Twin Cities Tour

   This weekend I went on a tour of Minneapolis and St. Paul. It was a chartered bus tour, so we stayed on the bus most of the time. We got off twice to look at different waterfalls. I was mostly interested in the tour so I could find more restaurants, parks, and shopping places. And I did. I saw a really cool walking path along the river right away. It goes along the University of Minnesota campus, which is where I live. So I'll have to check that out. 
   Our tour guide, Mary, is from Iowa and she was funny. She pointed out the art museum on the U of M campus designed by Frank Gehry. He is a famous architect that I learned about in school. I tried to take a picture and laughed at my attempt. I sort of pride myself in being able to take a decent photo with my nice camera, so I laughed when this is the picture I got of the art center: 

   I was on the wrong side of the bus. So here is a better picture of the building...  I stole it from the internet: 

   Speaking of our nice tour guide, Mary, I'd also like to mention the bus driver. He was a grumpy old man, but was so funny. He was complaining about everything the whole time. Mary would talk about the golf courses, and he'd have to take the microphone and complain that us kids have it too easy with golf carts, and that back in his day they had to walk to each hole. He complained about all the bicyclist riding too slow in the road. Mary would compliment the really tall, old cotton trees (or whatever the trees are called the produce white fuzz balls), but then the bus driver had to yell about how much he hated the cotton flying around everywhere and those trees should be cut down.  I can't remember everything he was complaining about, but the way he complained was funny, and it wasn't in a way that made him actually sound angry, he was just old and crazy. 
   We looked at the old General Mills building and then across the river at the old Pillsbury building and learned about their competitiveness. The Pillsbury building in this picture is being turned into condos. I bet those are going to be really sweet with the brick work and stuff. 

Here are a couple other shots from this first stop. The brick bridge is an old train trestle turned into a pedestrian path. 

The bridge in the back of the photo was the first bridge built across the Mississippi (that fact doesn't seem right, so I might be wrong.. but it was built in the 1800's). And the bridge in the foreground is that pedestrian path again. 

    I took too many boring pictures of things without being in any of them.... but it was also awkward and lame to ask random people to take a picture of me all by myself.... especially when they didn't understand how to work my camera. So here is one that actually has me in focus.



   We rode along Lowry Hill and Summit Avenue which had big old houses. 

   We visited the chain of lakes. I had researched Lake Calhoun and figured out that I need to go there. The running path around it is 5K and there is also a restaurant called the Tin Fish on the water. I was pretty excited that I had already figured all this out before Mary said any of it. She confirmed that the Tin Fish has great food. I can rent kayaks, sailboats (not that I'd know how the hell to sail), paddle boards, and other stuff. I look forward to going there with someone. 

   We drove by a lot of dog parks. Mary said that many dog parks are split in half with a fence or something. One half is for big dogs and one half is for small dogs. But I think Tag, the chickenshit,  would be better off in the little dog pen and Sammi and Rocco could probably handle the big dog pen better. Mom, I saw a lady riding a bike with the child cart (well, it was made for dogs) connected to the back. I feel like princess Sammi might like that mode of transportation on these hot days when you take the dogs to Kenue Park. But maybe she'd prefer the stroller. 

   We drove down the Nicollet Mall. I look forward to going back there to look at the shops and restaurants. Mary made a point to tell us all that we MUST visit Isles Bun and Coffee. Tootie, don't read the rest of this. Mary says the cinnamon rolls are the best ever because they serve them with a whole bucket of frosting to scoop each bite into. 

   The rest of my weekend went well. I hung out with some friends from work last night and today I ran errands and caught up on laundry. It was beautiful outside, so it's too bad I didn't go to Lake Calhoun today (but I did go to Snap!). Maybe next weekend. 

Happy Father's Day again, Dad.