Spring Maybe?

Today was a big music Sunday at my church. I'm on the support team for the music program so I was one of the volunteers that prepared snacks for the choirs to enjoy in the break between the 9:00 and 11:00 services. I usually go to the 4:30, but stayed for the 11:00 since I was there. Then home for a light lunch and little nap since I had awakened at 5:30 AM this morning.

This afternoon is quiet and beautiful, so I took a little walk along the river to try to determine the river depth. (I had on flip-flops finally -- called klopki in Polish -- love that word, it's just how they sound.)  After the drought of last summer the river has been really, really low.

The first thing I noticed is that pleasure boats are out. Maybe they've been there before but this is the first time I've seen them this spring. Their use of the river is a bit restricted right now, however, because Lock #1 is closed due to fast river current.

The footing on the High Bridge has markers on it to tell boat captains the clearance between the river level and the arch on the High Bridge. Today I could see the river is finally at "normal" level.

During the floods of 2010 and 2011 these supports were totally submerged with the river being 15 feet higher than it is today.

Walked back along the sidewalk to the front of my building. Here's a view of the spring flowers.

For several days this week these have been covered up with a blanket as we endured the last cold days of winter -- hopefully!

Festival of Nations

In 1922 a Festival of Nations celebration began in Saint Paul. It continues to this day. Yesterday I walked up to the Xcel Center where it is held. It has been several years since I've attended the Festival and everything was in a new place.

After getting a ticket I took an escalator down one level and was immediately in the Cafe. Many groups representing countries or culture have booths selling food. It was 12:30 pm so I was interested.

Here is the Hungarian booth and not to any surprise, one dish was gulyas.

But it looked like "American gulyas" not Hungarian gulyas, so I walked on.

I enjoyed seeing the hats that are prominent in many cultures.

Above is the Colombian booth.

I wandered about until I got to Norway and got a rice pudding with lingonberries. This is one of my favorite ethnic foods, even though I'm not a bit Norwegian. Actually began eating this at the Norway Pavilion at Disney World!

Then another turn around the cafe and I stopped at the Polish booth.

I got a serving of sernik with cherries. I took this over to the Cafe Stage and sat and enjoyed musical performances while I ate the sernik.

My next stop was the bazaar. Below is a photo of the Ghana booth, largely clothing.

 This area also had some demonstrations of cultural arts. Below is a woman showing Slovak straw weaving.

My next stop was the World Stage. Here were dance performances. Below is a German group with a bit of May Pole dance. According to the narration, the idea of dancing around a May Pole began in ancient German culture.

And here is a long video of a group of Polish dancers from the Kashubian area. The narration for this dance explained it represents the sea; the Kashubians live close to or on the Baltic.

 
After watching dancing for more than an hour, I went to the booths showing simply culture -- nothing to sell.

 Here are a group playing a Yemeni game.

The Hungarian culture booth had an exhibit about the Children's Railroad in Budapest. I had a lovely visit with the woman at this booth as we discussed Budapest, Pecs, and Targu Mures, her home town.

I kept looking and looking for the Romanian booth.

Finally read the fine print on this sign and discovered these countries were not participating in Festival of Nations this year because the dates coincided with Orthodox Easter. They will be back next year when the calendar puts Easter on a different date.

It was now about 4:00 and I was a bit hungry so I went back to the food booth area and got a kielbasa. Oh, it was good!

I had good intentions of watching more musicians and dancers but I was really on stimulus overload and decided after 6 hours to walk back home.

Outdoors it seemed like the world had changed. The sun was out and the breeze was warm.

My path towards home takes me to the Science Museum Plaza. Here I found a wedding party gathering for a photo.

 This shows that the Festival of Nations exists in the real world, too, in Saint Paul.

V is for Vadnais

Monday was a spring day -- today is back to winter! For my volkssporting activities I'm doing books about walking A-Z is cities or towns anywhere in the United States and A-Z in Minnesota locations. Thus V is for Vadnais -- in this case, more properly Vadnais Heights. This suburb and a lake within are named for John Vadnais who made land claims here in 1846.

