Day14, June 28: South Minneapolis, and Roseville, MN

Dick was able to have a long deserved quiet day where he cleaned out the minivan, straighten things out, worked with a lot of photos that he hadn’t had a chance to look at, and just had time to catch his breath at the sweet little house in south Minneapolis where we would stay several days.

In the meantime, Patti and her friend Ann talked nonstop from as soon as they got up in the morning till when she dropped Patti off at 2:30 on her way to work. A delightful visit. They even had a chance to walk the small labyrinth at the church across from where she lives. Very lovely time.

Both Patti and Dick took an afternoon rest because the visiting schedule is intense although very fun.

We went and picked up Chinese food and headed over to dear friends Ruth and Phyllis, who Patti had known for 40 years since they were all in seminary together. The evening was spent  sharing stories of the fun and the drama and trauma these last couple years have given to all of us. It was so nice to spend good quality talking and catching up time together. We were so pleased to receive a copy of Ruth’s book that she recently published about home.  A great read! We miss them so much and we’re so glad to be able to spend this time together.

Day 13th, June 27 North Oaks, MN to Roseville and Minneapolis MN

We are awakened in our friend Faith‘s house by the lake. During the morning coffee, we heard the call of the loon, a special bird often heard in northern Minnesota, rarely as far south as the Twin Cities. It seem to be a lucky omen. We spent a beautiful morning having  a French Toast breakfast and coffee outside and catching up further. Oh, the blessing of old friends is so good.

We said goodbye to Faith and then came over to Patti‘s very, long-term friend Ann’s new senior co-op. We are both so glad to see Ann and to see the new home that she and her husband, Keith, had moved into a few months ago. The downsizing process has been a very daunting one and we were so pleased to see their new home looking so good. Dick dropped Patti off and he went on to catch some lunch and then check into the Airbnb home where will be for a few days. Patti will spend the next 24 hours catching up with and talking from noon until late in the night. Nothing like dear old friends to catch up and share with each other.

Patti and Ann had a nice Indian lunch and then went walking. Later on when we joined for dinner by husband, Keith, and daughter, Vicky, and granddaughter, Zoe. We all had a great time eating beautiful Italian food and catching up.

Then back to Ann and Keith‘s home to chat and catch up until late in the night.

In the meantime, Dick was able to get some quiet alone time where he caught up on news and worked on photos. He was really appreciative to have some time where he didn’t need to be so social. Sometimes, it’s not easy being an introvert on a long trip.

Both had a chance to touch base by phone before headed off to sleep. So nice to be in the Twin Cities again.

Day 12, June 26 Lutsen, MN to North Oaks, MN

We woke up on the shores of Lake Superior to a cloudy dark day. It looked like it might have rained a little in the night. A little rabbit jumped around outside our motel room. Our first stop of the day was at our most favorite lighthouse: Split Rock Lighthouse. This was a premier lighthouse built in 1906  after severe storms had caused 29 ships to be lost on Lake Superior in this area the season before. It is a wonderful lighthouse station, built here on the top of 130 foot cliff overlooking the great lake. In early times, everything to both build a lighthouse and to supply the keepers and their families, had to be brought up the cliff ships from ships. Eventually, they were able to build a little tram system for rail carts to come up.  In 1926, Minnesota Road 61 was built running along the lakeshore and a couple years later a connecting route went out to the lighthouse. In the 1930's this lighthouse was known as the most visited lighthouse in the United States. It had both a large light that would reach out for 22 miles as well as a fog horn. This prevented shipwrecks until it was finally decommissioned in the 1960's. Once GPS and other modern navigational techniques were available, it was no longer needed.

We have visited this lighthouse multiple times, but always stop by when we get a chance. We went up in the lighthouse to take a look at the amazing lens. and we also walked a path down to the Lake Superior shoreline where we took the classic pictures of Split Rock Lighthouse. The view was beautiful and we were pleased that the blue sky was peeking through in some areas. We took the path down and stairways coming up. The wild flowers were enchanting, the view is beautiful.

