A Slice of Kate

This past weekend, Husband and I took a little jaunt out to the Midwest. Ostensibly, we were there to watch the Orioles play the Twins in the last series of the season. But I love a good adventure (and an opportunity to scratch a new state off of my scratch map), so I was on board. As East Coasters, I feel like we don’t hear much about the Twin Cities. I’m not sure how fond I would be of the Minnesota winters, but there is a TON to see and do in and around Minneapolis and St. Paul. It’s a big arts town (which makes sense as it’s Prince’s hometown), and there’s some really great, hearty regional food. The people were also just as nice as you would imagine. I’m sure us repeating “Ope, I’m gonna squeeze right past ya” got very old for any locals listening, but they never showed it.

Anyway, we arrived at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport on Friday afternoon, and headed right to our AirBnb in the Lake District. Minnesota is known as the Land of 10,000 Lakes, and it turns out, 10,000 was probably an underestimation. We were staying within walking distance of both Cedar Lake and Lake Bde Maka Ska. Since it was 80 degrees and sunny all weekend, plenty of folks were out walking their dogs around the lakes, paddle boarding, fishing, and even swimming. Locals told us that it typically isn’t still this warm at the end of September, but everyone was soaking it up.

Friday evening we headed to Target Field for the ballgame. While I personally think it’s a missed opportunity to not have an actual Target at Target Field, it’s still a really fun ballpark environment. Highly recommend getting a Polish brat, some fried cheese curds, and some of the warm mini-donuts. As we’re fresh off of the second annual brutal Orioles Playoff loss, I will not be commenting further on the actual baseball game. Please respect my wishes during this difficult albeit entirely predictable time.

Saturday was our day of exploration. We started by walking to the Rustica bakery for coffee and breakfast sammies. I got a bacon, egg, and cheese on brioche and a hazelnut latte — definitely recommend both. From there, we headed over to the Sculpture Garden at the Walker Art Center. The Sculpture Garden, which is free and open from 6am to midnight every day, is wonderful. We spent an hour or so just wondering from installation to installation. There are clean bathrooms available, and there was a food truck set up while we were there as well.

Next up was a trip to Hunt and Gather, which is an absolute wonderland of vintage furniture, art, clothes, and basically any kind of tchotchke you can imagine. Husband is not one for aimless browsing, but even his interest was piqued by this treasure trove of a store. I probably could have spent all day perusing their various goods — everything from chandeliers to vintage Playboy magazines to neon signage and throw pillows. If we hadn’t been carrying on only, I probably would have done more damage, but I vow one day to come back to Hunt and Gather to add some of their whimsical items to my collection.

We headed down to Minnehaha Falls next, which, while lovely, was probably one of the more underwhelming sights we saw on our journey. It was very crowded, and it part of a public park system. We were expecting a little more of a hike to get there, but it’s right off the main drag and teeming with people. It was kind of hard to get a good picture without jumping fences, and I wasn’t in the mood to trespass, but I imagine once the leaves have dropped from the trees, visitors will have better sightlines.

When in Minneapolis, one has to go to the Mall of America. I think that’s written in the Constitution somewhere. But guys… it’s just a really big mall. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I went, but it is truly just a mall with some expensive side quests. We did learn that the old Metropolitan Stadium (former home to the Minnesota Twins) used to sit on the grounds of the mall, with home plate still commemorated inside the Nickelodeon Theme Park (right by Spongebob’s Pineapple, if you’re curious). For reasons of nostalgia, we ended up having dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, which is just as chaotic and wonderful as I remember. All the animals look like badly taxidermized muppets, and the thunderstorms are wildly overstimulating. We loved it (shoutout to our Safari Guide, Tasha!).

Sunday morning we went back to Target Field for a ballpark tour. Our guide, Joel, was a wealth of knowledge and just generally a very nice dude. We learned a lot not only about the Twins’ history, but about Minneapolis itself. If you take a game day tour, you’re allowed to stay in the stadium complex until the game starts, so we used our time wisely to grab some Oriole autographs, and Husband even get tossed a ball after warm ups. If you or someone in your family is a baseball fan, I’d definitely recommend the tour.

While we only had about 48 hours to work with, I feel like we got a fairly good cross-section of Minneapolis. We didn’t have an opportunity to get to St. Paul, but I would love to go back to explore more. It’s borderline criminal that I didn’t have time to pay homage to Prince at his home and studio, Paisley Park, but alas, I had to come home and be a “grown up” with a “real job.” It just means we’ll have to visiting the Twin Cities again. Maybe if we’re brave, we’ll even go in winter.