Minnesota August 2006 - Part 2 A day in the Twin Cities - The RIverfront and Minnehaha Falls

Over the last several years, there has been a lot of renovation along the riverfront. St. Anthony Falls, known as the birthplace of Minneapolis, is the only waterfall on the Mississippi River. You can see it from a pedestrian bridge – the Stone Arch bridge (the pic of me attached to this e-mail is of me standing on the bridge with the skyline in the background – though you don’t really get a good view of the bridge – I’ll get a better pic of it today from a different angle). We went here on the tour, but there wasn’t a lot of time to explore so I am going to go back today – there is a lot of fascinating architecture – it is the heart of the milling district – and you can walk across to Nicollet Island. The other pic is one of the milling district.

Then we headed up to Minnehaha Falls and Park. – it’s a regional park where Longfellow got the inspiration for SONG OF HIAWATHA. There is a statue of Hiawatha and Minnehaha somewhere , but I couldn’t find it. Our time was limited so I just had time to take a couple of pics of the falls – now these were better falls than on the river, but still nothing like what I saw in Yellowstone a couple of years ago.

After that, we headed back to the Mall, driving by several of the city lakes. An interesting thing about all the lakes in Minneapolis – they are all required to be surrounded by a park.

Saw the statue of Mary Tyler Moore throwing her hat in the air – it’s on Nicollet Mall – a pedestrian only shopping street in downtown. Then we saw the house used in the show where she and Rhoda and Phyllis lived.

Last night I went to the Guthrie. Anyone who knows American theatre knows of the Guthrie. It is one of the most renowned theatres in the country – I have heard about it for years. It was founded in the 60s by the legendary director Sir Arthur Guthrie. For those of you who have been to it, though, it would not be the same one you went to. They rebuilt it and the new one just opened in June. It is very beautiful – modern and big (what did I tell you about the differences between Minnepolis and St. Paul?) and has three stages. It also has the “ENDLESS BRIDGE” which is an abutment built out from the building with a beautiful view of the river. I took a pic of it from the Stone Arch bridge earlier in the day, but didn’t take my camera to the theatre so didn’t get a pic from that angle. However, you can go into the theatre and out on the bridge even if you’re not seeing a play, so will go back today. (On the attached pic of the milling disctrict, you can see the Guthrie and the Endless Bridge right next to the Gold Medal mill.)


I saw THE REAL THING – it was so-so – I realized after it started that I had seen it in Houston a few years ago – just another one of those endlesss “relationship” plays where the characters argue about the affairs the other one is having. Boring. On one of the other stages, they were doing THE GREAT GATSBY - I did not choose it because 1) I have already seen it and 2) I’m not that much of a Fitzgerald fan. But, after being in St. Paul and reading the book I bought about him, I wished I had gone ahead and opted for it. I asked when I got there if I could switch, but it was sold out.

Before the theatre, I found a supper club a few block away and had dinner outside again. It was so nice – the weather was wonderful and I had a good view of downtown. The food was good – similar to Bob’s Steak and Chop House in Dallas. They had strawberry shortcake and that being my favorite dessert I asked the waitress how it was served. She described it has a “southern dish served on CORNBREAD”. I told her that I am a southern girl and we do not serve strawberry shortcake that way. I assumed she really meant SHORTBREAD so I ordered it. Well, guess what, it really was served on CORNBREAD. And it was terrible so I declined to eat it. That brought a visit from the executive chef. I told him the meal was marvelous, but I just couldn’t eat the cake. He said he was trying to experiment with dishes from other regions of the country and thought that was a traditional southern dish. I told him that cornbread is Southern, but we eat it with beans and rice.

Well, I’m off this morning to do some more exploring. I found out there are THREE FLW houses here in Minneapolis – two of them just a couple of miles from my hotel so am going to head that direction and then go back downtown.