Gary-Summer: June 18, 2026 - Minneapolis, Walking along Mississippi

Thursday, June 18, 2026

June 18, 2026 - Minneapolis, Walking along Mississippi

Title: June 18, 2026 - Minneapolis, Walking along Mississippi

Hike Info : Description : Extra Photo's : Animals

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.

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.

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.