Friday, December 20, 2013

#TimeTravel // October 2013 // Minneapolis & Major Decisions



At this point in the trip, Torsten and I had made out way through Chicago, Milwaukee and my humble abode in North East Wisconsin. Our trip was, so far, going according to plan. Now I'm not sure if you remember, but in October we were burden with the threat of a government shutdown. Our original route, meticulously planned for months on roadtrippers.com and a Google-drive doc, would being incredibly severed considering we planned to go out west after Minneapolis, where our major destinations were national parks and monuments.

In near perfect timing, we heard all national parks and monuments would officially be closed for an indefinite amount of time. We were in Minneapolis when we heard the news and would decided by the end of the night where our new, and more spontaneous, route would take us. But first, we had one of my all-time favorite cities to run around! We drove in along the river, you know, the big huge one that goes all the way down to the gulf? It's kind of a big deal. Anyway, we marveled the bridges and old mills before rolling the van up into my old hood. 




That's right, Minneapolis was home to my first taste of adult freedom as I spent the first three semesters of my college education at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), where only the finest hipsters of the city are born.  We took a quick tour of my old educational institute then crossed the lawn over to the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA), a free art museum you could get lost in for hours and not mind one bit.




A few blocks west of MCAD and the MIA is "eat street". South of downtown, along Nicolet Street is basically nothing but an assortment of the most amazing, local restaurants and markets. We stopped at one of my favorite cheap eats, Jasmine Deli, where I had my dearly missed mock duck sandwich and was enjoying it too much to even care what Torsten got. After Lunch we jumped back in the van and drove over to the Walker Sculpture Garden. Within the garden is one of Minneapolis' biggest icons, the spoonbridge and cherry along with a heap of other sculptures that are fun to pose and play around with.




From the sculpture garden we walked across the bridge, through a park and into the downtown. What makes Minneapolis' downtown so unique is how almost every major building is connect through a labyrinth of sky walks. Work in the downtown and you may never have to step outside to bear the elements. ever. I remember the first time I went exploring through them I wasn't really keeping track of my direction and legitimately became lost somewhere in the buildings. I did randomly come across the illustrator behind The Yellow Submarine, Heinz Edelmann, selling prints of his work for charity not even a year before he ended up passing away. I never had much reason to venture into the downtown during my few semesters at MCAD, but when I did there was always an entertaining story afterwards.




This was my first time back in Minneapolis where I could legally drink. So when Torsten asked for suggestions of somewhere nearby we could grab a drink, I really had no idea besides 18+ clubs, which I was very okay with not revisiting.  We found ourselves inside the most pub-like establishment we could find; The Local. We sat and envisioned ourselves with our old Sydney gang hanging out here in true How I Met Your Mother fashion. As we threw back some drinks we discussed our road trip route dilemma and decided that, come the morrow, we would go up and around all the great lakes with little-to-no idea of what exactly our new route would entail. Within the first few hours of our new route we stumbled upon a gorgeous pit-stop. But more on that later.

Cheers!


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