents or listen as they tell you their stories.
  • Get a camcorder and make a documentary tape of your date - play it back later for friends.
  • Go sit under one of the bridges in town and listen to cars go by.
  • Throw flowers, sticks, grass, etc. in the river and watch it float down.
  • Go down to Malt-O-Meal and talk with truckers.
  • Fly stunt kites in the arb.
  • Proxy at Student Senate with each other.
  • Feed a friend's piranha( just baby-sit the other fish).
  • Visit the pet store and check out the animals.
  • Drive around with a bag over your head with eye holes cut out and scare other drivers.
  • Go cow tipping (just dress up as cows and tip each other).
  • Attend the Hot Air Balloon Festival in Faribault in mid-September.
  • Write a letter home for your date - do it for each other.
  • Take pictures of your date, get them developed in one hour at Northfield Photo, and make them into postcards - mail them to friends and family.
  • Give each other a haircut!
  • Go steal a dog from a yard, and then go to the front door and ask for a reward.
  • Come to my room and make fun of my roommate's hair.
  • Buy a cheap cowboy and cowgirl outfit and ride the mechanical bull at Jesse James Days.
  • Lie out on the soccer field and watch the clouds go by.
  • Go visit a corn maze.
  • Go try on outrageous clothing together at Ragstock or Targe's clearance section. Create some stylish outfits for each other and model the outfits. If cheap enough, buy the clothes and wear them around town for the rest of the day.
  • Attend church together, visiting different congregations each week.
  • Get dressed up and run through a water fountain together.
  • Borrow a puppy and go play in a park.
  • Go to a playground and watch little kids play.
  • Have fun in an instant photo booth.
  • Baby-sit a prof's kids together - get permission first.
  • Look at each other's baby pictures.
  • Browse in the bookstores in Northfield.
  • Tour the fire station.
  • Buy a lottery ticket, and make a pact to use the proceeds for the rest of the night.
  • Get a roll of pennies and leave them around campus on the ground heads up so that lots of people thing they have good luck.
  • Rent a U-haul truck - outfit the back of it with a couch, table, plants, art on the walls, carpet, etc. Pick up your date in the truck, drive them to the edge of town and park the truck facing east. Open the back doors to the west to watch the sunset.
  • Buy a Sunday newspaper and read it together in front of a sunny window on a cold day.
  • Go car shopping together.
  • Do laundry together.
  • Have a bonfire behind Thorson Hall - contact Public Safety for details.
  • Go test-driving new cars.
  • Look through magazines and pick out gifts for each other.
  • Spoon while watching Coyote Ugly, or another favorite movie.
  • Grab your trays and sit at the language table of a language you dont know.
  • Cuddle time.
  • Float toy boats down the river.
  • Walk through all the res halls singing their signature hall cheer as loud as you can.
  • Spend a night running around Carleton; see how many new Carleton friends you can make.
  • Groom each other for your date: you shave his face and he does your makeup.
  • Build a fort out of blankets in your room and have a slumber party.
  • Set up a valet parking sign in front of K-Mart and attempt to provide the service.
  • Go to Carleton and run sociology experiments , i.e. ask smoking students to see their ids, stand backwards in an elevator, eat pasta with your hands, etc.
  • Paint each other's finger and toenails - paint exotic designs!
  • Squirrel stalking.
  • Go to the Student Activities Office, watch trashy TV, eat popcorn, and do puzzles.