Information about this walk is kept at the Shoreview Community Center. After getting myself organized I got a cup of coffee and read for awhile, hoping the day would warm just a bit. By the time I left around 11 AM, the weather had warmed to shirt-sleeve temperatures -- perfect.

I drove to a park in Vadnais Heights -- apparently easy to do. A bit of Internet research reveals that 12% of this St. Paul suburb is composed of water and this 8 mile square area has 14 parks!

I had waited to do this walk until this time, hoping the snow would be melted from the trails. This is what greeted me, however, at the beginning.

 This appeared to be a snowbank created by pushing snow from the parking lot. It was easy to detour around this and the rest of the trail was in quite good condition -- only in one place did I have to walk through mud.

Soon I was walking along Sucker Lake.

 On the other side of the trail was a wet land and the frogs were very noisy, accompanied by the call of red-wing black birds which are very noisy, too. I thought this it was probably a very good idea to this walk BTB (Before the Bugs!).

I probably walked about 20 minutes along the lake and then found another parking lot. The route map directed me to walk across the street and enter a forest area. Learned this is the Allison Forest, named after a University of Minnesota forestry professor who championed saving forest lands through much of this career. Then I back-tracked to the first park, retraced some of my steps back to Sucker Lake and turned right on a trail. This took me across the bottom of the lake and then along the other side of the lake. This path was leaf-covered. The temperature and sunshine were just right. It was a lovely walk.

During this section I walked across a little bridge. The view is lovely.

 
In about 20 minutes I found myself along a city street, following on the side walk for just a bit, and then I could see my car in the parking lot. A very nice 5 K walk.

Walking in Mankato

Yesterday dawned to be a lovely spring day, so I jumped in the car and headed for Mankato. I lived in Mankato for three years while working for the Minnesota Department of Health. However, I've not really been in the town since, only have driven through on the highway when making a trip to Nebraska or northwest Iowa.

This walk started from the City Center Hotel, a hotel and whole area that didn't exist at the time I lived here. At the beginning I walked by Reconciliation Park. I had heard of this but this was my first time I had seen it.

Mankato has the unfortunate history to be the location of the largest public execution in the United States. Thirty eight Indian men were executed here after the U.S. -Dakota War.

In the small park along the Minnesota River there are two monuments. The first looks like parchment.

 On the side facing the street (shown above) are the names of the men who were executed. On the opposite side is a poem and prayer. The poem, by Katherine Hughes is powerful. She wrote:

Remember the innocent dead

Both Dakota and white

Victims of events that they could not control.

Remember the guilty dead

Both white and Dakota

Whom reason abandoned. 

Regret the times and attitudes

That brought dishonor 

To both cultures. 

Respect the deeds and kindnesses

That brought honor

To both cultures. 

Next to this monument is a buffalo. 

The walk route took me along a street with old buildings on one side and railroad tracks and agri-industry businesses on the other. 

 Eventually I turned to the left walking by an industrial type sculpture.

Then I turned to the left and there was the Minnesota River.

This river begins on the Minnesota-South Dakota border at the point where Minnesota has a bit of a bulge to the west. The Minnesota River flows south through Minnesota and at Mankato starts to curve back north to end up joining the Mississippi River about 5 miles upstream from where I live.

Often this river is at flood stage when the snow melts, but the strange weather of the past year prevented that. Last summer most of the area drained by the Minnesota was experiencing a drought -- the soil went into winter very dry. The lingering winter meant the the snow melted quite late, with the frost out of the ground, and thus the melt soaked into the soil.

The walking route took me on a trail that is between the river and the flood wall.

When I came to the Main Street opening on the flood wall, the walking route took me through the downtown business area.

Again I found an old Carnegie Library.

 This is now used as an Art Center.

Turning a corner I found a coffee shop-- hurrah! I was ready for a coffee and had a nice bagel, too. Then I was off along residential streets, but a bit confused about the route. I ducked into the portico along the Lutheran Social Service Building in order to use the shade to help me use the GPS on my phone.

Continuing down the street I came upon this grand house.

A sign beside the house identified it as the Cray House and noted it was now in the Historic Register of Historic Places. The conical tower feature is repeated in other houses within this neighborhood.

