Travels with Kenny

St Anthony Falls, Minneapolis, MN
July 18, 2011--Red Wing, MN

Omigod...it's hot!!

After leaving St. Cloud this morning we traveled slowly south along the Mississippi. To take a break from driving, we stopped at a small roadside park and walked to the river. Tied to a tree was a rope that kids use to swing out and drop into the water. Just like a Norman Rockwell painting, except these kids probably wore their baseball hats sideways and wore those goofy shorts that end about an inch above the ankles.

Then we continued on our way to Minneapolis so Michael could visit the Walker Art Gallery, a nifty looking place that, unfortunately, is closed on Mondays. An odd-looking artsy kid working at the gallery suggested we cross the street to an outdoor sculpture garden, which we did. Nice, but talk about hot! So we made our way to St. Anthony Falls, the site of the first lock on the river. In the 1800s they built power plants by the falls and there were a lot of lumber mills, which, after the forests were all harvested, were replaced by flour mills, like Pillsbury. The original mills are now in ruins, but the city kept the ruins and developers are building trendy condos among them. Pretty neat. Richmond has done something similar along the James River by the old tobacco warehouses.

Anyway, it was much too hot to stay here too long, so we headed to the Mall of America. Really something to see: nice stores, an amusement park in the middle of the mall, and air conditioned! It's apparently one of the country's major tourist attractions. Worth seeing if you're out this way.

We're now in Red Wing, where they make Red Wing boots and shoes. Maybe we'll tour it tomorrow. We drove down to the river after dinner, and many of the boats there are housed in what look like floating garages. Pretty unusual...I think.