It’s time again for me to create a post of many of the photos I’ve taken since spring arrived the first week of May. We had a few days in April with summer weather and the snowdrops bloomed! Then it was back to winter and now there is no sign of winter anywhere. We made it!
Most of these were taken in my yard or neighborhood. Others are from Como Park where I walked one day for a change of scenery. The crabapple trees were in full bloom and were just lovely!
For any gallery below, click on any photo to see it larger and to scroll through the gallery to see captions.
First up, a gallery of really early spring happenings.
Next some early bloomers.
And one more gallery of mostly crabapple trees and blossoms.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my little tour of early spring 🌸
This is another thing I have wanted to do for quite a while. I have a list on my phone that I’ve been accumulating over a number of years of locations where I happened upon urban art. I created a route in Mapquest and hubby agreed to drive me around to them all then let me out so that I could take a photo or two or three so that I didn’t have to park. Some of these locations are very busy and it might be hard to find a place to put the car. So, thank you darling hubby for agreeing to this!
We planned to leave before 10 a.m. on a weekday to avoid the busy traffic times. When hubby looked at my route he figured it would take about 2 hours and he was right! We even added many more as he drove from point to point on my map. Oh wait! That’s cool! Can you turn around please? I’d say about a third of these photos were not on my list. Urban art is so popular and I’ve enjoyed seeing the many works of art throughout the city. So many beautiful images and vibrant colors!
Without further ado, please enjoy some urban art in Minneapolis. In all galleries, click on any photo to see a larger photo and the captions which contain the locations of each mural.
First up, how about some Prince murals? I had two on my list for a long time, one I think might have been the first Prince mural created shortly after he died. It’s the third photo with the dove in his hair. Another I noticed when I was searching online for something else “Oh! I need to capture that one too!” and added it to my route. And yet another was a surprise Prince mural in two pieces.
We saw this en route to another point on my mural map. A bonus Prince mural with a message. These were taken the last week of April and you get an inkling of how much snow we had this winter. This empty parking lot must have been a repository for the streets surrounding it and there are some snow piles still melting! I love how part of the mural is being reflected in the water from melted snow in the first photo.
The next set was this cute little house in front of a fire station. Every side is covered in mosaics and each has a different scene of the four seasons. So cool! And pooey, I cut off the top of the first side of the tiny house. It was a rare sunny day which made it kind of hard to see what I was doing. You can see a fire truck just coming out of the garage in that first photo because as I was taking photos it left the building with its siren blaring.
Next are the many murals on Lyndale Avenue between 31st and Franklin. And this isn’t all of them! Lyndale is a very busy street and a couple murals weren’t terribly accessible. I was happy with what I was able to photograph and we moved on to the next point in the route.
Here are the other murals we happened upon en route from point to point.
These are at the Seward Coop on Franklin. One mural is in English and another language I am not familiar with. I think it’s probably Arabic. The Seward neighborhood where this store resides has a large Somali population so Arabic is a good guess. (Editing to add: one of my followers commented that it might be Somali and that’s probably it.) The other two are mosaics on the poles outside the store with fruits and veggies as the themes. Very creative!
And of course there are Bob Dylan murals. We love our native sons!
Here are the others that were on my original list.
I have a list for St. Paul as well so stay tuned for a post of those photos at some point. Do you have a favorite from this group of mural photos? There are so many good ones!
Here’s one that I took in 2014 of the Schmitt Music mural at 10th and Marquette. The music is from a piano piece written by French composer Maurice Ravel called “Gaspard de la Nuit.” Check out an interesting story about how the mural came about at this link. I didn’t get the entire wall but if you google Schmitt music mural you can see it easily if you so desire.
My featured image is also in Minneapolis but I took that photo some time in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. Here’s another photo that I took in 2020. I had hoped to find it the day of our “field trip” and take another photo without a person in it but I think it was north on Hennepin when we went south and we didn’t travel that way again. Or it could be that it’s no longer there. I do like the photo as it tells the tale of a day in Minneapolis. The woman might be waiting for a bus.
