Thursday May 26

After an OK “free” breakfast at the motel, we drove to pick Peter up.  From there, we drove to downtown Minneapolis which was our focus for the day. Our first destination was the Guthrie Theater complex.  Why would we go to a theater at 9:40AM?  The first answer is that it wasn’t yet 10 when other things opened up.  The second is that the building is amazing and is open for tours at no charge.  This space was opened 5 years ago and houses 3 different stages, an education center, spaces for theater business and places with amazing vistas, most overlooking the Mississippi River at St. Anthony Falls. 

Especially interesting was a space called The Amber Box / Dowling Studio with all yellow/amber glass in a cantilevered platform that includes a portion of the floor done in amber glass.  This has the effect of greatly increasing the contrast of the view, but making your mind grope to understand what the true colors are. 

A large space protruded out perhaps 80 feet toward the river.  Many of the windows had highly reflective surfaces near them that also made you question what you were seeing.  The theater was founded by famous director Sir Tyrone Guthrie whose likeness is among several displayed on the exterior of the theater.

The next stop was the Mill City Museum, right next to the Guthrie.  Connected to the museum on the other side is the condominium building where former vice-president Mondale resides.  The museum is built on the ruins of what had been the largest flour mill in the world, built by the Washburn Corporation which eventually became General Mills.  Across the river is what remains of the Pillsbury Company’s former Minneapolis flour mill.  The 2 companies competed to be the largest in the world. The exhibits trace the history of flour making in Minneapolis. 

That doesn’t sound terribly exciting, but the building and exhibits are excellent.  The building was the former Washburn “A” mill which had been abandoned, but had a huge fire in 1991 while Peter was an undergraduate at Macalester College, about 5 miles away.  He could see the flames.

The main exhibit space included such things a picture of the various Betty Crockers to a 19 foot tall Bisquick box to Pillsbury dough boy memorabilia to harvesting equipment.  A totally funny film by local humorist Kevin Kling called Minneapolis in 19 Minutes Flat shows the history of the city from native tribes to World Series wins.  The most amazing part was a seated ride in a huge freight elevator.  It stopped at various floors in “The Flour Tower” that had sets depicting various aspects of the milling operation and stories were told about them.  Some featured live actors.  That led to the top floor with more spectacular vistas.

We ate lunch next door to the Guthrie Theater at the Spoonriver Restaurant.  We had eaten in the owner’s (Brenda) previous restaurant many years ago.  Brenda greeted us at our table. The menu is very unusual and local foods are used throughout the various choices.  Ardith had curried chicken, Jim had a Greek salad and falafel, and Peter had Udon salad with mock duck.  The food was spectacularly good.

After lunch, we went to the adjacent Mill Ruins Park.  We poked into various mill runs and walked out onto the Stone Arch Bridge which was built in 1883 for what became the Burlington Northern Railroad.  It is now a bike and pedestrian bridge.  Peter said that the nearby St. Anthony Falls were the highest he had ever seen them.  We got a bit of spray on us while on the bridge.

Next up was a walking tour of downtown Minneapolis.  We popped in to the Art Deco Post Office with supposedly the largest fluorescent light fixture.

  We got to where we could see a decent bit of Target Field, home of the Twins.  There were many examples of great architecture and bad architecture.  There is a small park with fake logs for some seating and small figures pretending to cut grass as tall as they are.  We enjoyed a brief stop at City Hall.  It had a fabulous center court and some ugly changes from the 60s.  We did a decent bit of exploring in the new downtown library.  There were many great features that Jim wants to pass on to our local library board, of which he is a member.  

We then drove to the Uptown section of Minneapolis and had coffee or tea and just enjoyed sitting at an outdoor table in 65 degree weather for about 45 minutes.  When we got back to our car, there was an art car parked adjacent to it.  These are quite popular in the area,

Our next stop was the Mall of America.  We have been to Minneapolis / St. Paul several times before, but only went to the mall once.  Our motel is less than a mile away.  We checked out the expansion of the amusement park, poked our heads in a few shops and visited Legoland.  It had stations where kids were free to do building.  In addition to lots of great things that folks had built out of Legos, I was impressed with a huge wall of parts that you could buy a la carte.  There were 480 bins.  I’m not sure how many distinct parts that represented.  

As we were about to enter the place where we ate, a college-age Israeli girl beckoned Ardith to her kiosk where she buffed one of Ardith’s natural finger nails to a beautiful shine.  Ardith headed into the restaurant, then back tracked to ask how much the tool and solution cost.  Peter and I proceeded into the restaurant.  Ardith returned a few minutes later empty handed.  She said the girl first tried to sell her a 90 dollar kit, then a 60 dollar one that had lots of things she didn’t really want.  After dinner, the girl came over to Ardith and explained that she “just found” a $30 kit.  Ardith succumbed.  Peter said that most of the kiosks in the Mall of America are manned by Israelis on 90 day work visas. 

The place we ate was the Twin City Grill.  This had a European feel but was filled with prints of historic scenes from the Twin Cities.  Peter and Ardith enjoyed flatbreads and Jim had a Chicken Chop Salad.  We shared salt and vinegar fries. All were very well received.   Ardith is sick of Jim taking pictures at meals.