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.

Wednesday, May 25 Drive to Minnesota

It was pouring rain this morning.  After Leanne left for work, we thought through the issue of getting Layla to the school bus without getting soaked.  They live one house away and across the street from the corner where she gets picked up, so we waited on the porch until we saw the bus and ran like crazy once it stopped.  Jim managed a picture.

Once back inside, we finished up Monday’s blog entry.  Jim helped Ricky move the mattress we slept on to an upper floor from the finished basement where we slept. Ardith and Jim headed to Pat’s Place, a small diner-like eatery in downtown Skokie.  We had omelets and home fries and had enough good food to last us until dinner.  The waitresses were quite delightful and enjoyed talking about our trip. 

The heavy rains continued for much of today’s trip, necessitating full speed windshield wipers for over 2 hours.  They abated some once we passed Madison, WI then stopped about an hour from Minnesota.  Months before our trip, Jim ordered a bunch of maps and tour guides for our trip.  Since they limited the number you could get in any one order, Jim decided to use maps from his horde between home and Minnesota, but forgot to bring them with us.  We stopped at all the state welcome centers along the way to get official maps.  When we stopped in Minnesota’s, Jim also picked up a few local guides.  We will be staying at the Microtel near the Mall of America. Getting there was a challenge, even with a relatively good map of Bloomington, MN.  Roads didn’t exit from or cross freeways the way it appeared and we traveled about an extra 2 miles.  Not awful, but not wonderful.  

We were really happy to meet our son, Peter.  We spent about an hour in our room catching up, then went off to a relatively new restaurant that is nearby, the Purple Sandpiper.  Most of their food comes from local sources.  They stated us off with some delicious breads, followed by our entrees.  Ardith had the Honey Rosemary Glazed Chicken.  She said it was the best chicken she ever had.  Jim had Star Prairie Trout, with a nicely light thyme butter sauce.  It was cooked just right and was moist.  The accompanying green beans with bacon and almonds were also top notch.  Peter, a vegetarian, really enjoyed his cauliflower macaroni and cheese.  We liked the rest of our meal so much that we all had desserts.  Peter had their own cardamom-pistachio ice cream with an almond cookie.  Jim had a cinnamon apple bread pudding, accompanied by a scoop of the same ice cream.  Ardith had classic tiramisu.  All were scrumptious. Our delightful server, Jason, presented us with a surprisingly low bill.

1316 total miles this trip thus far.

Tuesday, May 24 Chicagoland

Ardith went to school with Leanne, who is a teacher in a gifted program.  Her 4^th and 5^th grade small groups have been studying about climate change.  They were so interesting to listen to as they shared what they had learned and discussed ways that they could work to help make a difference.  I was so impressed with them and with the work that Leanne is doing.  Leanne has published a book called Tree Huggers, and has a second book being edited for publication in 2012.

Jim spent the day in Chicago.  He had arranged to meet folks who manage the map collection in the Newberry Library, Chicago’s research-only library.  They really like Jim’s web access to the Smithsonian’s collections.  Jim offered to help them in the future to develop something similar for their collection.  They are in the process of selecting a new approach to their catalog database.  Jim gleaned several ideas about storage and preservation.  While he was there, a guy came in who is an officer in the Road Map Collectors Association. He handed out a newsletter that was mostly an article he had written about some maps that Jim has had struggles cataloging.  His article will be helpful.

It was a sunny but windy day and Jim headed to the lake front.  He walked about 2 miles, taking pictures of people, dogs and ships.  He poked around and found a small place on Broadway called the Loose Leaf Lounge.  He had and especially good cup of Darjeeling tea and a turkey sandwich with carrot and celery sticks on the side.  He found a puzzle book there for guest use and completed a Kakuro (math puzzle).

Next up was a walk around the neighborhood looking at and photographing the wonderful architectural details of many of the buildings.  While he was doing this, he was approached by a homeless guy who had no thumbs and claimed it was his 56th birthday.  Jim questioned that in a fun way and the 2 of them shared several laughs.  Jim gave him a small bit of money and he gave Jim a hug.  About 3 minutes later, Jim wished he had taken a picture of the guy’s hand and went back to look for him, but he had disappeared.

After everyone returned “home”, Jim went out in the backyard to play with Layla and her playhouse.  Her very creative parents have imparted that sense to her and she had a lot of great fantasy play. Leanne’s parents came over to meet us and we spent about an hour and a half chatting with them.   

