Chapter 22: This Time John Wayne Does Not Walk Off Into The Sunset With Grace Kelly.
I’m not allowed to print the response to that line.
Anyway, it’s time to wrap up this TR with our final day in the Midwest. It began with yet another edition of Sleeping With A Toddler, in which Dave got perhaps the worst luck of them all.
We had a fairly relaxed day planned to explore the Twin Cities area. After a hearty, relaxed Embassy Suites breakfast while we waited out rush hour, we went downtown to the St. Anthony Falls area of the Mississippi River. This is a man-made dam the provided hydroelectric power to the city as well as a lock that allowed ships to traverse some rapids in the river. Now it’s a nice little dam riverfront park and was the temporary dam home of the
Mississippi National River visitor center while their main building was under renovation. And yes, we came here mostly to pick up another cheap National Park passport stamp.
This old mill building was refurbished to hold a history museum. Looked like it would be a neat place to visit.
I’d say we were there maybe about 15 minutes or so. Long enough to get our stamp and enjoy the view. At this point in the trip, we were all pretty tired and grumpy and I seem to remember having one of those stupid married couple fights over nothing with Julie where I was just being snippy because I couldn’t find a parking space and the kids were being ornery in the back seat and everything was irritating at the moment. As is always the case in these types of fights, the husband is wrong, because the marriage vows said so. Also, I actually was wrong in this case. First mistake of the year. So I eventually apologized for being a jerk and we re-set our attitudes for the day.
We headed east to St. Paul and parked at the
Como Park Zoo and Conservatory. This is exactly what the title says it is, a large zoo and garden operated by the St. Paul Parks & Recreation service. Admission is free (suggested donations are welcome), and we thought it would be a nice spot to let Drew run around and see the animals after having been cooped up in the van for most of the previous two weeks.
The zoo turned out to be fairly large and a nice place to visit, especially for a place with free admission. Along with gorillas, lions, and wolves, they had a special arctic exhibit featuring sea lions and penguins.
They even had a periodic sea lion show.
This guy had heard about our troubles flying out to Minneapolis and bet us he could beat us back to Baltimore. As you can see, he had a head start.
A quick McTour of the zoo:
We thought this sign, posted on a rickety wire fence leaning at an angle 25 feet over the lion cage, was extraordinarily helpful:
It must have been necessary, though. I pity the poor kid who tried to set up a swimming pool in there.
It was somewhere around the lion that we pulled off our last DiS Meet of the vacation. We got together with Karin (
@MNtwinsplus1mom ) and her three boys, Sam, Kevin and Benji. They were nice enough to meet us at the zoo and then hang out with us for the rest of the day. Karin’s boys were having a great time showing us around the zoo while also comparing notes on various Disney resorts.
We found that, similar to Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Como Park has an animatronic sleeping polar bear on display for visitors.
After some quick sandwiches to use up the rest of our supplies, we went inside the conservatory. Karin was nice enough to take a photo of the family and got this one, which turned out to be one of the better family shots of the trip despite Drew picking his nose.
The conservatory was full of beautiful gardens. It reminded me of
Longwood Gardens back home.
They had a small bonsai area too. I’m always fascinated by bonsai trees.
It was a hot summer day, and eventually we got tired of the non-air-conditioned conservatory building, so we took refuge in the conveniently air-conditioned gift shop for a bit before moving on.
Our next stop was in downtown St. Paul, where we found the
Minnesota History Center. It just so happened to be a Tuesday afternoon, and it just so happened that the museum offered free admission on Tuesdays after 3:00 p.m. And wouldn’t you know it? It just so happened to be 3:00 p.m. Perfect timing for a cheapskate family like ours.
Now there was an additional benefit that I hadn’t quite planned out, but instead proved to be a happy accident: there was a special traveling exhibit showcasing the work of one of the great artists of our time. I know, Picasso has his fans. So does Salvador Dali. You might prefer the more traditional work of Norman Rockwell or the more out-there stylings of Andy Warhol. But for my money, one man’s creative genius surpasses them all. That man is the immortal
Chuck Jones.
Jones is best known as the artist who gave life to many of the best-remembered episodes of Looney Tunes, starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and of course, Road-Runner and Wile E. Coyote. The exhibit featured art, scripts, hand-drawn cels, and many video clips of his best work. I could have watched those for hours. It’s fantastic. Seriously, try watching the Bugs/Daffy episode “
Duck Amuck” while keeping a straight face. Impossible. It’s lunacy at its finest.