I’ve been wanting to visit the American Swedish Institute for many years and finally the stars aligned and hubby and I went this week shortly after they opened in the morning. What an immense house with beautiful woodwork, stained glass and many beautiful and unique fireplaces. It was once owned by and built for Swan Turnblad, owner of the largest Swedish-language newspaper in the U.S. According to ASI’s website, there are 11 tile stoves that were imported from Sweden. Each one is a different color and style and they are just beautiful. A volunteer told us a story about a picture in one of these stoves. It’s of Carlos V (or Charles the 5th) of Spain with the king of Sweden making some sort of deal. The king of Sweden is tossing a paper into the fire to indicate their oral agreement, that they didn’t need to sign a contract. A very beautiful fireplace, and especially due to the picture. Look for it in the gallery below.
Apparently there isn’t a whole lot that is known about the Turnblad family. Not many mementos were left in the house. Here is some of what is known. Swan Turnblad and his wife Christina immigrated to the United States from Sweden when they were children in 1868 and 1876. They married in 1883 and had one child, Lillian, who was born in 1884. Swan was the owner of Svenska Amerikanska Posten, the largest Swedish-language newspaper in the U.S. But one of the volunteers indicated that Swan couldn’t possibly have made enough money from the newspaper to afford building his mansion on Park Avenue in Minneapolis. This volunteer suggested he may have been involved in some under-the-table type dealings which made him more money.
The mansion was built between 1904 and 1908, designed by Minneapolis architects Christopher Boehme and Victor Cordella. The family only lived there a few years before donating it in 1929 to become ASI. It is believed that their apartment above the newspaper’s offices was their main residence, despite having owned the mansion for 20 years.
If you park in the free lot at 27th and Park, you enter a modern building, the Nelson Cultural Center, and that is connected to the mansion. In front of the counter where you buy entry tickets is the Fika Cafe where we had a nice lunch after touring the mansion. There was a glass exhibit, Fluidity, with displays throughout the house. You’ll see a few of these in my photo galleries. You could start the exhibit in the Nelson Cultural Center and continue throughout the house. We enjoyed both the mansion and the many glass exhibits and I’m so glad I finally got to the American Swedish Institute! It was a fun adventure to the other side of the river.
Below is a gallery of some photos that I took with some captions. I hope you will enjoy! First, a gallery of the house and a separate gallery for the glass sculptures will follow, though you will see some sculptures in my photos of the house.
A smaller gallery with some of the glass sculptures we saw.
I had hoped to visit during the holidays as I understand the decorations are wonderful. Perhaps we’ll make it for 2023’s holidays. Something to look forward to! If you’re in Minneapolis, do pay a visit to this beautiful place. Pretty sure you won’t be disappointed. Here’s a link to their website for more information:
It’s one of my favorite things to do during winter! We haven’t been to the conservatory since before everything shut down in early 2020. And naturally, things are different now. Advance reservations are required. Oh wait, now I remember that we made reservations at one point in the last almost 3 years. But something came up and we weren’t able to make it. You can make reservations the day of, which is what I did. There were plenty of openings throughout the day about 3 hours prior to opening.
We’re over our 10 plus days of deep freeze and I thought it would be nice to visit the conservatory while it’s relatively nice. Highs are in the 30s now which feels absolutely BALMY compared to what we’ve had since before Christmas. So I ditched the winter coat because I didn’t want to be carrying it around with me. I wore a bulky sweatshirt with my down vest which was nearly perfect. Hubby also wore his vest. It was a tad chilly between the car and the building but we did okay!
We used to enter at the doors to the conservatory where you used to be able to hang your coat. Those days are gone, at least for now while they require reservations. You now enter through the Visitors Center where they scan your bar code for your time slot. And because we entered at a different spot than what used to be normal, our first room was the fern room.