We stopped to see Gooseberry Falls waterfalls, one of the many places where rivers and falls come down to Lake Superior from the Iron Range. Most of the steel made in the US comes from the ore mined in these low mountains. We chatted with another couple who had lived in the San Diego area when the husband was in the Navy. And then with another woman who was on a Roads Scholars trip, where they were studying the voyagers, and were going to do a little canoe trip into the boundary waters. There were a lot of people on the move today enjoying the beautiful day.

The sun came out and we got a blue-sky drive headed down the coast to Duluth and on to the Twin Cities.

Roadside Attractions pointed us in the direction of a large statue of a rooster and the giant voyager canoe guy "statue without pants". Of course we had to stop and take pictures of both. We learned that actually, it was historically accurate that voyagers often wore tall boots, and then long tunic shirts, leaving their thighs bare. We spent quite a bit of time reflecting on why this would be a good idea, considering the amount of mosquitoes around and how it might be hot here in canoeing weather. But, we got the mandatory photo with the “pants-less voyager”.

After that, we headed south on I-35 going towards the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. This is an area where Patti lived for 15 years and Dick lived for 10 years. Even though we’ve now lived in California, we still have people who are dear to us who are in that area. So we’re looking forward to a number of very fun visits this week.

Our first visit is our dear friend Faith who we’ve known for over 30 years, having met in a dance class. This was actually the same dance class that Dick and Patti met in around the same time. She has a lovely home on the lake and we’re so thrilled to settled in for a nice dinner and visit and spending the night with her. We also met her guy, Neil, who shared the good fortune with Patti of being born in North Dakota.  We all spent good good time talking about travels, home improvement projects, and then went out for ice cream.  We stood in a line with about a hundred other people to get our cones.  The cones were good, and it makes a good story. So good to be back in the Twin Cities.

Date 11: June 25 Winnipeg Manitoba to Lutsen Minnesota

We got off on a early start and we’re out of Winnipeg before eight. Not too far down the road we went by a sign letting us know we just passed the center of Canada, between the east and the west. Canada is a very wide country.

Today we drove over 500 miles, around 10 hours and crossed the border back into the US. The drive had us leaving the plains, and moving into the woodlands of the north. When we reached Ontario there were many little lakes as well as many more trees. Then, we crossed the border back into the United States and soon could see Lake Superior, one of the Great Lakes. We had a nice several days in Canada and now it’s time to head back into the States. This trip was focused around being sure to be in the Twin Cities in Minnesota for our nephew's July 1 wedding.

There are really a lot of trees and green in this area.  And sweet little woodland lakes and appear as we drove by.  And periodically we would see whole fields of wildflowers alongside the road.

It rained much of the day and there were too many trucks on this mostly two lane road, so we were happy to finally arrive at our old time lake resort right on the shore of Lake Superior. We were happy to be able to walk along the lake shore. This is the closest thing to an ocean that they have in the middle of the country.  You can't see the far edge of the lake.  It is stunning.

We went to a local restaurant for a walleye fish dinner. Delicious!  Good, fresh water fish.

To bed early, for a good night's sleep.  Ready to start our Minnesota adventures.

Day 10: : June 24, Winnipeg, Manitoba

We woke up early, fell back asleep and then Dick came in and woke up Patti saying, "We have to leave now." It turns out that the time was 9:09 and we were expected for a tour at 9:30. We both threw clothes on and headed out the door as quickly as we could. We rushed across town, missed our 9:30 tour, but were able to be booked for one at 10 o’clock.

The tour was of the Royals Canadian Mint. Neither of us have ever been on a tour of a mint before, and found it fascinating. Canada has two mints, one in Ottawa, the national capital, which makes specialized coins and currency. The second one, actually, the workhorse, is located in Winnipeg. They have the capacity to produce 15 million coins in a day but rarely approach this. This mints makes all of the coins that are in circulation in Canada. Actually, it turns out not only coins for Canada, but they have contracts for 80 other countries around the world for making their coins. One of the biggest is the Philippines. They actually had a small contract with the United States one time where they provided “blanks “of coins for the US.

