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:
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 đź‘Ť
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 đź‘Ť
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!
It’s been another different year at the fair. We have gone to the fair on opening day since before I can remember. And then we’ve always gone at least one more time, sometimes more. Last year was the first time we didn’t go more than once due to Covid. Okay, 2020 too but there was no fair then. I’m glad that I went last year but didn’t feel very comfortable and wore a mask on the bus as well as in the buildings. This year’s opening day was so crowded! From the moment we entered I could tell it was going to be a very busy day. One reason we like going on opening day is because it’s typically calmer. But I guess since we haven’t had a “normal” fair in three years everyone was excited to go this year? Maybe.
It was so crowded that we weren’t able to view the crop art in the Agriculture building, one of my favorite things to do at the fair. We checked twice and both times the line was out the door to the crop art room. And I didn’t want to wait in the crowd. Bummer. But we enjoyed what we did see: the animal barns, the great art in the fine arts building and a trip on the Sky Ride. And I got my pronto pup as well as a chocolate malt from the Kiwanis stand outside the fine arts building. Best malt at the fair! I have no idea if they’re any different than the malts in the dairy building but I’ve always liked the Kiwanis malts. This first gallery contains photos from opening day:
We decided to go back on the second “seniors day” a week after opening day and wow, what a difference! It was so nice and calm and oh, so much more pleasant! We have always started our day, on opening day, with breakfast. This year our plan was foiled because, did I mention the crowds at the get-go? Oh my gosh. I wasn’t prepared to not have breakfast! We planned to have breakfast at the Hamline Church Dining Hall, the last church dining hall at the fair. Previously we went to the Epiphany Diner but that went away several years ago. Hamline was already packed with a line of about 20 people out the door when we got there about 8:30. Okay, regroup and this was a first: we decided on pronto pups for breakfast! Yum! On seniors day we had breakfast at The Peg, something new for us. It’s the only full service restaurant at the fair and it was great!! One difference I noticed was when the food comes, it is hot! As opposed to the dining halls where you put food on a tray and make your way through the line, find a table and by the time you eat, the food isn’t hot. Perhaps we’ll make The Peg our new annual breakfast spot.
And I may have been the first one in the Agriculture building when it opened at 9:00. Well, I certainly was the first one in that door. And I headed right to the crop art: no line!! There were maybe 3 or 5 of us checking out the crop art. Now this is the way to do it! We perused the flower displays in those rooms of the Agriculture building as well. They rotate every two days so these were different displays than opening day, and we didn’t even venture into the flower rooms on opening day. Just too many people for my comfort level.
Other photos from our second trip to the fair:
One fun thing from our second day was the Sky Ride. We did some shopping at the Grand Stand and we were just about done so decided to take the one way Sky Ride to get us closer to the entrance for our bus home. As we waited I spotted and photographed the Hippie (or Flower Power) car and as it happened we got to ride in it after we made our way through the line! En route inside our fun hippie car we heard a young girl yell out “Flower Power!!” and hubby yelled back “Peace, Love and Ringo!” Too funny. One of the best Sky Rides ever!
We stopped at the DFL booth and a nice volunteer asked if we’d like our photo taken, so there we are with President Biden and Vice President Harris. We were each given a soy bean to vote our most important issue this year. Abortion Access was winning at the fair as well as across the country! The last photo in the next gallery is hubby discussing issues calmly with a volunteer at the Republican lieutenant governor candidate’s booth. This is the way to do it, calmly discuss. Neither could change the other’s mind and they ended their chat positively agreeing that it is important to vote.
All in all, it was a great two times at the fair. Until next year!
Greetings blogsphere! I’ve been documenting our trip to the North Shore last summer and we’ve reached our last full day. If you missed any of the first three days, you can find them here, here and here. Do check them out if you’re so inclined. We had such a nice time at one of the most beautiful spots in Minnesota. I still can’t believe it took me nearly 30 years to get there!
We awakened to clear skies!! And that made us hopeful that the Greenwood fire smoke blew away again for the day. Our plan was to visit the Grand Portage National Monument in the morning and then do our second hike up Oberg Mountain, the full loop this time, in the afternoon. Since Grand Portage was an hour from our hotel we decided to break it up by having breakfast in Grand Marais, the halfway point.
It was such a beautiful drive along the North Shore! I don’t think the photos do it justice but here’s one that I like so that you can get somewhat of an idea of the beauty along the highway. This was on the way to Grand Marais.
