Hello Everyone! Greetings from Milwaukee! I have made my way out of Minnesota after a wonderful 6+ week stay and am on my way home for the holidays. I’ll admit I’m pretty tired after the last 5 months on the road and am looking forward to a few weeks off, catching up with friends and catching up on some sleep. I’ve been pushing hard these last few weeks to get through what I wanted to see and get out before winter really set in. There’s definitely been snow this week, the sun is setting at 4:45pm and nighttime temperatures have dropped below freezing every night. All the signs are there that it’s time for me to follow the geese and head south and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. All of that being said, it’s been another great week on the road. I spent this week exploring the Twin Cities and then cruising down the Great River Road and checking out the historic Mississippi River towns along the way. It’s been overcast and snowy and has made photography challenging, but it’s also cleared up at times and given me some beautiful winter lighting to shoot with. I still have plenty of photos to edit and publish, so you’ll be seeing Minnesota photos for a few weeks to come, but I have officially left the Gopher State.
When I left you last week, I was headed to lunch with my old friend, Rich. I met Rich almost 22 years ago in New Jersey when I was interviewing for the tour company with which I would spend most of the intervening years. When that company shut its doors for good last year during the pandemic, Rich was the one locking those doors behind us. It was good to see him, catch up on the few people we’re both in touch with and share a meal and a few laughs. After lunch I headed on to the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul and took the last guided tour of the day. Our guide was great and told us all about the history of Minnesota’s three Capitol buildings. I was particularly interested in all of the materials they had used in its construction, from local granite to the incredible pipestone I mentioned last week to fine Italian marble. None of the government bodies were in session, so the building was quiet and we had the run of the place. We even got up on the roof for commanding views over the city and a close-up look at the gold-plated Quadriga (four horse chariot) on the front of the dome. After the tour I spent some time wandering the empty building and looking in the nooks and crannies and remembering the pre-September 11th days when I could do the same in our U.S. Capitol. That evening I headed over to First Avenue, one of Minneapolis’ premier music venues, and used the 7th St Entry to get to their smaller, underground club. When I got there, Darrin Bradury was just coming on stage with his quirky tunes about life on the road. The headliner was Minneapolis-based rock band Nato Coles and the Blue Diamond Band, who rocked the small room and got everyone’s toes tapping. It was a good show and so good to see live music again after way too long. I was also happy they were checking vaccination cards at the door which made the small club feel much safer.
Thursday morning I made a quick trip to the Mall of America in Bloomington, which the country’s largest indoor mall. I wandered around for a little while, checked out the amusement park in the middle of it all and the free parts of the aquarium which were both pretty cool. Beyond that, it was just a really big mall. I could definitely imagine it being a nice place to go in the middle of winter to escape the snow and find some fun options with your kids, but I’ve been to malls before and had better things to do with my day. I headed on to the Minnesota History Center which was much more my style. This is the state’s central history museum and I found it fairly progressive, but thought it walked that line well and seemed to present a reasonably balanced look at the state’s history. The main exhibit in the middle was really good, and looked at the different regions of the state and the people that have lived there through the years. I also enjoyed the temporary exhibits on Minnesota weather, the Greatest Generation, Sinclair Lewis and Women’s Rights. I was in the museum for several hours and then headed over to my friend Mark’s house for the night. Mark and I taught together at Francis Gregory Elementary School in New Orleans way back in 2008. It was my second year at the school and his first and I was impressed that he made it through the year (very few teachers there did). While he was fighting different battles than I was, it was an incredibly challenging year in one of the country’s worst schools. He went on to teach in New Orleans for many years before returning home to Minnesota. He’s still teaching now, in fact, and still facing challenges but with a whole lot more experience under his belt. He invited me to stay at his home and then took me to a great dinner at The Blue Door for a beer and a burger. While we were eating and chatting, the snow began to fall but it wasn’t quite the heavy snow that had been predicted. After dinner we went back to his house and sipped some delicious Roknar whiskey (which is made in Minnesota) and chatted long into the night. It was very cozy to sleep in a warm bed in a warm room while the snow was falling outside and also great to catch up with my old friend.
