Minneapolis - last day

Margaret says I should write a synopsis of our Minneapolis visit rather than try to detail each day. I will try, if for no other reason than to catch up. It is Saturday a.m. (16th) as I write this. We had rain last night but no wind or storminess – thank you. We will be pulling out today and starting up the road towards Fargo, ND, on the way stopping to see a friend of Margaret's from California days.

Thursday (14th), Mimi and Terry Stewart gave us the tour of Lake Minnetonka. Talk about grand homes! We were all oohing and ahhing as we drove around the lake. The roads were narrow, the traffic heavy, and no place to stop so I wasn’t able to get any photos. But it is clear that this area is where the Minneapolis / St. Paul money goes to rest and recreate! Lots of boats on the lake – mostly large runabouts. Huge lake ringed with trees and punctuated with inlets and islands and peninsulas populated with ducks and geese.

We were told that the winter had been so mild many of the avid ice fishermen couldn't resist going out on the lake -- only to fall through the thin ice. And this happened more than once.

We stopped at a community art center where Mimi weaves. There were individual rooms devoted to various art forms, a gallery, and a gift shop and dining area. Kids filled several rooms. They were working with clay or painting, and loving it. We heard only happy sounds. In one section, several people were exploring sculpture – the above photo was a lady finishing up her stone head. Another was inviting a voluptuous woman to emerge from a hunk of granit. Chip, chip, chip, she was revealed. A few fellows were welding sculpture. Quite a large, well-suppoted, and well-equipped facility. In addition to the sculpture area, there was a photo lab (the old fashioned kind with darkroom and chemicals! We know that kind of endeavor very well).

A highlight of the visit to the community art center was in the parking lot; a VW painted in rainbow colors with a very appropriate license plate: ROYGBIV. Clever, this artist. Why? Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, the colors of the rainbow.

The third photo is inside the Gold Medal flour milling plant ruins. I meant to include this one earlier. Even though the destructive fire occurred fairly recently (1991), it reminds me of a much earlier archeological dig -- a "series of small walls" (not so small) as Eddy Izzard would say. It’s difficult to see in the photo, but many of the iron beams are warped and twisted from the intense heat of the fire.

As I had mentioned yesterday, we decided to stick around for another day and catch up some house-keeping chores. Plus we didn’t have a chance earlier to visit one of our favorite stores – IKEA. Margaret went into sensory overload when we walked in; she just stood in the aisle trying to figure out where to begin. If you have never been in an IKEA, it is an experience. Because their furnishing are primarily Scandinavian in nature, it won’t be appropriate in every home, but if you have a need for simplicity, beauty, and good value, it is a great place. As an example, they had one display – 409 square feet – that was a furnished home – bath, kitchen, bedroom, living room, and study/work station! Maybe not be grand, but very, very functional, comfortable and beautiful to look at.

We also stopped at a CUB foods store. According to Mimi and Terry, this is the local equivalent of a Sam’s club or Costco in pricing but without the large quantities that tend to dominate the other warehouse-style stores. It was a large store with an incredible (to me) variety of foods. Margaret spent the rest of yesterday, organizing the refrigerator and storing things. Then mid-west angus beef burgers and fresh asparagus for dinner. Time well spent.