We breakfasted at the Blue Water Cafe in Grand Marais. It was pretty good and we enjoyed a beautiful mural of Lake Superior and the stained glass. And check out the funny sign by the restrooms. Grand Marais is a quaint little town that is well known for its artists.
Grand Portage National Monument: Wow!! A scenic place full of history near the end of the North Shore and close to the Canadian border.
It’s a step back in time to when the North West Company operated the most profitable fur trading business on the Great Lakes between 1784 and 1803. The original buildings were long gone before the site was designated a national monument in 1958. The land was donated by the Grand Portage Band of Minnesota Chippewa(Ojibwe), or Anishinaabe, the original people. There were originally 16 buildings which you can see in the photo of the miniature of the entire grounds. The Great Hall, kitchen, look-out tower and warehouse were reconstructed to give visitors a glimpse of the past. Today the warehouse displays historic items, including birch-bark canoes built by traditional methods.
We started at the Heritage Center which contains galleries about Ojibwean culture and the fur trade at Grand Portage. We saw tee pees made out of birch bark, an Ojibwe carrying a backpack and other interesting displays. We explored the buildings and I especially enjoyed the waffle being made by a volunteer in period dress in the kitchen. In the Great Hall we were treated to a bit of Irish bagpipe music by another volunteer who knew quite a bit about the history of the place.
After getting our fill of the history of Grand Portage, we headed back to Grand Marais for lunch. Then back to the hotel to relax a bit before heading out for our second hike up Oberg mountain so that we could do the entire Oberg loop.
Back to the gondola ride at Lutsen Mountain that I mentioned in my day 3 post. We were driving around a bit on our first day and ended up on Lutsen Mountain taking in the magnificent views. We saw people riding the gondola between Lutsen Mountain and Moose Mountain and decided that would be another great way to experience more scenic views. This was our last day to take that ride but by the time we returned from Grand Portage the smoke from the Greenwood fire had returned and it didn’t make sense to take that ride if the views were going to be obstructed by the smoke. So, we’ve saved that gondola ride for our next trip to the North Shore this summer. We’re hoping for smokeless views this year! I gave a sneak preview of the smoke on our hike, here are those photos again, plus a handful more.
We heard that the North Shore had lots of snow this past winter, and even into April, which means bigger, more voluminous waterfalls than we saw last summer. So, we decided to take another trip this summer to see those bigger waterfalls and visit a couple more state parks that we didn’t have time for last year. We booked different lodging this time, just to try out another place, and we’re going back the last week of June. I can’t wait!
Remember the smoke I mentioned in my previous two posts about our trip to the North Shore? Before I get to that, if you missed either of my first two posts, I’m doing a day by day synopsis of our trip. You can check out the first one here and the second one here. Brief recap: the Greenwood fire was started by a lightening strike a few days before we headed to the North Shore. Since it was about 40-50 miles from where we were staying, we almost cancelled and I’m so glad we didn’t! The smoke from this fire would come and go with the wind and we awoke to a smoky sunrise on day 3. I love the colors in this photo (taken by hubby) but it smelled really smoky.
We kept checking the air quality since our plan was to visit two state parks today. According to the weather app on our phones, air quality was moderate. After breakfast at Lockport Marketplace and Deli we headed out on the highway to Tettegouche State Park about 30 minutes south of our hotel.
Such an interesting start to the hike as the trail goes under the highway at the beginning. It was a long hike to a waterfall that is more voluminous when we’re not in drought. But at least there was water. And it was pretty. There were paths to other waterfalls and there was one sign that said 200 steps to the bottom of the waterfall which meant we had to climb back up these steps, so we passed on that one. It was a 1.5 mile hike to the High Falls of the Baptism River and it took roughly two hours to go and come back. We passed other hikers on our way back that kept asking if there were waterfalls. We wondered the same thing and we felt rewarded when we saw the waterfalls.
We stopped at Schroeder Baking Company and got some sandwiches to eat at our hotel while we rested and regrouped for our afternoon hike. We got to Temperance River State Park about 2:00 and of course we checked out the map! This hike was a bit more rewarding in that there were several waterfalls that we found. It took most of the afternoon for this hike. We got there about 2:00 and then back to our hotel just after 4:00. Lots of up and down and lots of treacherous spots. We couldn’t take our eyes off our feet too much to enjoy the views because we had to watch where we put our feet so as not to fall down and crack our heads open. Luckily that didn’t happen! And I did manage to get some good photos.