Friday morning we drank coffee and talked some more before he headed off to work and I headed off to George Floyd Square. This was definitely not a happy or a feel-good spot, but one now forever connected to the Twin Cities and to American history. There are some wonderful memorials to George Floyd there and several different art pieces near the corner where he was killed. It was an emotional place to visit. While I’m used to going to tough places to try and learn about what happened there, most are from events long in the past, not those that are in recent memory. I’m glad I stopped.
From there I spent most of the rest of the day cruising around the Minneapolis, checking out the neighborhoods and trying a few different snacks. I finally found some Lefse at Ingebretsen’s where I also got some delicious Danish soft cheese and a jar of pickled herring. I went for a pork steam bun at Keefer Court and then walked up the street for a Somali coffee and fish sambusa (which was amazingly delicious). I decided a beer would go over well and dropped by Monte Carlo, one of the city’s oldest bars, and then headed over to Kramerczuk’s for some Ukranian cheesecake. Then I took a nice long afternoon nap. When I woke up, I started my evening at Waldmann’s Brewery which is in a building which predates the state of Minnesota by six months. It was an old German Lager Beer Saloon back then, but was closed for many years before reopening in 2017. I really loved the place and would highly recommend a stop if you’re in the area. I had some delicious Ethiopian food for dinner at Fasika and then went to the legendary Turf Club for a show. Turf Club has been around since 1945 and is another of the city’s great music venues. There were four bands playing that night to a mostly young, college-aged crowd. Because of that, it seemed the first three bands, which were all talented, were trying too hard to be weird and different instead of focusing on their music. The headliner on the other hand, Sleeping Jesus, just went out and played and hopefully showed the younger musicians that at the end of the day it’s more about the music than anything else. They were great. It’s been a while since I was up that late for a show and I was definitely glad for my afternoon nap.
I got up a little late but not too groggy on Saturday and after sweating it out at the gym went to watch some Penn State football at Patrick McGovern’s in St. Paul, the official viewing site for the Minnesota Chapter of our Alumni Association. It’s a nice place but wasn’t a great game and it may be time for some coaching changes at my alma mater. After the game, I went for a nice long walk in the snow around downtown St. Paul and then decided it was time to be moving on. I made my way down the road to Hastings, a cute little town further down the Mississippi River, getting in just before dark. The snow was really coming down when I got there, but was mostly just swirling around and not causing much trouble. I walked up and down the main street for a while and then popped into the Spiral Brewery to get in out of the cold and have a nice flight of craft beer. It was a great little place with some fun bartenders and I enjoyed myself before heading out to watch some TV in my van and call it an early night.
Sunday morning was clear and beautiful and I headed back downtown to take some photos of Hastings before the clouds rolled back in. It had been a few days since I’d even taken my camera out at that point. From there I headed on to Red Wing, but the clouds were back by the time I got there. It was still a wonderful, historic town right on the river and I had a great time wandering the streets. The main industry there is Red Wing Shoes which has been crafting boots and work gear in Red Wing since 1905. Not only has the company kept its corporate office there, but its manufacturing as well and you can tell the impact that it has had on the town. There weren’t any empty storefronts and while it was quiet on a Sunday in November, you could tell that the town was doing well. The clouds cleared enough for me to get some good photos and after wandering around for a few hours I decided to head on down the road to Wabasha. Wabasha is a tiny town with a population of only about 2500, but it’s one of the cutest towns on the Mississippi River. There are lots of great old buildings around town and, while still cloudy, there was enough sun poking through to allow me to take some great photos as the day was waning. When it got too dark to shoot, I ducked into the tiny Hopping Girl Brewery behind the Turning Waters Bed and Breakfast. Brenda, the owner there, was incredibly friendly and welcoming and we chatted for over an hour about her business and the town and my journey. Their beers were really excellent as well and I was really happy I stopped. They closed at six, but the bowling alley was really happening on a Sunday night, so I stopped in for a sandwich before heading on to bed.
