We'll see what Susan & Bryant have up their sleeves for today. If nothing, we can take an auto trip down into the Mississippi Valley to Red Wing and maybe beyond. It happened that Susan joined us, but Bryant had something else to do today.
Red Wing is a charming city nestled along the upper Mississippi River, known for its rich cultural heritage and scenic beauty. With roots tracing back to Indigenous history and 19th-century settlement, it flourished as a center for agriculture, pottery, and shoe manufacturing. The city blends historic architecture with a vibrant arts community and strong Scandinavian influences, reflecting its immigrant past. Surrounded by dramatic bluffs and natural landscapes, Red Wing offers a distinctive blend of Midwestern authenticity and cultural depth.
Our name for here is "Saugatuck on the Mississippi", Saugatuck being an artsy town in Michigan. We drove down the Wisconsin side and back up the Minnesota side of the river. Up onto the bluff, down into the valley, repeat.
Found a parking place and walked around a few blocks. We spotted the old St James Hotel landmark on Main, and a river cruise ship at the pier. Susan found a Duluth Trading store, which they use extensively, so we perused that. It's next door to the Red Wing Shoes store but we didn't do that.
We sat for a while in La Dolce Vita Art & Cafe enjoying muffins and coffee. Nice little interlude. A stroll through a consignment shop, then back to the car.
Slideshow Link
A drive along levee road showed us some of the river. Then we turned navigation over to Susan. She had us go onto local roads northward into the city, crossing the high bridge over the Mississippi.
We ascended to their apartment briefly, chatted with Bryant, saw the cats, and adjourned to the hotel until dinner.
We loafed for a couple of hours, then drove to Moscow on the Hill on Selby Avenue. S&B came in just after we did. We chatted and decided to skip appetizers (Thank God) to do main and dessert (menu link). We each had something different, each apprised as very good but heavy. Dessert was even heavier.
We departed, them to walk it off walking home, us to drive to the hotel and rest after having disobeyed the caution on gluttony. We may or may not see them tomorrow, as they are docents at one of the houses on the tour, and we might not get to their location on the tour. We agreed we'd do brunch Monday.
This is the day Susan & Bryant have volunteered to work at the Historic Hill House Tour. We bought tickets so we can do the tour of some 15 historic homes with a thousand other curious people.
This is the link to the web site!
The house (L) is one of the houses on the 15-house tour. It's done by walking or shuttle bus. We'll need to see a map or otherwise understand the length of the walk.
Well, that didn't turn out the way we thought it would. O took D to the cathedral for noon mass. He attended his own service by internet live-stream in the parking lot.
When D came out, we drove down Summit to get our house tour tickets. The line was around the block, perhaps three blocks long. We decided to have brunch and come back later.
Brunch at the Red Cow was nice. D had the american breakfast plus fruit. O did the house version of eggs benedict, also good. They even had a NA IPA for him. Too bad they're closed tomorrow.
We made another pass. The line had diminished but there was no parking anywhere and there were lines at each of the houses we saw. It was announced that they had sold all the tickets; we're curious as to how many they sold.
So we wrote this off as a donation and retuned to the hotel to watch TV and maybe go out later.
This is the day to do whatever we haven't done. Buy tee-shirts. Play with cats. Eat. Whatever comes to mind.
We were picked up by S&B at 0900 and whisked to HiHat for brunch. Minnesotans must all be big - O is still "full" at 1720.
After waddling out of HiHat, we were taken all over the Minneapolis-StPaul region. We first toured St Paul Union Depot, which is a large building that once served 21 tracks. Now it uses one track to host two trains eastbound and one westbound per day. Nice shops inside the station; we looked but didn't buy much. The picture at right is the departure hall that extended out over all those tracks; people would descend onto the correct platform from here.
Then we auto-toured all over the Cities. We saw Minihaha Falls, Phagen Park, Had coffee at Dogwood Coffee across from KSTP-TV, and toured the Minnesota State Fairgrounds (not in operation at this time of year).
Geographically, we went south of the river, west and north into Minneapolis, north more to the park, east for a while, then south back into St Paul and to the hotel.
Slideshow Link
We exchanged departure greetings and returned to our quarters to take it easy. And to do these notes. And to think about packing and going home.