We then wandered around to the different areas of the conservatory. It’s so warm and tropical in there and it smells divine! You feel transported to the tropics in the middle of winter. Ah…….
Next up: the sunken gardens. It was beautiful but neither of us expected it to be all white. The room was also filled with the aroma of one of those flowers, probably those smaller blooms on long stems. I believe they are paperwhites.
Various photos from other rooms.
We ended at the Tropical Encounters Exhibit where many beautiful birds were flying around. There is also a huge fish tank with many varieties to peruse and other containers with snakes, frogs and a tarantula! At the end of this exhibit is a sloth. He tries to camouflage himself but I found him!!! And he moved a little bit while we stood there.
If you’re in the twin cities area, do pay a visit to the conservatory. It’s such a nice break from winter!! There is also a zoo but that is mostly outdoors and we didn’t venture over there. But many kids with their parents were checking it out. Here’s a link to their website in case anybody is interested.
I’m working on my “year in photos” for 2022 so stay tuned for that post coming soon!
Over a long weekend in September we had a reunion of old friends at our family cabin in Akeley, Minnesota. The idea came about when our friend John wanted to attend his high school reunion in Duluth. So, the Akeley reunion was arranged around John’s reunion. In a few short months we all put together ideas and plans to enjoy the north woods of Minnesota and play a few tunes too.
In his younger years my husband was involved in bands in Bemidji and many of these people have remained friends. Some bandmates were high school friends in Bemidji and others he met in his various bands. It was a combination of Bemidji high school friends and bandmates from the early 70s as well as two valley girl friends from the same time period. John’s wife Sue and I have also known each other since the early 70s. She was in my sister’s grade, and they were both in band together. That is how we met, and we’ve been friends ever since. John and Sue’s daughter Paris came along too.
Below is a photo of one of those bands, Open Flow. Three from this group were at the reunion:
The weekend was labeled Bemidji Boyz Music Camp since everyone involved are musicians and this was mainly a group of Bemidji friends. Magnets were made with everyone’s names and phone numbers and apparently John got a deal if he ordered a bunch of these magnets. This became a joke by the end of the weekend with nearly everyone saying “Hey, do you need a magnet?” We left a couple on the fridges at the cabin. I have a photo of one of the magnets but I’m not posting it here for the world to see all our phone numbers. And I don’t know how to block all of the information out of the photo.
John, Sue and Paris arrived in Minneapolis Wednesday evening and had plans to dine with other friends that night and then headed north Thursday. I texted them from the highway on Thursday and they were about 15 minutes behind us en route to Akeley. We had planned to stop at Morey’s (which just became Rich’s) in Motley to get some fish, so we just waited a few minutes until they arrived and Paris took this selfie:
The list of invitees got to about 15 and the actual count was 10, but not everyone was there for the entire time. Most of us arrived at the cabin on Thursday and then departed on Sunday. One was only able to be there on Thursday. One missed his flight, so he arrived Friday, and another wasn’t able to arrive until Friday. The rest weren’t able to come for various reasons. There is talk of doing this again next summer so hopefully more will be able to come as long as we get our poop in a group and plan ahead!
The cabin sleeps up to 7 people and we have plenty of ground space for anyone that wanted to camp. A couple of the guys rented a cabin in the area, another pitched a tent at the top of the hill and the rest of us stayed in the cabin. It worked out rather well and we only had rain overnight one night.
Considering we were on the cusp of autumn in mid-September, the weather was absolutely amazing! I was keeping an eye on the weather forecast leading up to our long weekend, an exercise in futility to be sure because the forecasts were mostly wrong, lucky for us!! We were able to have a campfire, hang out and dine on the deck, as well as take the pontoon out a few times. Temps averaged in the low 70s during the day and into the 50s overnight. I brought extra blankets in case all the blankets at the cabin were used up, but we never needed those extra blankets.
