First Day in Minneapolis / St Paul: Mall of America, Minihaha Falls, Mississippi River, Downtown St Paul

I got the Mall of America visit out of the way first, because the mall is south of Minneapolis, near the airport, in the town of Bloomington. 

The four story Mall of America has an amusement park in the middle. I guess that makes sense, since the winters here are long and cold, and the indoor location makes the rides available all year long.

The shopping part of the mall surrounds the amusement park, and includes a lego store, four floors of retail stores and a food court. I had mango chicken for lunch from the food court. The only other store I entered was the Lindt chocolate store. (They coaxed me in with a free sample.) I'm not a mall shopper, and almost never go to the mall back home.

Next on my agenda was a visit to Minihaha Falls. I didn't know it until I read the sign, but the Minihaha Falls were made famous by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem titled, "The Song of Hiawatha". A nearby statue depicts two characters from the poem.

I drove to Harriet Island Park, on the shore of the Mississippi river in St Paul, and walked along the river. Some men were fishing from the dock. One had caught a catfish and a walleye, and had them on stringers in the water.

Among other things, I saw some of the St Paul skyline across the river, a rowing team stroking their way up the Mississippi, and a couple of paddle boats docked for the night.

A tugboat was pushing a barge up river at sunset.

After dark, I drove into downtown St Paul. Several roads had lanes that were blocked and under repair. Maybe that's why the area seemed chaotic and dirty. It was probably good that I wasn't there during rush hour. The Minnesota State Capitol and the Cathedral of St Paul were well lit landmarks.

Tonight I'll be sleeping at a Walmart located in Cottage Grove, a few miles south of St Paul. It seems like a safe place. It is very windy tonight, so I'll avoid parking near trees.

I have a reservation to tour the Wabasha Street Caves in St Paul tomorrow morning at 11 am.

Sunday in Rochester: Church, Exploring the Skywalks and Art Museum, Mayo Clinic, and a Short Nature Walk

I asked someone I met at church if he had any recommendations for things to do in Rochester. He is a transplant, attending medical school here. He asked me if I had seen the water tower shaped like an ear of corn 🌽 and if I had seen the Mayo Clinic building. Those were his only suggestions. 😃

I asked him if he had suggestions for anything outdoors, and he said there are several parks with good trails for biking or hiking.

After church, I drove downtown and explored some of the skywalks.

I ascended the staircase in front of the library, which leads to the building's second floor skywalk. 

The skywalk is interior to the building, except where it extends over the street to another building. Otherwise, it is like a hallway that circles inside the building's perimeter.

I was able to use the skywalk to walk from the library, around the building and across the street, to the Rochester Civic Theater where I saw the "Newsies" musical on Friday night. That Civic Center building also houses an art gallery, and the gallery was having a special family day today.

As part of the family day activities, the art gallery had a room with tables where visitors could create their own artwork. One of the themes was drawing faces. I didn't draw anything, but thought the following two handouts that give typical facial proportions were interesting and would be helpful to keep in mind when drawing faces.

I almost got trapped in a room where an artist was giving an hour and a half lecture and small group discussion on her work. A docent told me there was an artist talk that had just started on the second floor, but didn't tell me anything else about it.

When I walked into the room, all eyes were on me, so I sat down. I was one of only about 10 people in the room, and we were seated in a circle. That was not what I expected, and I wasn't expecting the speaker to tell us her time allotment was an hour and a half, either! I won't go into the details here, but I escaped -- hopefully in a way that wasn't awkward for the artist, given the small group size.

After leaving the gallery, I used the skywalks to traverse between several downtown buildings. Below are a couple of above-the-street views from the skywalks. Sometimes I could see other skywalks in the distance as I crossed between buildings, such as the skywalk visible in the first photo, below.

I eventually made it to the block where the Mayo Clinic is located, and found what appear to be the original Mayo Clinic entrance and building. It is hard to read in the top photo, below, but the words over the door say "Mayo Clinic", as shown in the second photo. The entrance is visible in the middle of the building in the third photo. The building has a plaque that states it is a registered historic building.

Across the street is a larger, more modern, Mayo Clinic building.

There is even a skywalk between two buildings on opposite sides of the Zumbro river that runs through town.

After exploring downtown Rochester, I drove to the Douglas Trailhead and went for a short walk before dark. The Douglas trail is paved, and I could hear background traffic noise the whole time I walked, so it wasn't quite as "back to nature" as I had hoped -- but that's understandable since the trail is so close to the city. I'll have plenty of other opportunities for more secluded nature walks during this trip.

An Uneventful Day in Rochester, Minnesota

Today was uneventful, not because there is nothing to do in Rochester, but because I got a slow start and then spent much of the day in the downtown library updating my blog. I had gotten several days behind on my blog, and the good news is that I'm caught up again and can resume my adventures!

However, I need to figure out what those adventures will be. I picked up a few tourist magazines on Minnesota to help me figure out my next step. It feels funny not having a plan, but it's not the first time on this trip. 😉

Meanwhile, I noticed today that Rochester has a water tower that looks like an ear of corn! I drove by it this morning on my way downtown.

Speaking of downtown, there are skywalks between the downtown buildings. You can walk for blocks without going outside! I guess that means the winters are pretty harsh around here, although the skywalks would be useful on rainy days, too. Winter seems far away right now... the daytime highs here are in the low 80s right now!

The downtown library has two sets of stairs near the entrance... the inner set of stairs leads to the second floor of the library, and the set in the outer lobby leads up to the second floor skywalk. Both sets of stairs are inside the building, protected from the weather.

That's about all I have to report for today. I like my spot in the Lowes parking lot. It is quiet and relatively dark. This Lowes store turns off the parking lot lights late at night, which is nice.  There are other lights in the area, so it isn't totally dark.

