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With my wife working and my daughter out with friends, I had the chance to spend the day with my son, just him and me. So what did we do? I took him to the YWCA with me so he could play in the gym while I ran and lifted weights (it's the largest YWCA in the country, with a huge indoor track). We brought our swim gear, so I chased him around two pools and a hot tub for two hours. We stopped off at home to refuel (halibut steak for me, pizza for the little guy), then we were off to the area of shops near the Univ. of Minnesota known as Dinkytown.



In the time since I lived in that area of town, a lot of cool new shops have popped up. While it was interesting to walk around and discover them (especially with my boy)The , the conversations I had with the owners and shopkeepers was even more interesting.

The Univ. of Minnesota and its surrounding neighborhoods span the Mississippi River. The campus itself is divided into the East Bank and the West Bank. The destruction of the 35W bridge eliminated the major link between the downtown and south metro areas, and Dinkytown. The initial result of this seems to be the rediscovery of the neighborhood. Regular and student residents of the area who would have normally made a quick hop over to the bars in downtown Minneapolis for a night out now have to make a much more roundabout journey to get into downtown. So now, rather than go through the hassle, people are patronizing the local shops, bars and restaurants.

According to the people I spoke with, things should be absolutely dead right now; school doesn't start for several more weeks and most of the faculty are on vacation. Instead, there were people walking around all over, hanging out at restaurants and coffeehouses, even stopping off for drinks at bars that normally cater to the frat crowd during the school year.

It will be interesting to see what other short- and long-term effects we'll see here now that such a vital artery through the city has been cut.

Oh, and my son? Yep, as you may have guessed, he was frequently bored while his papa gabbed with strangers, but I let him play his Spiderman game on our Xbox when we got home, so he counts it as a very good day.


- Heretic

Ahead of my trip out of town, my wife and I drove to northern Minnesota in order to drop off my son; he'll be staying with his grandma (Sugar Mama) while we're gone.

From where we live in Minneapolis, the best route to my mother's house is to take Nokomis Avenue north to where it merges with Interstate 35W, then drive about 90 miles north. There has been some resurfacing work going on along the beginning of that route, and we knew that with rush hour approaching, and one lane of traffic closed all the way out of town, we needed to take a slightly different route. We decided to take Interstate 35E, the eastern branch of the highway that passes through the area.

We left the house about an hour and a half before our normal route collapsed into the Mississippi River.

Before



After




- Heretic

One of the major features of my home town is St. Anthony Falls, the only waterfall along the entire 2,320 miles (3,733 km) length of the Mississippi River and the upper limit of commercial river traffic. A few miles downriver is the first of 29 locks along the course of the river, the 29th located just above the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers at the southern tip of the state of Illinois.

This picture was taken from the north looking south toward several inhabited islands. Downtown Minneapolis can be seen along the right-hand side of the image. The main office buildings begin approximately one mile from the (tiny) lighthouse you see in the foreground.

The best memory I have of this place was watching the Millennium New Year's fireworks show from an upscale Japanese restaurant along the north bank, back in 2000. I was just there a few weeks ago, hiking around the park area there with my kids and exploring some of the old Victorian mansions that can be reached via a foot bridge across to nearby Nicollet Island.

I will move away from this place one day, probably for good. When I do, this will be one of the things I will talk about when people ask about where I'm originally from.

Image: National Geographic


- Heretic

The tough thing about travel and blogs is the difficulty in finding net access. I'm in Portland now, and my friend's house has wireless access. Now, to catch everyone up, here's a Cliff's Notes version of the trip so far, starting with:


