Title: June 18, 2026 - Minneapolis, Walking along Mississippi
Hike Info:
Type: Touring
Trail head: Hotel Indigo
Trail: various streets and the Mississippi Parkway
Destination: Loop
Distance: 4.2 miles 1
1Distance from route on Google
Maps. Note that there was some minor differences between our route
and Google Maps route.
Description:
I woke up about 6 and did my
lightning report. Sort of. It does not appear that there was
lightning around my lookouts. But in what I do for Stanislaus Forest,
I had a mixed bag. On the EPG map, it showed 5 strikes; on the Google
Earth file I created, no strikes and on a spreadsheet I pulled, it
showed 4 strikes. Who to believe?
I spent the rest of the
morning just lollygagging until Sherri got up. Well actually, my CGM
said I was going low, but my blood meter said I was OK. I took this
as an excuse to munch on some chocolate granola we got from Target
Tuesday,
When Sherri got up, we went to
the Hen
House-our
second time. There I had a Kitchen Sink Omelet and Sherri the Cali
Eggs Benedict. Still pretty yummy and filling. A good way to start
the morning. Even though it would have been just as easy to walk the
sidewalk back to the hotel-maybe easier-I wanted to go via the
Skyway.
To me this is a new wonder wandering around the inside of buildings
and coming out over the street.
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| Brewery along the Mississippi |
Today, we will be going along
the Mississippi
River.
Tuesday I picked up the other part of the GPSMyCity
intro walk. We walk over to the
Visitor Center,
not to go in, but that is where the walk is. I see Jeanne through the
window and go in and thank her.
Many of the points on this
walk are more points of interest for locals. Such as the first two
are the library
and something called Gateway.
I am always interested in libraries and this one looks pretty fine.
But we do not go in since we have other places to go. Gateway looks
more like a set of apartments. But later on, we discover that it has
more history behind it. Such as being the gateway for the early
settlers. Then in the 1960’s the area was razed, displacing
thousands of people, to make room for an urban development project.
While the results look good, it did leave a long term scar on people.
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| Old mill buildings |
We then came to the
Minneapolis
Federal Reserve.
One of these days we will need to go in and get a tour-at least in
Atlanta
they had a tour. But today, I just misread the map and had to circle
around it. Once we get on the right path, we find a bench-Sherri’s
foot still bothers her and she needs to rest it. But the bench faces
the Federal Reserve where we observe a couple window washers doing
their work. Sherri is fascinated by their activity and takes a video.
I am wondering if this is the first time they were stars of a show.
And now we come to the parkway
along the Mississippi River. We find a bench, allowing us to gaze at
the great river. While sizable here, we know it grows as these waters
will combine with others to grow the river to a humongous size when
it exits into the Gulf of Mexico.
But before it does, we come to
the only falls on the river. That is St
Anthony Falls.
The St Anthony comes from an original village on the east side of the
river named after St
Anthony of Padua.
He was the first modern day African to be named a saint. These falls
are not the thundering once of Niagara, even though they are wide and
the volume of water going over them is substantial. Rather the drop
is only about ten feet. These falls have been buttressed up so they
will not erode and decay anymore. Also they have a set of disused
locks where ships could come up the Mississippi. But the locks are no
longer used.
Then right after the locks is
the Stone
Arch Bridge.
This is one of the signature images of Minneapolis. It is a
historical landmark as well as a noted historical civil engineering
feat. We walked across it, seeing the Mississippi from the over the
top perspective. Apparently Minneapolisians enjoy this as well as
there is a constant flow of pedestrians, bicyclists and scooters. On
the way over, our new found friend from Tuesday from the National
Park Foundation
is there. We greet her and are on our way. When we got to the other
side, we stopped and had lunch.
It seems like Minneapolis has
a plethora of parks and green spaces. I guess when you have as many
lakes as they do, it is easier to have these. From what I see, the
parks form the identity of this area. Without them, I think
Minneapolis would be another dirty Mid-West town. With them, it is
clean. As a note as I write this. I do not know if other Mid-West
towns are really dirty or not. But the image I have is one where
there is decay. I suspect that is wrong.
 |
| Top of Mill City Museum |
Coming back across the bridge
we are on the north side and get to see St Anthony Falls and the
locks. There is some sort of lab, which looks like an older building.
When we get across the bridge, there are ACLU people who have set up
shop. I want to walk by, Sherri stops and chat. The other guy and I
look at each other and start the “Hi, how are you doing?”
Conversation.
Once released from the ACLU
conversation, we go through Mill
Ruins Park.
Looks like they are setting up for some sort of festival. Later on we
learned it is a celebration of the Stone Arch Bridge and they are
expecting 10,000 people. That is a pretty large group.
One of the things which Jeanne
had said to us was that the Mill
City Museum
was a must see as it explains much of the city. It is right across
the street from the Mill Ruins Park, so we go in. The courtyard is
the ruins of an empty mill building. 30+ years ago this building
exploded, catching fire. The Museum was created from the ruins more
than two decades ago.
We were greeted by some
volunteers on the first floor who sent us up to the third to pay the
entrance fee. Then back down to the first floor to start the
exhibits. The museum talks about the process for milling wheat. Then
there is the history of the Minneapolis-St Paul-St Anthony area. The
rise of the city and the downfall. You can see the city was not on an
evolutionary path but there are discrete stages of development.
There are two more things in
the museum. There is a ride, sort of. We get into a mini-theater
which takes us up and down and up and down in what is a quasi-freight
elevator. At each stop, there is background and explanation on the
work done in this mill. It finally lets us off at the seventh floor
which allows us to go to the top and get a bird’s eye view looking
east from the mill. We then descend back to the first floor in time
to see a video which reinforces what we learned in the Museum.
Now it is time to wander back
to the hotel room. And wander is a good word. We go past an area
called Milwaukee Road which evidently was the terminus of the road
road to Milwaukee. It is now a pricey bar and grill. We come to the
Government Plaza. I figured out we can enter the SkyWalk from the
building. So we walked back to Hotel
Indigo
via SkyWalk. I think I have fallen in love with this type of walking.
At the hotel we get rested.
Rachel is coming in today. When she lands, I head back to the
Government Plaza via the SkyWalk, of course. After waiting about 20
minutes, Rachel comes in on the Blue Line Metro. I want to show her
the SkyWalk, but the offices at 6, and so is this enterance. Much of
the entrances to the SkyWalk closes at 6. So we walked to the hotel
on surface streets.
After a short rest time, we
dial up an Uber to take us to Buca
di Beppo.
We had phoned and there was no waiting. But what Buca did not tell us
was that there were two girls volleyball teams screaming their heads
off already in the restaurant. One one hand, the shrillness of their
voices was annoying and not conducive for talking. On the other hand,
it was fun seeing, and hearing their enthusiasm.
There are certain things we
almost always order from Buca: chicken marsala, garlic mashed
potatoes and garlic cheese bread. When we told the family, which was
not with us, that we were at the original Buca, they guessed that is
what we ordered. But they were wrong. We ordered ziti, salad and
green beans, David’s reaction was what have they done with his
brother!
We came back, took showers and
played a couple rounds of cribbage before going to bed. Tomorrow we
drive to Duluth.
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| Panorama of the front of the Mill City Museum |
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| Bridges over the Mississippi |
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| Model of Minneapolis about a 150 years ago |
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| Hen House Breakfast |
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| I can appreciate this |
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| Sherri coming out of the Skywalk |
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| Stone Frogs |
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| Falls and Bridges |
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| Stone Arch Bridge |
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| Locks of St Anthony Falls |
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| Minneapolis City Hall |
Animals |
| Turtles |