Fresh Cheese Curds and Cranberry Festival in Wisconsin; Newsies Musical in Rochester, MN

 Did you know that fresh cheese curds squeak on your teeth when you eat them?

Today's plan was to visit a cheese factory on my way to the Cranberry Festival in Warrens, Wisconsin, and then see where my path leads me.

-- The Carr Cheese Factory --

The Carr Valley Cheese factory on County Road G in La Valle, Wisconsin, is on the way to Warrens if you take country roads instead of the Interstate. It was a quiet, beautiful drive through farmland. The farm pictured below is right across the street from the cheese factory.

Two ladies inside the factory store were busy packaging cheese curds that were made fresh this morning. The workers in the back had just finished cleaning out the vats from this morning's cheese processing. One of the ladies took me back and showed me the vats.

There were cheese samples in small plastic containers in the store. I tried some, and the lady brought me some fresh cheese curds to taste. They actually squeaked when I bit into them. She also warmed up a small piece of bread cheese for me to taste. It was really good! She told me the bread cheese is best warmed up, and it doesn’t melt like regular cheese.

I told her I like the bread cheese but that I'm from California, and traveling, and don't have a way to keep it cold or heat it up. She looked up California stores that carry their cheese, and found that Raley's and Nugget grocery stores carry it, so I'll have to look for it after I get back home.

I liked some of the sheep cheese I tried. I wasn't set up to transport a block of cheese, but I bought a few dollars worth of cheese curds (not pictured), and the small package of sheep cheese remnants shown below.

She told me the cheese curds are good for snacking, and she was right...they didn't last long. Maybe I should have bought more!

-- Cranberry Festival in Warrens, Wisconsin --

When I got to the Cranberry Festival in Warrens, Wisconsin, I was surprised how crowded it was. This is Friday, after all, and I suspect the crowds will be even larger on the weekend.

I was disappointed that the festival just looked like a giant flea market at first, with nothing specific to cranberries. I had to walk 5 to 10 minutes before I started seeing Cranberry items. I bought a Cranberry ice cream cone, and some cran-watermelon juice.

You would not believe how many vendors were at the festival. I walked down multiple streets and through rows of booths for over an hour before I found what became my favorite part of the festival... I saw a sign pointing to a path that led to a Cranberry marsh!

Along the path to the marsh, there were more signs telling about the cranberry growing and harvesting in Wisconsin:

• - Wisconsin  produces 60% of the U.S. Cranberry crop. Last year, Wisconsin growers harvested about 417 million pounds of cranberries.  Massachusetts was second, with about 180 million pounds.
• - Cranberries are native to Wisconsin.
• - They are perennials that grow on low-lying vines.
• - Cranberries grow in dry soil, not water.
• - They require acidic soil, water, and sand.
• - Cranberry fields are called beds, and they are surrounded by dikes.
• - Wisconsin Cranberry farmers irrigate their Cranberry beds as needed. They use water to protect the plants from freezing, and cover them with water to form a sheet of ice that protects them in the winter.
• - 5% of cranberries are harvested to be eaten fresh; the other 95% are processed into juice, sauce, dried cranberries, etc.

The path led to a cranberry marsh with 220 acres of beds owned and maintained by the Gebhardt family. The Gebhardts belong to the Ocean Spray Co-operative, so their cranberries are used in Ocean Spray products. The cranberries produced on this farm are sent to an Ocean Spray storage facility, where they are frozen for later processing.

Cranberries can be dry harvested or wet harvested. Dry harvesting with hand rakes and buckets is more traditional, and leaves the cranberries more intact, but most farms use wet harvesting nowadays.  

To harvest their cranberries, the Gebhardts first flood the beds to several inches of water above the vines (18 inches?). There are 4 air pockets inside each cranberry, which is why cranberries float.

A tractor attachment called a harrow knocks the berries off the vines as the tractor drives across the flooded field. The tractor has rubber treads instead of tires to minimize damage to the vines. The harrow attachment has bent tines on circular wheels, as shown below.

A special version of the harrow is used to pick cranberries around the edges of the bed.

After the harrows have knocked the cranberries free, a yellow floating tube is spread across the width of the flooded bed, and tractors along the side pull it across the bed, corraling the berries into a corner, where they are sucked up by a vacuum and loaded into a truck.

A lady explained the process to us and answered questions. Water is pumped into the beds via a conduit from a reservoir on the property. After one bed is harvested, the water is drained from the bed and diverted to the next bed.

It was interesting stuff. If you want to learn more about growing and harvesting cranberries, click here for a link to a good web page.

-- Deciding on my Next Destination --

I hadn't yet decided on my next destination... Minneapolis, La Crosse, Rochester, or another nearby festival? So I drove to the nearest decent sized town, Tomah, Wisconsin, and parked outside their library to use their wifi to help power my Internet search.

While I was parked there, an Amish man and his son pulled up next to me and tied their horse to a tree while they went into the library.

I searched for interesting things to do in potential destinations, and found a musical being performed tonight in one of my potential destinations -- Rochester, Minnesota. The musical being performed is "Newsies", based on the Disney movie I have never seen but heard is good. The theater website showed there were still had a few single tickets left, so I decided to go for it and take the hour and a half drive west to Rochester. I didn't buy a ticket in case heavy traffic or something else came up to prevent me from getting there in time.

-- Newsies Musical in Rochester, MN --

I arrived at the Rochester Civic Theater around 6:30 pm, and bought a ticket online for the 7:00 pm show. I actually got a great single seat near the left end of the 4th row!

The production was very professional, and the mostly teenage cast did a terrific job! I thoroughly enjoyed it, and was glad I came!

I got permission to park overnight in the Lowes parking lot.