Minnesota - The Vacation (Part 2)

Cutter's Log - Supplemental

Note: I've been back since April 7, and it is now April 25. Of the 18 days since I came back home, a lot has happened. Thus the delay. Plus, I didn't write while on the vacation (compared to last year) simply because there was too much to do.

There are pictures of the trip on my Facebook photo album.

Because of the numerous things I saw, I had to break the entry down into four days. The previous entry broke down Day 1. This entry recalls Day 2, with the subsequent entries recalling days three and four.

The pizza I was eating drove me insane in the middle of the night because I had that burning-throat feeling. When this happened, I used to drink a lot of milk and it would go away. I didn't have that at my disposal this time, and kind of let it natrually go away. But it did hurt for a while.

Because of the change in plans I made yesterday, I decided to make my second day the one to go through both of the Twin Cities. I had been to Minneapolis only once, while on a trip to the Mall of America (in suburban Bloomington), but didn't really see anything. The plan was to go back to Hastings and pick up west alongside the river past the cities, and then cross and pick up east back to Hastings.

There's a road from Burnsville to Hastings I completely didn't know about (and would have been great yesterday), and I past Apple Valley along the way. I knew Apple Valley because of their great high school wrestling teams. But on to Hastings, where I saw a barge tow and a railroad bridge. Railroad bridge, whoop-de-do, but I have never seen one lift up and down for a barge. After mailing my postcards, I followed the river to Lock and Dam No. 2. Oddly enough, it's the only lock-and-dam I visited in the entire stretch (from 13 up, in Fulton). There the barge tow was waiting to be lifted, and there was a display of storage comparisons between trains and barges. I shot a picture of it and was impressed with just how much space a barge has compared to a train car.

Leaving Hastings, I saw a unique octagon-shaped house. These kind of houses have always been my favorite to look at. My dad likes to design floor plans in his spare time, and had a couple of books to guide him. There were some pages that featured octagonal houses and I always liked how they were shaped for some reason. The only other octagonal house I know of is in Prophetstown.

At this point, I'm not following the Great River Road but rather the river itself - meaning I was turning and doing turnabouts quite often. I let nature guide me, rather tahn use a GPS system.

The river sent me to a tiny town called Nininger, which I'm sure was a lot bigger a long time ago. Then it was off along the river and back into the Metro area. The river sent me to a park in South St. Paul, where I got to see just exactly how narrow the river really was at that point. It was there I got my first glimpse of the St. Paul skyline. Onward I drove and hit where I could see downtown. This particular part of downtown is on the west side of the river, and looked like it was undergoing redevelopment. But you could see the buildings and bridges real well. When there are buildings and bridges, I'm shooting pictures.

Then I saw a few houses on a bluff, that looked like they were overlooking the downtown area. A great view, I thought, so I went up there. Probably the best skyline view I had ever seen. You have to be rich to live in these houses, I thought. There is a street in front of these houses, dividing them from the bluff. The river tour began to turn into a city tour.

Coming back down is where I hit a snag in my road plans. Because of the high water, the actual path had been closed for a distance. So I spent a while trying to regroup and find out where to pick the path back up at. Again, this is without the guidance of a map. I went a ways and found the place where the Minnesota River empties into the Mississippi. It was there I knew that the easiest way to pick up where I left off on the west side is by crossing the river into the east side and finding it from there. Eventually I found a place near Minnehaha.

After driving a little ways I eventually found the road called "West River Parkway." That was great considering that I knew I wasn't going to get lost anymore. There is a jogging path next to the road, and I had never seen that many joggers. I briefly thought to myself that I was the largest person within the city limits. Next to the jogging path was a wall of trees and shrubbery, so I couldn't really see water unless it was a park of some sort. But the houses were great.

Driving along the parkway I stumbled upon the campus of the University of Minnesota. That's four Big Ten campuses down, eight to go. At that point, the river looked smaller than the Rock River, but still bigger than the Pecatonica. I didn't really know how close I was to downtown because of the bluffs, but it wasn't too long after that I hit the I-35W bridge. (For those unaware, I-35 splits into two roads, east and west, similar to Dallas).

Not too long ago I remember when the old I-35W bridge collapsed. I also remember it not taking too long to put up a replacement bridge. While it was put up pretty quickly, I knew about how technologically advanced this particular bridge was. The bridge was completely white, unlike any other bridge I had seen before. So that was another series of pictures.

Continuing on I hit a place called Mill Ruins Park. I had no knowledge of this, but when I saw the shelled-out mill building, I understood. After all that turning around and stopping, it was about 5:30 when I hit this park. The building is actually shelled out, from a fire a few years ago. But the building was stablized and made into a milling museum. This was unlike any perservation effort I had ever seen, and was very awed by this sight. Unfortunately because of time, I didn't visit the museum. It is one of several old flour mills still standing along the Minneapolis riverfront. Some of which have been converted into lofts. There was a free parking area next to a dam, and I parked and started walking.

That river tour turned into a tour of downtown Minneapolis. It was there when I came up with the fact that the Mary Tyler Moore show was based in Minneapolis. When I was younger I enjoyed watching the show on Nick at Nite, before I would go to bed. From age 8 to 11 we had a television in our (me and Mike's) bedroom. That iconic scene where she throws her hat up in the air is commemorated by a statue. I wanted to find that statue. I didn't before it got dark out, and my camera wasn't going to work all that well.

Day 2 didn't turn out to be a whole lot, because that wasn't even half of my entire plan for the day. It was going to take a lot longer to see all of this. While looking out at the river from the arch footbridge, I reorganized my plans once more. I still had the whole west side of Minneapolis to see, the journey to Lake Itasca, and the entire east side of the Twin Cities to see. I'm glad I axed the St. Croix leg of the trip. The next day was going to start very early, going up the west side of Minneapolis and then marching forward to Lake Itasca. Day 4 was going to be dedicated to finding that statue, and going along the east side of the river and back home.

I really wanted to see everything along the way, and the things that were challenging me were my budget and the night sky. Luckilly I had some left-over pizza in my room ($12 can get you a long ways apparently), and made sure to sleep early for the early trip the next day.

Day 3's adventure will come in the next blog entry, and is a lot longer than this entry.