I'm excited to be in Minneapolis. It sounds like it (and St. Paul) will be fun cities to explore. I called around this morning, and no one here can look at our RV (everyone's booked for weeks), so I found a place in Colorado, and we have an appointment for August 15. Just have to make it one more month!
We drove into Minneapolis to explore this afternoon, and ended up by the waterfront, at the Minnehaha Falls and lock:
I am standing on a beautiful stone bridge, built in the 1880s for the railroad, to take this picture. Here's the bridge:
The falls are what made Minneapolis--well, the river did I guess. At first, it hauled lumber, but then, the river was diverted to dozens of mills right on the waterfront. This picture shows where their outputs used to be (all the little, now filled-in channels on the right). Each channel represents a different mill:
Flour was the big industry here after lumber. It's where Pillsbury and Gold Medal set up business. Both are still here, but the rest are gone. Mostly all that is left are ruins:
Luckily, the ruins weren't demolished completely. Now there is a museum protecting what is left, you can see its sign, "Mill City Museum" behind the old stone mill in the center of that picture. Here are the ruins left beside the river, including a big turbine I think, rusting halfway up:
Tours are given of the ruins, and they still do archeology there.
After touring the Corps of Engineers lock-overlook, Mark suggested we drive over to the Metrodome.
The Twins were playing in a few hours, and he got us tickets. We parked the car and took light rail from the Metrodome to the old warehouse district, to eat dinner and kill time before the game.
Here is Mark chatting with his buddy Eric, in front of the old City Hall. Katie was engrossed in trying to drink as much fountain water as she could get away with.
At the game, Katie got her face painted (she chose Elmo as the motif):
The roof of the Metrodome is made of what looks like white plastic inflated pillows. I have no idea why it stays up. Mark pointed out that our ears sort of popped when we entered the revolving doors. He said the air pressure keeps it up (like a giant bouncy house, I imagined). But there is no noise--bouncy houses are quite loud. I don't know, but it's fascinating. Here it is:
The lighting is so perfect--there is no glare at all. And the temperature was so comfy. Their air electric bill (a/c and heating) must be enormous.
Wednesday, July 20
Let me start by saying it is hot and humid here. The temps get into the 90s and the humidity does too. This spot has no shade, but we do have our awning and our air conditioning, thankfully.
After blue skies and hot weather yesterday, this morning at 5:30, Mark and I awoke to the sounds of a loud thunderstorm. It came up fast and furious, lots of lightning, wind, and heavy rain. I wondered if hail would start falling, and if I should worry about tornados. I turned on the TV to get a weather report. Also, we were concerned about our awning, which was out, and isn't supposed to be out in high winds. There was a lot of water being supported by it by the time Mark checked on it, so he dipped a corner of the awning to release the load. Crash! The awning gave way as an estimated 20 gallons of water dumped out. The awning's back rail smashed down and over its locking mechanism, jamming the rail closed. uh-oh! (that's not the word he used)
Inside, I heard the crash and knew something was wrong. I got online to try to see who could fix it (I knew our chances were bad for anything in Minneapolis). Mark was furious and went out to tinker with the awning. Twice I poked my head outside and said in a small, calm voice, "sweetie, ya know, the good thing is it is closed at least, so we can drive. If it gets jammed open, things will be so much worse. He knew this of course. My instinct is to leave just about any broken thing alone and call someone to fix it. Mark can't let stuff alone when it's broken.
Marrying an engineer has its drawbacks (fastidious tidyness, inability to let go of a problem) but its gifts too. One is that they can sometimes fix stuff. Mark and his screwdriver managed to unjam the awning, which now works perfectly. It does show its scars from the experience, but heck, it works! "We haven't crashed this baby yet" is our motto.
After that little experience, we were both pooped. Naturally, Katie slept through the whole thing. The weather report forecast more storms, so I thought we'd get outta the RV and do something inside someplace else.