The exhibit was all I hoped it would be.
Be vewy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits.
Sarah got in on the act as well.
I had hoped this would be our Christmas card shot. And it did end up making it as part of a collage.
Here’s the whole crew with Karin and her boys. We were really having a lot of fun hanging out with them.
They finally had to drag me away from the Looney Tunes clips and into the rest of the museum. Kevin and Benji took great pride in showing off their favorite exhibits to our kids. First up was a mining exhibit.
After donning the appropriate headgear, the kids went into a cave where they could load “dynamite” into strategically-placed holes in the rock, and then move back to push a “detonator” in the style of a Wile E. Coyote-style plunger, and then set off “explosions”. This is very similar to the “detonator” we’d found in the Mount Rushmore visitor center, and just as much fun. In fact, they’re probably the greatest museum exhibits ever, and I feel confident in saying that even though I’ve only been to relatively few museums in my lifetime. Museum security had to pull us away after several hours of simulated explosions and maniacal laughter.
We moved on to an exhibit dedicated to Minnesotans who fought in World War II.
It was here that Kevin and Benji proudly showed off the third-best museum exhibit of all time (second was the U-boat in Chicago’s Science & Industry Museum). Here, the kids had to team up on an assembly line and build bombs for the war effort. The four of them moved like a finely-tuned machine. It was kind of scary how efficient they were at building bombs. Clearly, they had all practiced this somewhere before. I believe they managed to make over 300 in about 10 minutes.
This turned out to be a really fun museum. Even better, we were able to find an authentic hand-painted Chuck Jones cel in the gift shop as a Christmas gift for Sarah, our budding Imagineer.
Karin, thanks for being willing to spend the day with us and for being such good hosts and company! We really enjoyed our time with your family.
Our final stop of the vacation was for dinner at the
5-8 Club south of the city. This is one of the homes of the “Juicy Lucy”, a Minneapolis burger creation featuring melted cheese cooked inside the hamburger patty. The 5-8 Club is locked into a bitter dispute with
Matt’s Bar as to who officially invented this burger. We’d seen it featured on a couple of Travel Channel shows and figured we needed to try it out before leaving town.
The place was busy, which is always a good sign, and somehow we lucked into a seat without much of a wait. We all ordered the Juicy Lucy, figuring it was a waste of time to look at anything else on the menu. We were cautioned not to bite in right away, as we would run the risk of scalding our mouths. Allrighty then.
Eventually, we braved the burgers. The verdict? Six thumbs up!
And then it was time to turn in for the evening. The following day, we flew home. Nothing exciting to tell you about there. We were all thankful that there were no delays this time. I did manage to get a shot of Chicago after we took off from a layover in Midway Airport:
The Museum of Science & Industry is at the very bottom of the photo, to give you an idea of where it sits compared to downtown Chicago.
Drew demonstrated the effects of spending two weeks strapped into a car seat.
Once we landed in Baltimore, we retrieved our luggage and van without incident. We stopped for dinner at
Mission BBQ, a military-themed joint I’d discovered while at a business conference in Annapolis, Maryland. It’s a chain, but it’s a very good chain. Also, BBQ.
Here we could finally relax and sit back, reminiscing about our favorite parts of the Midwest vacation. All in all, we’d covered the most ground yet on one of our insane road trips—over 3,600 miles. And yes, it’s still fun to watch the rental car employee do a double-take when he/she scans the mileage after we return the van.
Anyway, we talked and laughed and ate and enjoyed the successful completion of another vacation. We finished our meals, started gathering our belongings, and then looked up…
….and Drew happened.
At the end of this trip, we were able to add 8 new states to our map. So, at the end of summer 2016, Sarah, David and Scott had now set foot in 40 out of 50 states. And Drew, in less than three years of life, had already covered 28. After our Hilton Head getaway in November, Drew was up to 30. We’re getting close to actually pulling this off!
Coming Up Next: Final thoughts on the trip and my standard Poor Man’s PTR for the next one! And I guess I’ll ask now—are any of you interested in a TR for our spring break trip to Texas and New Mexico? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?