I did something really exciting last week: I met a blog friend! I’ve never done this before. Who was the lucky lady?
Lauren of Our Big Fat Farm Wedding: Crazy Ever After.
Photographic proof:
Lauren is just as funny/down to earth/nice/plain awesome in real life as she is in blogland. She took me all over the Twin Cities, including on an art crawl where I met her family! It was all very official- I felt like I was really “meeting the family”. We talked pretty much nonstop and I had a blast. We went to lunch, where our “al fresco” dining quickly turned into “al downpour” dining, and I watched her handle a 4-month-old and a 16-month-old- and their food- in the rain- with stunning grace! I also got to meet her other half, Jesse, who kindly indulged us in taking several pictures of us with our hands on our hips. Jesse is great.
I was actually in Minneapolis because Stan was presenting a poster at a geology conference, which meant that when Lauren wasn’t driving my butt around in Hi-oon-die, I was usually just hoofing it or riding Nice Ride on my own for hours. I saw some real cool stuff.
I posed (again with hands on hips) in front of the famous cherry-on-spoon sculpture at the Walker Art Center:
Walked through Loring Park
Saw the cool old Gold Medal Flour sign
and learned a lot about the history of milling in the city. For some reason I found this really fascinating.
Because of St. Anthony Falls…
…lots of mills took advantage of this water power and built along the banks here. Between 1880 and 1930 Minneapolis was the milling capital of the nation. In that first photo of the Gold Medal Flour sign, you can see a glass structure in the ruins. That’s Mill City Museum, which has a lot of interesting history about milling and the city in general.
Did you know that flour can be highly explosive? There was an explosion in the Washburn A Mill that devastated the city, wiping out about a third of its milling capacity. Bricks from the tower were found seven miles away, and people 25 miles away were reporting an earthquake. Holy crapola! After that, they started installing ventilation systems to control the dust.
Pillsbury’s Best Flour can also still be seen.
Stone Arch Bridge was built in 1883 to connect fields of grain with the mills on the other side of the Mississippi. At its peak, the (newly built) Washburn A Mill alone was processing about a hundred boxcars of wheat per day!
I don’t know why I’m so fascinated by this. Just thinking about the birth of industry in our nation, the chance for people to come to the big city and work (yes, even women)… it’s just very cool to me to think of our young country dealing with stuff like, “Well okay- we’ve got all this wheat- where the heck are we going to grind it up? Oh look, a waterfall on the Mississippi.”
The last milling-related thing I will mention is that this is a photo of some ruins of the waterways that were used to power the mills:
I also rode Nice Ride around Lake of the Isles
Stan took a break from geologisting to hang out with me and climb on some stuff.
Did you know that you don’t have to mow your lawn in Minneapolis, because there are little potato men that do it for you?
It’s a cool place. One you should visit, should you get the chance.
Thanks for the memories, Minneapolis and its lovely inhabitants.
October 17, 2011 at 9:51 am
Yay, I’ve been looking forward to seeing your photos! Our friend Christopher asked us once in passing if we wanted to see the sculpture of the spoon and cherry, but I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. Also the mill museum was closed the day we went to that area, so we missed out on that, too. But it was a very nice city, one I would definitely visit again given the chance.
October 17, 2011 at 5:36 pm
Minneapolis IS for bloggers, and their blogger buddies (and Stan)! I really am so happy to have met you guys. I love all the pictures. And I love that you included so much history about Mpls. I actually learned a bit more about my fair city from what you wrote. And you couldn’t have come at a better time. The temps have dropped drastically since last week. Winter is knocking at our door, and I am pretending I don’t hear him. Hoping Hi-oon-die will make getting through another one a bit easier. 😉
Oh and the picture of us–we look totally hot sizzle. Not so good of my messy, sorry excuse for a dining table. Ha! It tends to be the place we drop everything when we walk in the house. Kind of embarrassed we didn’t clean it off for you a bit more. Oh well. You didn’t seem to judge me too harshly for it(at least not outwardly). But for what it’s worth, I cleared it all off yesterday and decorated it with some pretty fall decorations. Maybe we’ll even eat dinner at it too.
Hope our paths cross again soon!
October 17, 2011 at 5:42 pm
PS–did you know the story about the creature thing in Lake of the Isles? It bounces around from lake to lake in Mpls. You can read all about Minne at this link: http://www.lakecreature.com/
October 18, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Haha that’s awesome! She is so cute! I had a feeling we were majorly lucking out with the weather.
And yeah, we are totally hott. The other photo showcased my butt a little too much, with that mirror right behind me. (And then I go and post a photo of my butt. Duh.) Our kitchen table should be called the Horizontal Kitchen Closet because that’s basically what it is. I hardly noticed the clutter on yours! And your DIY window is back there looking all hot-to-trot.
October 17, 2011 at 6:05 pm
Fun photos! Looks like a great place to visit! And how cool that you got to meet up with a fellow blogger in the real world! 🙂
October 17, 2011 at 6:42 pm
omg, I WANT those little potato men, lol. They’re so cute and funny!
Those are great pics – I had no idea it was such a photogenic city! Looks like it was a blast, it’s always fun to meet new people like that 🙂
October 17, 2011 at 9:32 pm
we need potato men in florida…
October 18, 2011 at 3:15 pm
Cool! Looks like a great time!
October 18, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Cool! So, when are you coming to Milwaukee??
October 19, 2011 at 7:05 am
Yay, Minneapolis!! I’m glad you had a good time at my home turf. Those potato guys need to come over to my house and rake some leaves.
October 20, 2011 at 5:48 pm
I’m learning that there are lots of bloggers in that area! We should have had a big bash- maybe when you guys all come out to SLC. 🙂 And by the way- in case it didn’t come through in my post, I really loved your city.
October 20, 2011 at 12:58 pm
As I am sure I won’t ever visit the area….thanks for the tour. I throughly enjoyed it.
October 26, 2011 at 10:18 pm
I’m glad you had a nice visit!
November 15, 2011 at 8:54 am
[…] Anyhoo, I didn’t feel like waiting for anyone to come out anyway, so the link I found was this one from the Minneapolis Police Dept that had lots of good info on DIY graffiti removal. (Minneapolis- what a great city!) […]