Mark was tired and had developed a headache from the awning incident, so I thought I'd take Katie for awhile and sightsee, give him a chance to rest. While I am not a mallrat by any estimation, we are only minutes from the most famous, largest mall in the country (the Mall of America), so I thought we'd check it out. Besides, it has an indoors amusement park in the center, where Katie can play no matter how much it storms today. So Katie and I drove over and checked it out.
We parked by Sears, walked right through to Cinnabon, bought Katie her first Cinnabon (I felt sorta proud), which we shared, till we were sufficiently sugared up to shop or play for hours. Then we ambled to the center of the mall, which holds "Camp Snoopy." Here Katie is by the entrance:
The mall itself isn't as impressive as you might imagine, considering its reputation. It is certainly big, but how many stores geared to 13-year-olds does one need anyway? It didn't have a fabric store, which I needed and thought for sure it would have. It was pretty inside, but not as pretty as the Galleria near our home. Anyway, the best part of the mall is definitely the amusement park. Katie and I spent hours there. Here she is on the Frog Hopper:
Here she is with me on the racecars (her favorite ride):
and on my favorite ride, the balloon race (this ride is gentle and pretty and kicks up a little breeze):
Yep, that's Mark with her--we drove back and got him to return with us after dinner. Here is sort of a view from above, taken from the ferris wheel:
Here is the scariest looking ride, the Axe. Those people are spinning around and going upside down, while the whole axe revolves around too. Mark dared me over and over to go on it. I wouldn't, but agreed to go on the spider instead:
and on an enormous rollercoaster that spins you around in your car while the car goes along the windy track. It was the funnest rollercoaster I've ever ridden, and maybe the shortest ride too. Thank god it was short. I rode it with two ten-year-old boys and the mom of one of them. I had a blast. Katie bawled from below, worried about me. Mark held her, and didn't take any pictures.
Here is a parting shot of Mark and Katie (see the pink arrow to find them) riding a racecar together:
It was a nice end to what started out to be a stressful day.
Thursday, July 21
Today I am doing computery stuff (getting the website updated, backing up our photos, goo like that) and Mark is taking Katie to the Minneapolis Zoo. He forgot the camera, so there aren't any pictures. Today will be hot but I'm all set with the a/c and a couple movies on TV (Raging Bull, The Spitfire Grill).
Well, Raging Bull was good, and I'm glad I finally saw it. Spitfire Grill was cheesy but okay. I got a lot done, but not as much as I hoped. Mark and Katie had fun--they saw moose and Katie got to play in an old grain elevator-cum-playground slide. Now they are back, and Katie is swimming with Mark, and I'm finishing before making dinner. Tomorrow it's supposed to rain again, but I wanna get out of this RV, even if it means walking in the rain.
Friday, July 22
Today we take light rail from the Mall of America (you can't avoid that place if you try) to Fort Snelling. It's supposed to be a reinactor-type museum, so I hope they don't lay it on too thick (that drives Mark nuts).
Well, I guess most tourists just drive to Fort Snelling, because there were no maps or signs at the Fort Snelling light rail station to get us to the historic fort. Like, someone might actually be getting off at Fort Snelling to try and find the old fort--duh! There was no one around either, but we stopped a passerby who directed us to a military cafe (there's still an active military base here). A woman was there (though the cafe was closed) and explained how to walk around the big block and under the highway and get to the fort. Luckliy we had Katie's stroller. It wasn't too long of a walk (a couple miles maybe) but without sidewalks for part of it. We grumbled about how attached Americans are to their cars, then walked back into the 19th century.
After a short movie about the history of the fort, we got to see a drill where three soldiers tried firing their reproduction rifles. Katie gets freaked out by loud sounds, but I told her it would just be one loud explosion and she plugged her ears, a little scared. Well two of the guns weren't clean enough, so only one went off. They loaded up and did it again. Again, just one went off. They prepared to do it again, which is fine with the audience, except Katie is starting to moan and wail. But there isn't anyplace quiet to duck into, and the soldiers are kinda embarrassed about failing, and I just want them to get it over with. Finally they do, and our little parenting moment is over. Just one gun fired, again, but they let it rest this time.
