Minnesota

Two weeks ago I got to spend a full weekend in the Twin Cities. I make note of this because it was my first ever trip to Minnesota; so, I only have 8 states left to visit (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Michigan, Vermont and Rhode Island). I went out to meet up with my wife who was there for business and her uncle and his family who live in St. Paul.

That first night there got to go to a Homecoming high school football game. Quick aside: the week before that we were in Redding for a wedding of one of her other cousins, and also went to a high school game. The differences between the two were interesting: the team in Redding had maybe 20-24 players, the team in Minnesota had easily more than 50; the two offenses in the Redding game were primarily run oriented, the teams in the Minnesota game were passing oriented. The weather was equally nice, although we arrived late for the Redding game.

On Saturday, her uncle, some of his children, my wife and I headed to the Old Mill section of Minneapolis to take a tour of the Old Mill. It focused on the history of Minneapolis and St. Paul as a mill town, turning the wheat from the Midwest into flour and shipping it around the world. Minneapolis was the home for companies like Pillsbury and Gold Medal Flour, both of which ended up being bought by General Mills, which is headquartered in Minneapolis. I also didn't really realize the role the Mississippi played in making Minneapolis a hub for milling by altering the flow of the Mississippi slightly at St. Anthony Falls to harness the hydropower potential of the Mississippi at that particular point of the river.

We then went our separate ways as wife and I headed for the Mall of America, or the MOA as the locals call it (ok, it was my wife's aunt who said it, but it still sounds good). It's huge, but, honestly, not as big as I was expecting. I mean, yeah, it's got 4 levels, and 3 rollercoasters (those turns and corkscrews are pretty tight), but we were able to walk around it, and all 4 levels in the space of a few hours. By the way, there's no sales tax on clothing in Minnesota. Needless to say, we ended up buying some clothes. Also, people are nice. Like really nice. My wife's cell phone has been slowly coming to its end (I mean, the battery lasts 5 minutes, the numbers 3, 6 and 9 didn't work, and if she was talking to someone during those 5 minutes her battery lasted, the phone would start randomly dialing other numbers). So, we go to the Verizon Wireless store in the MOA, and we're told just drop it off and we'll do a program update, be back in an hour. No problem, we walk around and get some lunch. Go back and hour later and they tell us that the update crashed the phone and they are replacing it with a new phone, but the same model. To think that at the Verizon Wireless store by my work, it takes a minimum of 2 hours to get anything done there, but at the MOA store, we were able to drop the phone off, come back and hour later and leave with a new phone. Plus, the person helping us gave us credit so that my wife could re-purchase the ringtones she downloaded as well as a few other free stuff. However, I completely forgot to look around for homeplate from the original Metropolitan Stadium which is where the Twins played when they moved from D.C. I've seen the homeplate and remaining outfield wall of Forbes Field when we went to Pittsburgh several years ago, so it would have been nice to add the Met to that. Maybe next time.

We finished the day with a lovely dinner out with her aunt and uncle in downtown St. Paul. Afterwards, her uncle drove us around and showed us the cathedral where they got married, the state capitol, the Governor's House (that was pointed out by relaying a story about an event during the time of Gov. Ventura), and other historical sites around St. Paul.

Sunday, however, was the main draw for me as we got to go to a Twins game at the Metrodome. The Metrodome is the 11th baseball stadium that my wife and I have visited. What more can be said about this place that hasn't already been said. Well, what isn't said is that the rows are like 30 seats long and there is no view of the field from the concession stands. Like the article notes, though, the seats don't face home plate, but, really, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Sure, I lost most balls that were hit in the air, but being indoors meant it wasn't going to be too cold or too hot, people were relatively pleasant, and being in the last row on the field level meant we were right below the first batch of club boxes and we could watch the football games going on at the same time. And, unlike with Shea or Yankee Stadium, we were able to hit this stadium before the Twins move to their new stadium in 2010. All in all, it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't PNC. Plus, it was the last game of the season and the Twins had a chance to clinch the American League Central division with a win and a White Sox loss; the Twins won, but so did the White Sox, who also won the next day to force a one-game playoff against the Twins, which was won by the White Sox. There's always next year Twins fans.

Overall, the weekend was great, the leaves were beginning to change, which is something that I always looked forward to when I lived in D.C., but don't really get living here in the Bay Area, and had a great time doing a bit of sight-seeing. There are two things that I want to see in Minnesota- the beginning of the Mississippi and the home of Sinclair Lewis. Sinclair Lewis is one of my favorite authors, that's why. However, neither of those sites are really that close to Minneapolis though, which means, I guess, we'll have to spend more than a weekend there.