It was overcast and cold when I woke up, but Wabasha was such a great little town that I went for another stroll downtown before making my way south to Winona, my last stop in Minnesota. Winona was bigger than I expected and while it was a little bit run down it still had a beautiful historic district. I had a nice long walk around town and then headed on to their excellent History Museum. Situated in the old armory, this museum was very well organized and told the story of the town from prehistory to today. There were some great old artifacts from the town and a lot of information packed into such a small space. I really appreciated the fact that they had posted notices that some of their displays were old and outdated and that they were working to update them with more modern interpretations. History doesn’t change, but our understanding of it changes all the time which is why it’s frustrating to historians when people want to hold onto some story they learned in school 50 years ago. When I finished in the galleries, I had a nice long chat with the wonderful lady working the front desk and she gave me a map and some recommendations for the rest of my day. It was a Monday afternoon though and many of the places were closed, so I spent the rest of the daylight hours walking the streets and taking some photos. The clouds cleared about an hour before sunset so I retraced my steps to get some good shots. As I was wandering, I looked down one street and saw the glowing white dome of St. Stanislaus Catholic Church in the distance. I made tracks in that direction and got there just as the last rays of the day were hitting the dome. I wish I had gotten there five minutes sooner, but I was glad to see it with blue skies and sunshine behind it. It’s really quite something for a little town to have a church that big. I wandered back along the Mississippi River as the daylight faded and enjoyed some great colors in the sky and nice views of the bridge to Wisconsin which was nicely reflected in the river. When it got dark I popped into Island City Brewing Company for a beer before heading out for the night.
Yesterday morning I got up nice and early and got on the road just after the sun came up. I crossed over the Mississippi River for the last time for a while on my way into La Crosse and then headed all the way across the state of Wisconsin and back to Milwaukee. When I got into town, I headed straight for the gym to get a workout and a more important shower. I was happy to find I’ve only gained a few pounds with the cold and inactivity of the last few weeks which I know I can work off in the next few weeks. I’ve been trying to eat well, drink less and get plenty of exercise, but the last few weeks I’ve done a lot of sitting on my butt. I should be able to hit the gym pretty much every day for the rest of the year and I’m really happy about that. From there I headed to the library as I had a lot of work to catch up on. I wanted to get this post started and at least get one photo post published for this week. I spent the rest of the day there, but in the evening I had other plans. I wanted to go visit Foundation, Wisconsin’s top rated tiki bar. It’s a very well decorated place and they make some great cocktails but I was disappointed there was no bar seating and I had to sit at a table by myself. On top of that, I was sandwiched between two ladies who were complaining very loudly about their lives to their friends – not what I come to a tiki bar to hear. I ended up going out to my van and grabbing my headphones so I could tune them out and just enjoy my time there. It wasn’t as much fun as Trader Nick’s on the south side of the city, but it still had a lot of character.
Today I hit the gym early and came straight to the library to get my work done and my newsletter ready to go for the week. I’m planning on taking it easy this afternoon and then going to see my cousins in West Bend this evening which I’m really looking forward to. As far as the rest of the week goes, I’m planning on heading south to Chicago tomorrow to get a good deep dish pizza and catch some cool blues at Kingston Mines. Then I’m headed around the bottom of Lake Michigan to visit Indiana Dunes National Park and then shoot out across Michigan with the hopes of seeing some friends along the way. I’ve got a couple of things I want to do in Detroit before I scoot on to Cleveland to catch up with my buddy, Mike Vasko. By this time next week I hope to be on my way south towards Charleston, West Virginia where I’ll be spending Thanksgiving and a few extra days with my dad before heading on home to D.C. It’s going to be a fun week of food, friends and family as I make my way south and east for the holidays. I hope you’re all keeping warm out there, wherever you are, and I hope to see you right back here, same time next week. Thank you, as always, for reading.
-Mike