We went to Minneapolis in early May. I wanted to document what we saw there, but just haven't had time to do it right, what with the new house and all. But I wanted to go ahead and get this published, and I'll come back to it later and flesh it out some more. So ... I've backdated this entry, and issue apologies to those of you seeing this in your RSS feed and wondering why I'm posted such a lame travelogue!
Minneapolis, May 2011
Sharon at a conference, Chris as idle spouse. Stayed at nice downtown hotel one block off Nicollet Mall. Watch librarians partying down in hotel ballroom with cover band, ridiculous buffet decorations.
Beautiful manhole covers, a la Japan.
Public library
Main falls downtown; click to enlarge this panoramic photo:
Made good use of the "Nice Ride" system, where you can rent a bike by the hour from automated sidewalk kiosks located all over town -- well, not too far from downtown. The bikes are lime green so you have to overcome looking like a dork, but it's a good way to cover far more ground than you would walking, and the biking is easy since MPLS is so flat. Well, it's flat until you get to the river, which is kind of a gorge and thus can present some serious hills as you climb in and out.
Walker Art Center, with huge sculpture garden outside, all sorts of freaky art inside.
Ukranian sausage joint. Nye Polonaise.
Electric Fetus record store near Stevens Square, 1 mile from Walker Center - look for Lifter Puller book "Lifter Puller Vs. the End Of"
I-35W bridge
Minnihaha Falls
Dashed through Mall Of America on our way to airport.
Places that I didn't get to:
old Milwaukee train station on First Street
The Lakewood cemetery between lake Harriet and Calhoun
Art Deco cement water tower at Washburn Park near 51st street
Near the airport there will be a road named Post Road after Wiley Post, who flew his airplane out this airport.