I have to admit that we were a bit nervous about this get-together. We don’t usually host big parties like this and there were so many details to be arranged for the music, like music stands and power cords and drum machines and I don’t even know what else because I wasn’t too involved in all the music discussions. Dan offered a PA system and various drums and since he wasn’t able to stay, Larry returned all of Dan’s equipment on his way home. We even ordered a porta potty since the cabin only has one bathroom. It was awesome how everything worked out! Well, the porta potty got a little goofed up. We were supposed to call them when we got to the cabin and then they would deliver. Instead, one friend arrived before we did and he was there to meet the porta potty guy. Thanks Larry for handling that for us 👍
We only planned dinners for the three nights: Thursday was taco night, Friday was pizza and Saturday was brats, wild rice and my apparently famous baked beans. The three gals also went to the Super One grocery store in Walker to get food for lunches, drinks and some snacks. We all chipped in here and there and everything worked out well.
During the prep in the months beforehand Sue and I decided that we three gals would go to Itasca on Friday so that we’d get “girl time” and we left the boys to entertain themselves with their music. Sue and Paris had never been to Itasca. I had never been to Itasca at the end of summer and there were many autumn colors starting to show and was so beautiful. I love that park! And lucky for us, Douglas Lodge restaurant was open, and we had a great lunch. Here’s a gallery of photos from our day at the park, a combination of mine and Sue’s photos. Click on any photo in this gallery to see larger photos and scroll through to read comments:
There was also a lot of prep for the music that all of us participated in, some of us more than others. Sue and I had small parts playing flutes on two songs. I don’t remember all the details of that prep but there were lots of emails back and forth. The guys set everything up in the garage since that is the biggest sheltered space in case it rained. In the emails everyone was deciding which songs we should all practice. There were Jump In The Line, Yellow Bird, and Yellow Submarine in the mix.
Following is a gallery of other photos from the weekend. It’s a combination of mine, hubby’s and Sue’s photos. Click on any photo in this gallery to see larger photos and scroll through to read comments:
Dan was kind enough to combine all of our photos to create a video montage on youtube. Some photos are blurry and there is talk of creating another video without the blurry ones. When that happens I will amend this post and add it here. This video contains many of the photos shared here but there are others that I don’t have so it’s a nice addition to this post. Nice job Dan!! And thank you so much 👍
There were many stories shared and tunes played over our three-day long weekend. If any attendees reading this want to add comments, please do as it would be lovely to have others’ perspectives.
It would be fun to do this again next year. Put your thinking caps on and let’s plan it. It was great to spend time with old friends and getting to know others better. And in the end a good time was had by all!
To close, here are some photos of the gorgeous sunsets we experienced. Such a beautiful and peaceful place on 11th Crow Wing Lake.
Quick, before autumn is over!! I’ve been meaning to post some autumn photos and I’m finally getting to it, in the “ta da” nick of time. Just a quick gallery of different autumn scenes from around the Twin Cities that I hope you will enjoy.
And one beautiful autumn sunrise. I had just gotten to Target and saw this gorgeous color in my rear view mirror so naturally I had to take this photo.
Last summer we finally travelled to the North Shore of Lake Superior. Neither of us had ever been before and we loved it so much that we went back this summer. Both very different but very fun trips. Last year we stayed at a place right on the shore of Lake Superior and every room had a lake view which was quite nice! We decided to try a different place and spent four nights at the Cascade Lodge in Lutsen. It is also on the lake but the highway is in between so one has to be careful when crossing highway 61 to get to the lakeshore.
We did a similar first day as we did last year lunching at the Black Woods Grill in Duluth, a nice halfway point. We then made another stop at Kendall’s Smokehouse for some smoked fish to enjoy as a picnic in our room our first night. This worked great last year and it was another success this year. Huzzah!
We even found Castle Danger Brewery. We drove past it without knowing it last year so I made sure we found it this year. After a short break with beverages we headed on to our next destination before getting to our accommodations. Our plan was to go to both Gooseberry and Split Rock State Parks but we spent a bit more time at Gooseberry than planned so we didn’t have time to go to Split Rock Lighthouse. Since I didn’t get to the spots for the iconic views of the lighthouse we added it to our trip back. Except that didn’t work out because it was raining the day we left the North Shore, same as last year. Next year then!