We went on a small tour lead by a very enthusiastic young tour guide, Cade. He talked us from start to finish on what it takes to securely make, and deliver coins out into the world. Because it was a weekend, the actual machines we saw were not working, but we still got a very good view on the process of coins being made. One of the things that was most interesting is the big coils of metal that get loaded and then stamped out with the blanks of coins. We also heard about the process of dyes being cut to make the engraving in the coins. It’s a very precise and interesting process as it happens.

One of the really interesting things was how, for Canadian coins, they have on the backside always the queen or king of the British empire. Because Queen Elizabeth had recently passed, and King Charles is now on the throne, there’s quite a process going on with a contest for what portrait of the new king will be on coins. We will now follow that even more closely having seen where the coins are made.

So we came back to our Airbnb condo and had a very nice brunch because we had missed breakfast before our tour. Then we loaded up and headed off for the next part of our day.

We went and visited the Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg. This was actually quite a well done smaller-sized zoo. We were delighted early on in our visit to spend some time with one of the tram drivers who is able to give us some advice on how to best visit this zoo. this is a role that Dick so enjoys doing as a volunteer at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. It was fun exchanging information with this tram driver and also with a volunteer who works at the zoo here in Winnipeg.

The highlight of the zoo was a very large premier enclosure for polar bears. This was modeled after the town of Churchill where so many polar bears gather every year. They have nine polar bears here, and a very large and well constructed environment for the bears.

In addition to polar bears, there were a lot of various kinds of seals, and caribou, and a lot of other animals from northern parts of the world. Many of the animals here were rescued from the wild. We enjoyed seeing the animals and were reminded, at various times, about how confusing navigating a Zoo can be when you’re not familiar with it. We had to retrace our steps a couple of times and we’re pretty tired by the time we had finished our three hours at the zoo.

We found our way back across Winnipeg to our little home. We took some downtime, and then Dick cooked a nice dinner with pasta and makings that we had brought along on our trip. One of the real advantages of staying in apartment rather than a hotel room is having it well set up for cooking, and this one really was. We had a great meal, and felt like just a little extra rest for the evening, rather than rushing out to try to find another activity. Winnipeg was beautiful, but the traffic was really intense and a challenge at times.

Day 9: June 23, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan to Winnipeg, Manitoba

A fairly early start today because we had a lot of driving to do over some very flat, flat, flat land on our way to Winnipeg. We started with blue skies and rapidly the clouds gathered, and by the time we finished our drive it was gray and very cloudy. In someways, this was one of the most boring drives of the trip because it was so very flat. But we hung in there got through six hours of driving.

We arrived in Winnipeg surprised that the major freeway, The Trans Canada 1 turns into a city street as it goes through Winnipeg. It took us forever to go through the city, being stopped at nearly every stoplight. At last we reached the Airbnb condo. We will be spending the next couple of nights there. It’s a very stylish comfortable place and we were glad to be able to follow all the directions of where to park at the Parkade (Canadian for parking structure or parking garage or parking ramp). There was also complex instructions on how to get buzzed in and get the fob to let us into places in the apartment building. Checking in on the Airbnb always has some extra stress to it, but we persevered.

We are staying really right in downtown Winnipeg. After taking just a short rest, we decided we couldn’t fight with traffic anymore and so we walked, about 20 minutes away, to our destination for the evening. We were going to the Canadian Museum of Human Rights. We spent several hours entranced with the very powerful displays on human rights in all of its varieties. It felt really good to both of us to have our values affirmed so dramatically. This was a place that was really dedicated to having all stories told and honored. There were things out of history, such as the Holocaust and Indian boarding schools and the Armenian Genocide. There was a lot of focus on LBGTQ issues, and discrimination against women. Disability issues were prominent, as were racial and cultural discrimination. The place was full of multimedia photos and art, as well as some very, very well done video. If you ever get to Winnipeg, we would highly recommend this as a world-class museum. We so enjoyed our time there.

Then we walked back to our condo, cooked up a little dinner and enjoyed watching the sun goes down over the city. Neither of us have spent time in Winnipeg before and so this is a whole new place to explore.