The exhibits were pretty cool, and the reinactors were very relaxed about their roles, and there weren't many tourists (it was too damn hot for most folks), so the actors would chat with us... it would have been really wonderful if it weren't so hot and humid. Here is one of the guards chastising Katie:
Sunday, July 24
We have seen a lot of museums on this trip. So many that I can almost predict what they will be like before we walk in--so many use common themes--you walk through an old boat or a real airplane or a human heart. But the Mill City Museum was a gem among museums, a true original. It is built on the ruins left behind when the largest local flour mill burned in 1991. It had been vacant for 30 years and some transients were living in it. Someone got cold one night, apparently, and set a fire which burned down all the wooden flooring and antique machinery, and even bent the steel beams. Half the factory was gone (a four-foot-thick wall of brick had saved half the factory--they had learned to build thick walls after numerous 19th century flour explosions). Here are some of the ruins:
The city of Minneapolis decided to make an opportunity of it, and built a beautiful museum within the ruins. In one of the big grain elevators, they created an elevator (imagine that) that about 50 people sit in, and get transported up into the floors of the old flour mill, listening to stories told by folks who used to work there, and see recovered machinery and hear about what life was like here before the 1960s (when the mills had all shut down). After the ride, you head out to the top of the mill for great views of the river and the ruins. I took these pictures from there:
After the tower tour, we visited the baking lab at the museum. Here bakers test recipes with the different kinds of flour that were milled there. We tried some cookies and cake and bread, and played with some dough:
I got to see an ancient Easy Bake Oven (for those of you with Y chromosomes, this thing actually bakes with a light bulb). I always wanted, but never got, one of these as a kid. Finally my girlfriend Michelle gave me one when I turned 30. Mine's not this cute:
There were also exhibits where kids can design their own cereal boxes and try building a bridge over the falls:
After the museum, we rode our bikes across the stone bridge to the other side where the old Pillsbury A Mill (their biggest mill) still stands:
Maybe the Poppin Fresh guy is up there somewhere, getting poked...
Monday, July 25
Today we drove to St. Paul to check out the Minnesota Science Museum. Mark is interested in their Grossology exhibit. I'm curious about their Questionable Medical Devices. Here are scenes from Grossology:
There were owl pellets on view--that's right, balls of bones and ick coughed up by owls. You can actually dissect one and/or take it home with you (I declined). Katie liked sliding down the eel slide (the gross part: moray eels don't release their grip once they bite. You have to chop off their heads and break apart their dead jaws):
I enjoyed the 60-foot tapeworm vs. 20-foot intestine display, but overall, grossology really was gross. But then we saw the questionable medical devices:
I totally wanted to sneak over and see my foot bones. Another wonderful exhibit was the body slices. These came from the same German scientist who did the huge exhibit we saw in Chicago, but in Chicago you couldn't take pictures. Here they only had two slices (instead of rooms and rooms of stuff, like in Chicago), but at least I can show a sample of what they are like:
Those are actual slices of people who donated thier bodies to science (lots of them were elderly, overweight smokers it seems, but in Chicago there were younger people too, including a pregnant woman in her 8th month, with the baby inside).
You can see all the different organs up close, and the fat and stuff too. In Chicago, they also showed full skeletons with the circulatory system preserved on them, or the muscles, etc. It was totally fascinating, and this reminded me how much I had liked that exhibit.
Well, we had a great time at the museum, and then we drove along Summit Avenue, where 125 years ago, wealthy Minnesotans tried outdoing each other with lavish mansions in St. Paul. Some of them were for sale, and I really wanted to go inside and see. Gee, did we look like serious buyers? They might see through our ruse.
Tuesday, July 26
we leave today for South Dakota. We might camp by Souix Falls, or if we get farther than that, we'll go as far as we can. I've enjoyed Minnepolis very much, except for the weather. Luckily it is much cooler today, which will be great for driving.