Our first full day we opted for breakfast at the lodge. The restaurant was one of the enticers to stay at the lodge and the food is pretty good. After breakfast we headed out behind the lodge and along a creek where we each had a small mishap. No big deal either of them and we used both as a reminder to watch where we were going. That hike on the Cascade Creek Trail was a bit more treacherous than we had anticipated. The next gallery contains photos from our hike and others of the lodge.
We had a nice lunch at the Gunflint Tavern in Grand Marais. Afterwards I got to shop at the Lake Superior Trading Post where I tried on some jackets and purchased some early Christmas presents and Reed’s butterscotch candies to boot! I really enjoyed that store.
We hiked in Cascade River State Park and found some waterfalls that afternoon. There was a small parking lot and trails right off highway 61 about 2 minutes from the lodge. Another nice hike! We had dinner at the lodge restaurant and our order got mixed up somehow. A big misunderstanding with the order taker. Once it got sorted out we enjoyed our meals. The salmon was delicious.
Our next full day started with breakfast at South of the Border Cafe and we did not time this well as all the tables were occupied when we arrived. We waited about 5 minutes and a couple of retired gentlemen invited us to sit at their 4 person table. We thanked them and sat with them. Such nice men and what a nice gesture.
After breakfast we headed to Grand Portage State Park on the Canadian border. It’s a fairly easy hike to the tallest waterfall in Minnesota. And if you’re lucky, you can see Canadians checking out the waterfall on the other side of the river and we saw some! They have a nice visitor’s center as well.
It was a short drive from Grand Portage State Park to Judge Magney State Park where there is yet another waterfall, The Devil’s Kettle. So of course we had to check it out. Oh but wait, there’s 192 stairs to get to it? Which means 192 stairs back up….oh what the hell! That was the reason we chose to take that hike and it was worth it!! Yet another beautiful waterfall. But all those steps down and back up again took a toll and my legs were a bit sore for a few days. Still worth it!! And I can’t believe I took no photos of any of those steps!
We lunched at Fisherman’s Daughter for fish and chips and they give you options of shrimp, whitefish or herring. We sat outside and really enjoyed our meal and the patio. Hubby chose shrimp and chips and I chose whitefish which came with cole slaw. Yum!!
For our last full day we took the scenic drive on the Gunflint Trail after another trip to South of the Border Cafe for breakfast. We saw the nice retired gentlemen again and waved to them. This time we got our own table. Sure is beautiful and peaceful on the Gunflint Trail. We stopped at some scenic overlook spots and could see the Canadian border again at Gunflint Lake.
I had written a bunch of notes about where to stop and our best chance to see moose but we didn’t feel much like hiking anywhere that morning likely due to all those steps to The Devil’s Kettle waterfall the day before. So we changed up the plan. Instead of hiking a half mile uphill to Blueberry Hill for some awesome views, we skipped it after we read the handwritten sign and no information (not even the name of the trail) about the trail. The handwritten sign said it was very steep and that the views were obstructed? We didn’t feel like doing anything steep so we moved on. We did do the small hike to the moose viewing area further up the road, which was nice but there weren’t any moose.
We decided to go all the way to the end of the Gunflint Trail and check out the museum that’s there, Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center. But we skipped the museum as it was starting to feel like lunch time so we headed back to Trail Center Lodge where we had another delicious lunch.
We had dinner at the Bluefin Grille and had a table with a lake view. We ate here last year and really liked it so decided to make another visit. Another delicious meal in a lovely setting.
It was another successful trip to the North Shore this summer. Now, where shall we stay next year? This might become an annual trip! It is so beautiful and there are so many great hiking options. I definitely recommend a visit to Minnesota’s North Shore!