Soon I was heading by east towards the public library. There is found a monument honoring those who served in the Korean Conflict.

 I stepped into the present city library to explore a bit and found this lovely fountain.

Nice walk in my old home town.

Walking in Excelsior

On Friday I went to the small suburb, Excelsior. Excelsior sits along side Lake Minnetonka and was known for having the Excelsior Amusement Park. At one time one take a street all the way from Stillwater, which sits east of St. Paul on the Minnesota- Wisconsin border to Excelsior.

Well, Excelsior still is along Lake Minnetonka and coming here on an April morning is probably a much better idea then an afternoon in July when the town will be crowded with people enjoying boating and other tourist attractions such as the restored steam boat.

The walk started from a cute coffee shop/bakery. I had a cup of coffee and a scone while I organized my books and reviewed the route for the walk.

Soon I was off on a walking trail that paralleled the trolley track. This trail went along St. Alban's Bay of Lake Minnetonka.

On Friday the lake still showed ice, not ready for boating. The temperatures, however, were the first of the season to climb into the 70s (21C), and it was lovely to be out walking. This was my first walk of the season without a coat or jacket -- oh heaven!

The lingering winter has delayed trees leafing out, so I got to see this lovely contrast of the trees against the blue sky.

This view of a small harbor gives one an idea of how many boats might be here on a lovely summer day.

The route required that I cut through a small wooded area to find the return trail.

Within sheltered areas I found lingering snow.

Back in the city I came upon this house. It is all that remains from the amusement park. This "cottage" was used to house the park managers.

Soon I was back on Water Street, the business area. I came upon an antique store that had posters out along the street that illustrated the life on Lake Minnetonka in the late 1940s - 1950s. 

Near this shop I found another shop called European Treasures. I just had to go in to see what it held. I told the owner I needed a fix of Europe before leaving in two months. I walked away with a hand towel made in Portugal. It has lovely embroidery on it, but also will make me think of the Portuguese students I encountered while teaching at the University of Pecs.

Back to the bakery to look again at the treats -- came home with loaf of sweet potato bread. I've never before had bread that contained sweet potatoes. It is quite nice for sandwiches -- gives the sandwich an unexpected flavor.

A lovely day in Excelsior and I took care of E in both my Walking Minnesota Cities and Walking the USA books.

Update on May 1: Today the Hennepin County Sheriff's  Office declared Ice Out on Lake Minnetonka. Only two other times in weather records has it taken until May for this to occur.

Art in Bloom

Last Thursday evening I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art event, Art in Bloom. The object of this event is for floral designers to create a piece that reflects or mirrors an object or painting in the museum. The viewing of the art and the floral designs is accompanied by wine and music, and there was a mob of people there.

We were greeted at the entrance with this grand bouquet.

Here are some favorites.

Above is a Japanese helmet -- artist unknown.

This the floral piece created to accompany it.

In the gallery associated with American Indian art I found this.

The original object, an American Indian coat is in the rear with the floral piece in the front.

And how this? Here is Tornado by Julius Holm.

And here is the floral piece created to mirror it.

It was a lovely evening at  the museum. I resolve to go back about several times during the coming year, probably in the morning when it will be more quiet to take a look at both new and old familiar things.

Minneapolis Mob?

I've been busy enough having adventures that I've not been writing about them. Here's the first of catch-up.

Each month the Minnesota History Center has a History Lounge. The April event featured author, Neal Karlen, speaking about this new book, Augie's Secrets.    Try the link if you want to learn more.

Karlen explained he had been trying to write this book for about 20 years, and finally when some of the principals in the stories reached their 90s, they decided to talk. I never knew anything about the Minneapolis Mob, and was totally amazed to learn that sports betting started in Minneapolis. It was originally called the Minneapolis Line. The activity moved to Las Vegas when Hubert Humphrey became the mayor of Minneapolis and drove one of the families out of the city; they re-located to Las Vegas. Enjoyed this whole lecture very much.

When I left the History Center the full moon was in view.

 Here's another view of the downtown St. Paul skyline, just at dusk.

To the east the Minnesota Capitol building looked beautiful.

 It was great to be out on a balmy evening, even if the snowbanks are still obvious!