We had dinner in a small local restaurant called the Backyard Grill.  Ardith ate a Polish sausage and Jim enjoyed a very large Greek salad.  As we ate and talked we noticed pictures on the TV of tornados in Oklahoma.  The weather seems to be very active and it is a bit scary to see the damage that has occurred.  Jim wanted a picture of the crew and decided to go outside and take the picture through the window.  Ricky decided that it would be fun to take a picture of Jim taking a picture.  He and Jim vie hard on the nuttiness front.

Jim and Leanne had met on an Earthwatch trip to Kenya, then went on another to India together, so they had lots of reminiscing to do.  We all really enjoyed each other’s company.

Between yesterday and today, we added 312 miles to our voyage.  We have several thousand still to go.

Monday May 23, Ohio Indiana and Illinois

Our motel listed free breakfast in its ad but we didn’t see anything in the area where it might have been served.  There were probably only six rooms out of about 50 occupied last night.  We had seen a bagel place on our food quest last night and went there.  Barry Bagel was quite fine.  It gave the appearance of being part of a local chain, which still fits with Jim’s definition.  They gave huge spreads of cream cheese on their bagels.

Our drive today will take us to the Chicago area.  We left around 8 this morning and Jim estimated a 5 hour drive from where we were staying to Skokie, and we had said we would arrive about 4.  That gave us some time to spend seeing something along the way.  While Ardith drove, Jim pored over an AAA Tourbook that covered the area we were traversing.  We decided on South Bend, Indiana then decided that the place we most wanted to visit was the Studebaker National Museum, but recognized that there were a lot of other interesting things in South Bend that we wouldn’t be able to do.  It turned out to be a really great choice. 

The museum traced the history of Studebaker from a blacksmith shop in Gettysburg, PA to a few years beyond the company’s demise.  The earliest artifact was the Conestoga wagon John Studebaker had built to move his family from Gettysburg to Ashland, Ohio in 1836.  His sons began a wagon making business that became the largest manufacturer of wagons in the world.  One of the early advertising slogans was “The Sun Always Shines on a Studebaker Wagon”.   A piece of advice from John to his sons form the company’s mantra for over a hundred years: ”Always give the customer more than you promised”.  The museum was filled with wonderful cars that had been restored to their original glory.  We each had our favorites. 

Jim liked seeing the Rockne (named after football coach Knute Rockne, who was briefly a sales manager until his death in a plane crash).  He had heard stories from humorist Jean Shepherd about his father’s desire for a Rockne and had assumed it was an imaginary car, but it was quite real.  His real favorite was the 1951 Studebaker with the nose designed to resemble a P-38 World War II fighter.  He loved that car when he was a kid and the car was new.  

 Ardith loved the 1932 President Convertible Coupe as seen being introduced by Jim. 

Other highlights included early record setting cars including one that had been driven over 475,000 miles over largely unpaved roads.  There was also a collection of carriages that were owned by US presidents in the mid-to-late 1800s, including the barouche used by Lincoln on his ill-fated ride to Ford’s Theater.  

 The final room included experimental cars and military vehicles.

The museum was surrounded with magnificent homes that had been built in the era before the 1930s.  Many of them were constructed of stone and had beautifully landscaped yards.  One of them was built for Clem Studebaker, one John’s five sons.  It was called Tippecanoe, and is now open as a restaurant.  We asked at the museum desk about a place to eat that we could walk to and they directed us there.  After a pleasant 3 block walk, we found the restaurant closed – it was Monday.

We went back to our car and drove on a road that looked as though it would have several eating options.  Much of it was in a very depressed area, so we bypassed that.  Just before getting on an expressway, we came to a cluster of chain fast food places.  In the middle of them was a place called King Gyro.  It was one of 3 such places in greater South Bend.  The manager of the place was happy that we chose them on our local food tour of much of the country.  The food was quite good.  Jim had a classic gyro.  Ardith had a grilled ham and cheese on rye.

We continued on the road, driving through very slow Chicago traffic to Skokie, Illinois and to the home of our friend Leanne.  We took a walk around the downtown area before meeting Leeanne and her family at their home. The downtown is being revitalized and the town is dealing with the loss of many small businesses because of the economic conditions.

Leanne and her husband Ricky have a soon to be 6 year old daughter named Layla.  She and Jim had a very special time playing together.  She reminds us of our two granddaughters. 

We enjoyed real Chicago deep dish pizza (one half cheese only, the other half spinach and olive) in their back yard while having a great time talking.  We walked a few block to a local ice cream place that included several unusual flavors – Jim enjoyed lychee.  After that, the 5 of us walked through the neighborhood including a street with no street.