Finding Cedarburg -- Adventure in getting lost

I left Saint Paul yesterday about 8:30 AM with the destination of Cedarburg, WI. I have been wanting to come here for a very long time, to both see the town and to do the Volksmarch here.

I made a reservation at the Washington House Inn. On the web site for this bed and breakfast hotel one gets the warning that due to its address Mapquest and GPS systems do not work.

Here's how addresses are done here:

I made good time traveling across Wisconsin and made a new discovery too. When I drove out of the range for Minnesota Public Radio I turned my car radio to the satellite service and while tuning around on it I discovered World Radio Network. Well, actually what took my eye faster is that the radio digital display said Polish News, only later did I learn I was listening to World Radio Network. I listened to Polish News for nearly an hour having great fun learning about new Soap and Dirt Museum in Bydogosc -- (I know written very poorly with my American keyboard) as well as tour through the castle in Lublin, a place I visited in June. Then the next hour the news came from the Czech Republic, then Slovakia, the Ireland, and the last I was listening to was about the work of psychiatric nurse in New Zealand who is trying to understand cultural perceptions about mental illness.

I was within 5 miles of what should be my turn off to Cedarburg when suddenly Hwy 60 was substantially detoured because of road construction. To make a long story short, when I got back to Hwy 60 I never found the expected turn into Cedarburg. Finally when I thought I had driven way too far east, I backtracked and took a county road south that went parallel to I-43. I pulled into a gas station and asked directions. I was told to go to the next intersection and then go about 2 miles west. That was working out OK until I hit another piece of road construction and got forced off onto a side street. I found myself right by a public library, so I went inside and asked the reference librarian for assistance. She was so helpful and in about 15 minutes I finally found myself at the B & B.

My room is the one withe two windows on the top floor right as you look this photo. The business district of Cedarburg is a historic district. Most of the buildings are made of pale yellow limestone blocks.

My room is lovely.

I took a walk in the immediate area and found many interesting things. How about these apples?

I found some puzzles in a toy store that will be wonderful for teaching English.

And I went into the Penzey's Spice Store just because I've never done that before -- even though there is one in Saint Paul.

I thought about the fact that my cinnamon bottle was getting empty. Where is the cinnamon? Oh maybe here?

Now it was time for the Social Hour at the B & B so I walked back and enjoyed this.

The wine was a locally made one, blush with some cranberry. One glass was fine, but I wouldn't buy a whole bottle. Well, it will be fun to try something different this evening!

I went out to do some more exploring.

The movie theatre was opening up, but Spiderman didn't take my interest.

I liked this display in an antique lighting store. A chandelier in a wheelbarrow -- not something we see every day!

Later I went next door to the Chocolate Factory for a bit more to eat.

I got a nice sandwich.

And then I got a junior Chocolate Factory Special Sundae.

This is the best ice cream I've had since leaving Pecs. Miss Hungarian ice creams very much!

Walking Around Lake Nokomis

On Saturday afternoon I did a 6K volksmarch around Lake Nokomis. Lake Nokomis is one of three within the city of Minneapolis on which it is possible to sail a boat. There are also two free swimming beaches. The Lake Nokomis park has 405 acres with half of that being water. This lake was originally name Lake Amelia when European settlers arrived. In 1910 it was renamed Lake Nokomis after the grandmother in Longfellow's poem, The Song of Hiawatha.

The walk began at a Caribou Cafe. From there I walked along Minnehaha Creek until 22nd Avenue where I found the E. Lake Nokomis Trail. The trail went under large trees much of the time -- and thank heavens, because the day was a bit warm. (In fact because the unusually warm weather we are having right now, the Minneapolis Park Board is leaving all the pools open through the weekend of September 9, whereas they usually close this weekend.)

Here's a view of the lake.

The walk continued across Cedar Avenue to West Nokomis Parkway where I walked around the lagoon. Then I crossed back again to the south side of the lake and was delighted to find an Art Walk.

The first piece I found is called Recyled Deer.

 The artist is Albert Belleveau. He made this sculpture from motocycle gas tanks as well as car and bike parks.

Down the trail I found this.

It is obviously a painted log. Its name is Tardigrade and Whirling Euglena. I was stumped until I read the explanatory sign and learned these are names of colorful aquatic plants important in the habitat of Lake Nokomis. The artists, Christopher Sutton and Sreekeshen Nair, explain they do their sculptures with recycled materials including recycled paint.

I found a couple of empty pedestals for all of these pieces of art are for sale. The last I found is called Baying at the Moon; the artist is Deb Zeller.

