Minnesota

Our brief stay in Minnesota comes to an end tomorrow. While we have barely begun to explore it, I can say most of what we have seen is beautiful. Driving out to Redwing, a beautiful town, we passed thru some idyllic countryside. Red Barns, tall silos, green fields. Not just flat fields but fields on rolling terrain. Yes, it gets way to cold for us up this way in the winter months. On the other hand summer months are nice. Back home it was a low of 78 and a high of 98 today. Here we started out at 57 and made it up to 71. Very nice indeed. Will return to Minnesota someday.

  Friday takes us to Grinnell Iowa. There we will visit my friend of 50 years.



  more later...

Minneapolis

  We visited this fair city today. A lot of traffic and strange routing of traffic. Not my favorite city and not one I am likely to return to. Our trip downtown took us to...wait for it,,,a museum! This was the Mill City Museum celebrating the long heritage of milling flour here. Minneapolis was founded on the banks of the Mississippi at Saint Anthony falls. These falls provided the power for timber and flower mills. The Minnesota historical society runs the museum in the ruins of one of the old mills. Very informative about how the bills were built and powered.

Just south of Minneapolis is the city of Bloomington. It is the location of this little place called Mall of America with 500+ shops. You know Mary could not pass it by. Big, nice place with amusement park in middle. Mary and I could not find a ride we were capable of surviving.


 Mary at this HUGE Crayola store/experience. This adult coloring book thing is getting out of hand!

 Out to Red Wing tomorrow.

Dubuque

  Dubuque is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, cities in Iowa. Sitting on bluffs over looking the river it is a diverse city. Used to seperated into areas by nationality or religion. Has some beautiful old structures.

  One of the most interesting was the one for First United Methodist Church. Reportedly they have the fifth largest collection of stained glass works by Louis Tiffany. We saw a large collection of his work last year in Winter Park Florida. The windows we saw, and the building itself, were stunning. We make a point of touring old, interesting  church buildings. This one rates at the top.

 Of course we could not pass up a chance to visit a museum. This was a large, informative museum.

 There are two casinos in town, one owned by the city. Sad to say our luck was not good.



Tomorrow we move on to Apple Valley Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis/St Paul. We will be there for three nights.

Location, location or cha-cha-changes

 If you came along on the March-May you will remember we had you in the desert. Well get ready for something different. We are in the breadbasket for the world. Have seen our share of fields of corn in Illinois and now Iowa. Lot's and lot's of green fields.

  We are currently in Dubuque Iowa, This is where Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin meet. Four corner region in April, Tri State region in June.


 Our current location courtesy of Google Earth

  As you can tell we are camped on the banks of the Mississippi river. The old girl is not near as wide as she is down Vicksburg or Natchez way. None the less quite a strong current. We are just down stream from one of the river locks, number 11 I believe.  We have been sitting here enjoying the cool breeze and watching the pleasure boat traffic.

  Looking for a small cabin with a view? This may be just the one for you...

Old Friends

 Spent the past 2 plus days visiting old friends. Mary and Sharon grew up neighbors and have been BFF's forever. Mark fired up the smoker and we ate well. On to Iowa tomorrow.

Land of Lincoln

Change of plans had us driving on to Normal Illinois area. Cooler here than at home. More later

Exit one

So we stopped for the night at Downstream casino, exit 1 in Missouri. So if you have players card you can stay for free. Went to casino and signed up for one to save the normal $30 cost. In getting the card they give you $7 free play and when you get 10 points a $10 voucher for food. Stay for free, twenty bucks off meal, I broke even gambling and Mary came out $80 ahead. Not a bad stop! On to St. Louis today