San Francisco
~~~~~~~~~
The hills will kill you, but the vibe will bring you back. As tough as it can be to hoof it around town, the experience was amazing. The day we made it back to San Francisco, buses, trolleys, and light-rail trains were free, due to a city-wide promotion for public transportation. As 5.00 pm came around, the evening fog rolled in right on cue, along with a serious breeze. I'll have to post a picture of me hanging onto the side of a trolley with my kids. It was priceless, and that was just one experience we had with the San Francisco version of community. It seems as though every other corner in town has a market. I'm told that people living in San Francisco don't keep a ton of food in their apartments (like we do here in the frozen north). It's part of their routine to swing by the market (there are only 2 large supermarkets in the city) after work for anything they might need for dinner. Personally, I love what this must do for building a sense of community.

This city really is as cool as popular culture makes it out to be.

Things didn't start out quite so cool, though. We drove back up to San Fran with family (family that couldn't follow a map ), then suffered through some cheezy, pre-planned tours. We were bored stiff for large chunks of the next two days, but hightlight included:

* Alcatraz - cooler and scarier than you may have been led to believe



* Walking across the Golden Gate Bridge - Which had some freaky signs posted on it:



* The Muir Woods - outside of Sausilito east of town; primordial in that "Lord of the Rings" kind of way



* Chinatown - just what you would expect, except with awesome food and great knick-knacks.



We spent the last day there picking up our rental car (a Cadillac, of all things... ) in preparation for our drive up the coast and cruising through town to check out a few more things. We stopped off on the west side of town to get in a bit of shopping, then headed over to the Haight-Ashbury area to look around. For those of you who are familiar with San Fran, its neighborhoods and festivals, you might already be shaking your heads. Haight-Ashbury is just north of the Castro district, and we were there the day of the Gay Pride parade. As you might imagine, the traffic was absolutely ridiculous. It took us over an hour to recover from one wrong turn and cut over to Haight-Ashbury, which fell just short of expectations. It's a cool area with a lot of history. Unfortunately, that history is now a commodity they live off of over there than a vibrant community.

Baby Boomers, I tell ya....

The last we saw of San Francisco was the Golden Gate Bridge as we drove across it and out of the city headed north. The reason we decided to rent such a ritzy ride was for the trip north to Newport, Oregon, some 625 miles away. And so, there I was, big pimpin' and headed to a friend's house in Novato, a northern suburb of San Francisco, and dreaming of a 10 hour, 2 day road trip with the wife and kids...


- Heretic

I overslept a bit, but I was out the door (quietly, to avoid waking everyone up) just after 6.00 am. I found out later that the ocean in this area undergoes an upwelling during this time of year, just as the dry season starts. The result is a brown, fog-shrouded shoreline, with morning temperatures around 45-50 degrees farenheit in June, which sucks for hanging out but rocks for running . When I got to the path that runs parallel to the beach, I could barely see the water 50 yeards away. I have to say, though, it was one of the most picturesque runs I've even been on. The path was a comfortable crushed gravel and wound its way all along the shoreline, rarely getting close to the road that ran about 20 yards further on. The path was hilly, so I wasn't looking anything like a pro to the four or five locals I passed. I did about 3 miles out and back from Asilomar, finishing with a tough 1/4 mile sprint uphill back to the cabin-type place where we're staying.

I managed to avoid making us late for breakfast, which was only okay. After washing the standard eggs and sausage down with a karaf of orange juice (fresh squeeze ), we grabbed some boxed lunches and boarded a charter bus for Hearst Castle.

The ride down was nice in a foggy, mysterious kind of way. The sun kept trying to stab through, and even managed to succeed once or twice, but we spent an hour and a half slicing through foggy switchbacks on two-lane blacktop carved into the cliffs. Now, while the Pacific Coast Highway has a great reputation as a premier destination for roadtrippers (I was cranking some Buckcherry and Disturbed, really wishing I could try my Subaru WRX on that thing), it can be a hair-raising stomach-churning place to be, especially with the fog ruining your sense perspective. We had a few people turn green and one little Gameboy player revisit his breakfast just short of the bathroom.

By the time we made it to Hearst Castle, the sun had managed to beat the fog bank back off-shore. We transfered to the Hearst shuttle bus, and climbed up in the the foothills to see this castle place.

The first thing we learned on the tour is that William Randolph Hearst never called it Hearst Castle; he called it his "ranch."



Oh, please. What kind of crap is that supposed to be?

As we toured the place (which actually had some very cool Persian-, Moorish-, and Spanish-influenced architecture), and learned more about W.R. Hearst, it began to sound as though the man was compensating for something. The place is a hodge-podge of time and culture, with priceless antiques spanning all of Rennaisnace Europe, sprinkled with pieces from ancient Egypt. I know a bit about Hearst's influence on journalism, having gotten a degree in journalism, and I have to say that, if it's possible, I think less of him now than I did before.

The ride back ot Asilomar started out foggy, but the heating of the day gave us mostly sunny skies, allowing us to see a lot of the geography we missed on the way down. The highlight for me was the chance to stop at the Bixby Creek Bridge:



I've seen this thing in movies and television all my life, and it was just as cool ot see in person as I thought it would be. Plus, this stretch of the coast has some of the most amazing views anywhere on this section of the Pacific Coast.

After all the excitement and running around, the evening conststed of a stroll along the shoreline as high tide was rolling in, a nice dinner, and carrying tired little people back to the cabin for baths and bed. Bonus: they have wi-fi here, and the signal reaches out as far as my cabin!

Tomorrow is a "free day", with no family events scheduled. It will be interesting to explore the area and see what there is to see.


- Heretic