I got up a few minutes before 7. It had been raining and it looks pretty wet out there. I did my lightning report-from what I can tell, there does not seem to have been any new strikes in the area. But I am at the point where I am not trusting it. Until Sherri wakes up, I will just read and write.
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| Breakfast. What else would it be? |
Sherri gets up around 9 and we go downstairs for breakfast at the Star Bar. Shelby is our waitress. Sherri has the eggs benedict on a philo bread with ham and Hollandaise sauce while I splurged and had pancakes with maple syrup. Sherri may have splurged more than me. I think I will be content for a while as my blood sugars rise. I asked Shelby about if there is some etiquette concerning the skyways. She said no. We will probably meet mostly business people during our walk-that was my observation as well from seeing people in those walkways. She mentioned that the Target Center has a lot of selfie opportunities. Not sure that we will make it over there.
Minneapolis a long time ago started putting walkways between buildings on the second story. According to a Web site, it was to make the sidewalks less crowded and to allow more vehicle traffic. A side benefit was that during the rough winter months, you did not have to go out into the cold and snow. As there was more pedestrian traffic inside of the second story walkways, shops and restaurants started to spring up.
When we got back to the room,
we decided to walk the skyway.
We figured out where to get to the Skyway on this block. The back
of the hotel goes into the Northstar
Center.
This is an entrance into the Skyway. Sherri and I start walking along
the Skyway. Apparently there are many people in a rush, all going
faster than we are and dressed for business. We just try to stay out
of their way.
View from Skyway
We are learning how to navigate through the buildings. Once we leave a street crossing the skyway snakes through a building. Sometimes it branches out to multiple other Skyways. We see places where people eat-mostly quasi-fast food. We just take various turns at the junctions, not really having a destination.
After half an hour, Sherri’s foot starts to ache a bit. We decided to get on a bus and go to the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA). This has been one of the top recommendations of many people. Turns out we are a little more than a block away from picking up the bus. We have the Metro’s app. All which we have to do is show that we paid on the app and hop on the bus. Easy. We probably overspent as we had gotten an all day pass, but that is OK. When we use it next time, we will know.
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| Locations of Native American reservations. |
When we get to MIA, it is a little after 12. For the general exhibits, admission is free-I like that. The special exhibits do cost. MIA has two big floors of exhibits. They are broken up into sections, such as on the second floor there were rooms which showed Japanese and African artifacts, with maybe some Chinese. Also Native American items showed on this floor. The third floor dealt with European and American art. There were exhibits with modern/contemporary art and photography. One thing which MIA did well was to explain what we were seeing.
We spent four hours inside the MIA, getting out after 4. The one item which impressed me was a twisted glass prism which followed you around the room. It reminded me of the concave sonic shell at the High in Atlanta. Not physically but the concept. I guess things like this mesmerizes me. In another part of the MIA there was a statue of St Anthony of Padua. The draw was the statue showing the first modern African canonized saint. The statue depicted a black man dressed in a gold robe. Shortly afterwards we saw a painting of St Francis of Assisi and St Anthony of Padua. The skin tone was indistinguishable from each other. I was wondering what I was seeing and was I understanding it correctly.
When we left the MIA, we took the 11C bus back downtown. It let us off at Nicollet and 7th Sts. This morning we had noticed some dining options coming over. We decided that if there was something to eat walking the Skyway back, we would stop. Somehow or another, I was able to make a pretty direct line back to our hotel without really seeing anyplace to eat. Well there was a Starbucks and a donut shop.
When we got back to the hotel room, neither of us wanted to go out and find a place to eat. So we just had sandwiches and chips. Showers were taken and clothes were washed. Then at 8:30, we got on our family Zoom call. A little after 10, we went to bed.