A bit later I found an area that is called a Monarch Butterfly Waystation

And within about another 15 minutes of walking I was around the lake and back at the start point. A very pleasant walk that I will repeat again.

Minnesota State Fair Adventures

I've not been to the fair for years. Having grown up in farm country, I liked fairs for the agricultural reason they began. This state fair is regarded by most urban dwellers as a big eating opportunity. But my older daughter wanted to go, and with her disabilities she can't go alone, so I used my new somewhat  "retired" state to take her on Friday.

We took a free, courtesy bus from her neighborhood. This sure beats dealing with the traffic and having to pay big bucks to park when one gets there.

My daughter said what she wanted to do most was see horses, so we headed in that direction. We were too early to enter the coliseum where the horses were being judged, so we went across the street to see the sheep and goats.

This baby goat took my eye. Look at the size of the ears on this breed!

Somewhere in the morning we also visited the cow barn. I grew up on a dairy farm and remembered the process of milking. I was astonished to find out it is now possible to milk cows with robots.

There is a huge informatics program behind this -- keeping track of both milk production as well as what each individual cow eats. It amazes me we can do this with cows, but yet we still have health professionals unwilling to give up their paper records for the management of health concerns.

We watched some horse judging and then went over the crop building. One of the interesting exhibits was the bee-keeping area. Here are two things made from bees wax.

Looks like eggs, but made entirely of bees wax.

And how about Bee-ch Vollyball.

In this area were also exhibits of foods made using honey for the sweetener. I took a picture of a pie just to have a picture of what pie really is when I teach English. The Hidden Pictures books often have slice of pie as one thing for the kids to find, but when there isn't pie in the culture, this is somewhat a mystery.

So here's pie:

I've never seen it in Central Europe, although in Hungary there is a sweet with a name that translates to apple pie but it looks nothing like this.

On the other hand what we call cheesecake may not be recognized by anyone from Poland as sernik.

One of the Minnesota traditions is selecting a young woman to be Princess Kay from the Milky Way. This woman must come from a dairy farm and then serves as an ambassador for the milk industry. The tradition includes sculpting her in butter. This year all the candidates got their head sculpted.

 Minnesota farmers are trying hard to diversity their crops into new areas. I found purple corn from a grower in Lamberton.

And a company nearby is using this corn to make purple chips.

We wandered back to the coliseum for the High School Rodeo. I've never been to a rodeo and enjoyed all it except for the man who was selected to be MC. Apparently announcing at rodeos is his specialty, but he was from South Carolina and there definitely was a cultural mismatch. He thought it was all right to pepper his commentary with jokes about union workers and women.

Above is one of the competitions.

After the rodeo we walked back to the Creative Arts building. One thing that caught my eye was this religious head dress.

How many hours must this have taken? It is an incredible piece of work.

Found these fun shoes.

Next to this is the Education Building. Here I found work from high school students. I liked this dragon made from plastic picnic materials.

After this we wandered back to the parking lot and got lucky. We waited less than 5 minutes for a bus back to the neighborhood where I had left my car.

Hope you enjoyed this little tour through the Minnesota State Fair.

Walking in Anoka

On Tuesday I did a 5K in Anoka, Minnesota. I had intended to do a 10K but when I got there I found a lot of street construction going on in the town that made part of the route quite a bit uninteresting. But maybe that's a wrong thing to say - because one of the funny things that happened is that a construction worker asked me if I wanted to put my foot in the wet cement and leave a mark forever!

Anoka, I learned was a border area between the Dakota and Chippewa American Indians. European settlement started in the early 1850s when this became a town, again associated with the lumber industry.

In fact, had the organizers of Wisconsin had their way I would have been walking most of the town in Wisconsin. The original proposed border of Wisconsin was the Rum River which runs through Anoka on its way to the Mississippi. A history I read said the lumber interests prevailed in setting the border further to the east on the St. Croix  (see walking in Stillwater earlier this month) River, reasoning there would be a better chance to "rip off" the timber if this area was a territory rather than a state. Anyway, it was all a grab for the timber in this area.

Anoka now is a small town, about 17,000, but that's hard to comprehend because one just drives from one metropolitan town to the next without ever seeming to leave a city area.

I found the start point after a bit of trouble navigating around the town due to the street construction. The first part of the walk was just back and forth through the business district. I did see some interesting old houses.

One, the Ticknor House is now a bed and breakfast. The front facade of this house is quite imposing, but I like how this turret peaked through the trees better.

A sign along the street said this house was built in 1867.


Then the walk went along to a trail area along the river and it was suddenly more interesting and scenic.

The park along the river is peaceful, too. I walked south for a distance with new town houses being the "land" feature. Then the walk backtracked towards the dam on the river. This part of the walk brought me back to a more historic area where there was an old band shell and people having a morning in the park feeding the ducks.

