Minnesota

Mom was born in Spicer on Green Lake in Minnesota. That's it. That's all we know. We did the best we could. We found Spicer on Green Lake and had lunch. It's what we do. Then we took pictures and tried to remember the stories she had told us. They were few. We remembered the picture with all her sibs next to some farming equipment. Farm? Or did Grampy have an auto shop? Was it in town? Was the farm behind a house on the lake next to the farm? It was fun looking for places. The lake is on the left. We figured a farm, we saw a farm house, but didn't take a picture of it. Everything had grown so much since 1929.

We went to The Mall of America that night and watched a movie, Wall-e, and saw some of what was there. It was amazing. The movie was great, the mall was huge. We almost got lost in the amusement section. Karen and I are two definate people. AND we a both sometimes wrong. It is funny to watch us when we know the other person is dead wrong. This time I was. But we found our car. The picture on the right is Karen by the restaurant where had a good California type dinner. 3 appetizers, one was cat-food cakes. I sent that back. Ended up with very sweet calamari. Don't these folks like food?

The next day we went to downtown Minneapolis and saw the Gutherie Theater (not Arlo, but Sir Tyrone.) It is in the new complex with the old Gold Medal Flour building. Very nice. Good renovation job on the waterfront. You can see the bridge on the right that

collapsed. They are working on most roads and bridges throughout Minnesota. The river was really beautiful. And that is a good thing. They emphasized in the Mill Building Museum that the water is everything. Having a river in early America seems to have been your ticket to wealth. They used those treasures like a sewer. The river powered the saw mills and factories and the manufacturers thanked them by dumping all matter of wast into the river. Shade'. Shame on them. Pillsbury, across the river, found that fish were thriving on the crap they were throwing into the river and decided to see animal feed to the farmers. Tsk.

The museum was very interesting. It told about General Mills and Minneapolis in general. Cute movie about Minneapolis history. We went to the island in the middle of the Mississippi and Karen took a 45 minute walk. That was great for her and good for me. I was able to finish my book. We are still having a good time. Minnesota has been full of corn, corn farms, corn cribs, corny people. Yet. We are enjoying ourselves. Go figure.

The Wanderers.