Minneapolis, Part 2
The next day was better.
The sun came out and I was itching to get outside into the cool, dry air that was so unlike Washington’s hot-and-humid-as-a-monkey’s-armpit air. The husband wanted to sleep but the child was up. We decided to go see the river.
I didn’t realize until we were were actually in Minneapolis and trying to decipher the map that it was the Mississippi running through the middle of the twin cities. I’ve visited the Mississippi at St. Louis and at New Orleans. It was cool to see where it started.
There was what looked like a little park/jogging trail along the edge of the river, just a few blocks from the hotel. People had been babbling at us since we had arrived about some stone bridge. “Have you seen the Stone Arch Bridge?” “Be sure to see the Stone Arch Bridge.” We had caught a glimpse of it the afternoon before and weren’t that impressed.
It was a flat railroad bridge. It had arches. It was made of stone. Whatever.
Well, the bridge went through the park so I decided to see what freakin’ magic was happening on the stupid bridge.
It was a pretty bridge. I’ll give them that. The magic, it turned out, was that it was a pedestrian/bicycle bridge — a well-used pedestrian/bicycle bridge. It went across the river right at the point of St. Anthony’s Falls. St. Anthony’s Falls, apparently, was one of the natural features of the area when Minneapolis was established. They got turbines of one sort or another attached to them early on and allowed for some serious free power.
Since it had been raining since… forever… every body of water in the upper Midwest was swollen. The Mississippi was angry and loud.
Rather impressive, I must say.
The day we went exploring, there was some kind of walk for charity going on so there was a real party atmosphere on the bridge.
I was starting to understand the bridge thing.
Under the bridge, there was something pretty magical, too.
Under the street, there was this delightfully serendipitous bit of urban archeology called the Mill Ruins Park. You can see, at the very top, the logo for Gold Medal flour. That’s what this used to be — a flour mill. There was a sign that gave the history of these ruins, but I’m afraid I don’t remember the details. These were essentially buildings that had been built on top of instead of destroyed. For a long time, according to a local who stopped to talk to us, this was “hobo city”. Eventually, the homeless were cleared out, some of the walls were reinforced, and this was turned into a park.
The child look for fossils. I took pictures. I’ve been collecting pictures of textures and this place was rich with them.
We walked down the path a little way. While the child tortured some geese by throwing grass at them and then screeching with glee when they changed course to investigate, I noticed something odd hanging in the sky.
It was… blue… and… *squint*… was it grinning at me?
The helpful local told me it was the Guthrie Theater. I made a mental note to check that place out.
We went back to the hotel and retrieved the husband. He told me he had found an interesting place to go to called “The Open Book”. I rolled my eyes. I love book stores, but it gets tricky with a 7-year-old, no matter how well behaved she is.
“I don’t know…” I started.
He grinned at me. “You’ll like it. Besides, it’s close enough to walk to.” He showed me on a map. We’d be walking right by that crazy theater. I shrugged. “OK.”
The Open Book is not a bookstore, at least not in the normal Barnes-and-Noble kind of way. It’s a place for writers to gather or to work. It’s a place for paper artists and offset printers.
The husband and I geeked out there until the child finally put her foot down. She had had enough of the weird paper stuff she wasn’t allowed to touch and the creepy iron presses in the basement. It was lunchtime and doggone it, she wanted some friggin’ pizza!
So we got some friggin’ pizza. None of the fancy pizza that my Minnesota native friend told me about. We just walked to the condo building across the street and got the child some pizza.
I sat there and pouted while she ate. I didn’t want the stupid pizza. I wanted real food… fancy food… foodie food. I felt inexplicably cranky and tired. I needed a nap.
But no! We were on vacation and doggone it, we were going to tour if it killed me!
The other thing everyone — and I mean everyone — told us to hit was the Art Museum’s sculpture garden.
So we hooked up with a friend of mine who was attending the conference that we were there for and got the car out of the parking garage. Then we had to deal with directions again.
“OK,” said the husband, “Take 3rd Street South to 7th Street South and turn right…”
“Wait,” I said. “Take 3rd to 7th? What’s the cross street?”
“7th.”
“3rd Street crosses 7th?”
“Yeah… and they both say “south” even though we’re mostly going west.”
“OK…”
“Whoever laid out the streets in this city was demented,” he mumbled, hunched over his iPhone and poking at it listlessly.
Eventually we learned to stop worrying about the street names in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The intersections were always there. I found that once I stopped trying to make sense of them (and as long as I stayed off those crazy freeways), the city was pretty easy to get around in.
Anyway… the Walker Center art museum.
I still wanted my foodie food. I didn’t have high hopes for the art museum. I find that restaurants in cultural institutions are typically expensive and have lovely ambiance, but the food is lacking.
I was delighted to have been proven wrong. The recipes at Gather were unique, the ingredients local, and the food was spectacularly well done. Even the service was notable and no one blinked an eye at the child (who behaved like an angel even though the three of us adults talked around her for most of an hour).
The gift shop was wonderful and we all enjoyed shopping there for a good long time. We didn’t have time to go through the museum, of course… but maybe next time.
We walked out the front of the building and toward the sculpture garden across the street and I had this feeling that the Walker Center was watching me….
…And it wasn’t happy.
The sculpture garden was a lot of fun. It was, basically, a park with a gigantic cherry-in-a-spoon fountain at its center.
We were allowed to climb on and interact with the art. There was a party atmosphere here, too. I got the feeling it was the first reasonably sunny day in a while so everyone was out and smiling.
This was my favorite shot of the whole trip.
It was at an art installation made of different kinds of reflective walls. The child enjoyed playing hide-and-seek in that one.
We got back to the hotel late and I collapsed on the bed. The child danced around me. “Can we go to the water park downstairs now?”
“Oh, honey. Not now. Let’s wait until tomorrow [Monday] when the hotel empties out, OK? Daddy has to be at the conference anyway. We can stay there as long as you want.”
She folded her arms across her chest and pouted. “That means we won’t go.”
“No it doesn’t. It means we’ll go tomorrow.”
“We won’t go.”
I sat up and hugged her. “Yes we will. If I didn’t plan to go, I wouldn’t have brought swimsuits. I promise. Really.”
“OK, mom.”
I got online and found out that the Guthrie Theater offered backstage tours. I signed us up for the next day and went to bed.
[Note: My photos from the trip are here on Flickr.]
