Minneapolis

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Minneapolis

June 30

Drove 600 miles

We left from our new condo in South Haven, Michigan at 10:00 a.m. for Minneapolis. Our first stop, two hours away, was a short visit with our younger daughter in the Hyde Park section of Chicago. Before leaving Chicago after the brief visit, we got an awesome corned beef and pastrami sandwich for lunch at Morry’s Deli on 54th St. It was so big that we split one, and we were more than full.

After enduring an hour of insufferable traffic just getting out of Chicago, and driving 200 miles, we stopped in Black River Falls, Wisconsin to check out a couple of roadside oddities per our “Roadside America” app.  Here is the famous Orange Moose and Wisconsin Cheese Mouse!

About two hours later, at around 7:30 p.m. we checked in to the decent Hampton Inn & Suites hotel in downtown Minneapolis. We discovered that the area of downtown Minneapolis with the hotels isn’t the best for tourists. We thought there would be things to walk to but it was pretty desolate. It is basically the financial district, but not much night life. It was actually kind of sketchy at night, not too active, and not a healthy night life.

We walked around parts of the 12-block open-air Nikollett Mall area, but again, eerily desolate, nothing to do, and uninteresting at night.  The highlight was accidentally coming across a bronze statue of Mary Tyler Moore in famed hat-throwing pose.

We did find a couple of decent night spots close to the hotel and chose the rooftop at Crave Kitchen and Sushi Bar.  It was very nice, with excellent service, good food and drinks, and a nice view overlooking the downtown streets.

After a late dinner and some drinks, we walked the one block back to our hotel for the night.

July 1

Minnehaha Falls and Mall of America

With just one day in Minneapolis we had a full itinerary planned. We had breakfast at the mostly empty hotel and headed to our first stop, in our car, to Minnehaha Park, to see Minnehaha Falls. On the way here we saw the first signs of actual life in the city. The mostly residential neighborhood around Minnehaha Park was certainly more active than downtown.  We parked and walked around the park and made our way to the Falls.  It’s weird to find such a beautiful waterfall of this size in an urban setting.  It was comparable to Ithaca, NY, though Ithaca is less urban.  There are wooded trails around the falls, which we walked.  It was a pleasant stop but other than seeing the falls themselves the park is unremarkable.

Then, off to our next stop, the Mall of America in Bloomington, about 20 minutes away. Parking close to an entrance was no problem, though our rooftop cargo box made us too tall for the garage…and yes, we discovered that before fully committing to the garage!

The Mall of America was a whole lot of fun!  The size, of course is just ridiculously over the top, but the amusement park, aquarium, 4D ride, and endless eye candy made this trip to the mall a true adventure.

We did the fun, 4D “FlyOver America” ride, complete with wind, scent, and mist sensations as we “soared” over the country from coast to coast in about 10 minutes.  I could have sworn we were going to crash right into a skyscraper or a lighthouse!  Then we went to the truly amazing mall aquarium, “Sea Life” with a shark tunnel and an incredibly unique display of surreal sea dragons.  They almost seemed computer generated, but they were real fish.  The aquarium visit was well worth the $25 apiece to get in. Then, on to Nickelodeon Park in the mall to ride the Pepsi Orange Streak roller coaster. We stopped for a great lunch at Walberg’s before finally escaping the mall at around 1:00 p.m. We really enjoyed the Mall of America.

From the mall we headed to the massive and beautiful state capitol building in St. Paul, which is about 20-minutes away. We got nice views of St. Paul’s cathedral across from the Capitol mall. We tooled around inside the impressive Capitol for about 30 minutes. Check one more state capitol building off the list.

Off to the 2,100 feet long Stone Arch Bridge that straddles St. Paul and Minneapolis over the Mississippi River. This is a nice, wide pedestrian bridge with great views of St. Anthony Falls, the only natural waterfall on the Mississippi River.  It is a very popular route for walkers, bikers, and runners. We spoke with some very friendly NPS rangers stationed at the now-inactive locks here at St. Anthony Falls to get some historical insights.

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

Leaving here we realized that this is one of the livelier, funkier city neighborhoods…on both sides of the river. We decided we would come back here later for dinner along the river on the St. Paul side.  But first, off to the famous, and free, Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.  The sculptures did not disappoint.  We walked around and saw all of the sculptures, not just the famous ones like the spoon with the cherry, though that probably was the best one.  There are several very cool sculptures to make this stop a must-do for anybody visiting Minneapolis.

Then to Chain O’Lakes Regional Park only a few minutes’ drive from the Sculpture Garden.  This is actually part of a scenic byway that we drove.  We basically drove the shorelines of a series of lakes with nice lake views, pedestrian walkways, beaches, and many beautiful homes.  We first stopped to walk to one of the beaches on the first lake, then took a local’s advice and drove the parkways around each of the lakes. Magnificent homes everywhere…we finally found where the money lives in Minneapolis. Lots of water activity everywhere…swimming, sailing, paddle boarding. Plus, lots of people running, walking, biking, etc. We stopped at the beautiful Lyndale Park Rose Gardens near Lake Harriet and walked around a bit.  We also walked over to the Lake itself, avoiding bikers and runners along the shore. Then we tried to find dinner nearby since it was now about 7:00, but all restaurants there had at least a 30-minute wait. So, we stuck with our original plan and went back to the Stone Arch Bridge area and got a table at Aster Cafe along the Mississippi River. Great food, service, and ambiance. After dinner we walked around the area in the beautiful balmy weather and came across Nicollet Island, and a bridge that gave us viewing access to the landmark giant lighted bottle cap billboard for Grain Beer.

Back to the hotel by 10:00 p.m.

We basically saw all the top spots in Minneapolis in one day via car…nothing was more than 20 minutes away. There was plenty of street parking everywhere (not free, but plenty).

July 2

We had breakfast at the hotel. As we were leaving the sparsely occupied Hampton Inn, a chambermaid actually thanked us for “making them busy again”.

On our way toward South Dakota we made one last stop in Minnesota, in the town of Henderson.  This is where some of Prince’s film “Purple Rain” was filmed.  He was from Minnesota.  There is a sidewalk tribute to Prince downtown Henderson that we figured we had to see, you know, because we could.  This tribute is great, and located in a very ordinary small town location across from a hardware store and print shop, or something like that…the tribute really stands out…worth the detour.

Next: Badlands National Park