Finally after passing a foot bridge I found the dam.

A dam was placed here first in the early 1860s for powering lumber mills. Various floods destroyed dams across time. This dam was constructed about 40 years ago. The sluice on the right is reminiscent of the time when the river dam had as many as five sluice running water power to various lumber mills.

At a dock along the river I found interpretive signs explaining that the Rum River is the longest river protected under Minnesota's Wild and Scenic River Act.

The walk then crossed over the business district again to an area called Swede Town, named after the Scandinavian immigrants who first settled there. The houses here are all 20th century, but much smaller than the "lumber baron" part of town. It is obvious this was where the mill workers lived.

I laughed when I saw the people designing the sidewalk simply gave up and let an old tree have its way.

The walk finished back at the coffee shop. When I started out I was so concentrated on signing up right, getting the map, and  deciding whether to do 5 K or 10K that I didn't pay much attention to the coffee shop. When I had finished I ordered a yogurt freeze and sat down to relax. It was then that I realized the Avant Expresso Bar had probably really started its life as a bar. It still had one of those huge long built in bars along the wall.

Probably a place where "everyone knows your name." Check it out if you are ever in Anoka for the beverages and food is quite good.

Cooking Adventure -- Apple Crumble

When I was in Romania in May, the hotel where I stayed was across the street from a Lidl grocery store. I was quite surprised by the amount of English labeling on food products as well as the that many products came from the states.

However, I found this:

but this was made in Germany!

I just had to get one and carry it home, and finally made it today. Last week while walking in Stillwater (see blog below), I stopped at an apple farm and got some fresh new Minnesota apples.

Here's how it looked when it was going into the oven.

And when ready to eat.

It tastes quite good, but I like the Midwest way of making this better. The traditional topping here has oatmeal and comes out crispy -- which is why we call it Apple Crisp rather than Apple Crumble.

Walking in Stillwater

Today I did a 5K Volksmarch in Stillwater. This is a small town set on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin. It is along the St. Croix River, and so is one of the older towns in Minnesota.

It started from the Ann Bean B & B. On a charming porch I found the box with the sign up sheet and all the information. It was simply lovely sitting on this porch.

There are a lot of 19th century homes in Stillwater, all in very good repair and all dressed up with correct paint colors. Stillwater was a place of lumber mills for the timber that was cut in the forests of Minnesota and Wisconsin and then floated down the river to Stillwater.

Within a short bit of walking I found myself at an overlook that provided a great view of the St. Croix.

From here I walked down a long, long flight of stairs to the river level. There must have been at least 100 steps. All I could think about is that later there must be a place to go up!

I walked along the river a bit and then indeed the route started to go up, and up indeed to Pioneer Park which had the same view, but from upstream of the bridge.

The guide map told me to pay attention to a nearby house, built with profits from selling blankets to the Union Army during the Civil War.

I walked my way out of the park and then to another set of stairs going down into a valley.

Eventually I got of the valley, but in an area where all street signs were missing due to street reconstruction. I walked in error for a bit and then got myself back on the route map and finally got to the nearly the end and what a reward -- the ice cream store.

This was called a "single serving cup." There were easily 50 flavors from which to choose. This is Mackinac Island Fudge. Very nice on a somewhat warm day. The only place to sit at this store is outdoors and thoughtfully there is a sink for washing up after eating this scrumptious dessert!

Found my way back to the end of the route and where I had left my car. A very nice walk. I went to all sorts of places in Stillwater that were new to me. And 5 K allowed me to finish off a 500 K book. Next time I start on a new 500 K record.

Trying to Find the Night Owls

If you got here thinking it will be about birds, sorry.

Shepard Road in front of my building is used for many races and similar activities. This past week signs suddenly appeared saying the street would be closed between 7:00 - 11:00 PM on Saturday night. I couldn't figure out what would be taking place during those hours.

Coming home yesterday afternoon I caught a glimpse of a sign saying Night Owls, so I hit the computer to Google for information.

 I learned this was to be a non-competitive bike ride of either 14 or 21 miles depending upon the chosen route and starting no earlier than 7 PM from the State Capitol Building.

My older daughter and I started out around 7:30 thinking that was the earliest we would see any bike riders about here. Perhaps we should have gone a bit earlier. There were a lot riding down Shepard towards Crosby Park.

We crossed the street to enter the small garden associated with the Science Museum.

We found late summer flowers.

Oh, and we did see a few bike riders. I think this bike ride didn't get much publicity. Too bad, it was a beautiful night for a bike ride or a walk.