A Grand Rounds Kind Of Day

With all our jars in the kitchen it sometimes gets confusing what is what. Especially the grains and things like powdered sugar and cake flour. I've seen chalkboard being painted on jars around the internet so I thought I'd give it a try. 

This is my first one. Although not perfect I've come up with a plan to use painters tape to straighten the lines more. 

We had our favorite, crepes, for breakfast. This time with blueberries we picked this summer. 

This is quickly replacing Bittman's go to pancake recipe as our preferred Sunday breakfast.

With my new job I have more time to relax and have breakfast in the morning without rushing out the door. I'm glad all my mornings are like this. 

We needed a few items from the farmers market that we didn't get in our CSA. I feel bad that we haven't been here much this summer. 

This girl was carrying sugar cane, which I didn't know was available at the farmers market. When I tweeted this image from my tumblr page, the guy behind the Trout Caviar blog and book corrected me since I thought it was bamboo.

 I told Scott if we see any dried beans we're getting them.

So, we did.

Since it's apple season we got some seconds.

We had one more errand to run downtown. Kitty litter from Target. 

Today we just got apples, tomatillos, beans and onions. 

We had leftover tacos for lunch. 

Those are homemade tortillas. Just saying.

Since it was 80 degrees out and what I assumed would be the last nice day of the year I suggested we bike the Grand Rounds. I've only done it once before and I've been wanting to try it again for awhile now. Today seemed like the perfect day. 

We went clockwise starting at the Victory Memorial Parkway. 

I kind of wish we had ended this way as it's the easiest part of the whole trail.

Right about here we stop heading north and turn 90 degrees to the east.

The last time we did the entire trail was in the first year we dated. I had a Huffy mountain bike and Brooke had a heavy Brittany cruiser. 

Before you could bat a lash we were over the river and into Northeast Minneapolis or Nordeast as suburbanites call it.

 I think some Northeasters might call it that too. 

The largest rail yard in the city is squeezed betweeen University Avenue NE and Columbia Park.

I worked on this golf course, manicuring lawns and mowing fairways for two summers.

Sometimes hills are too hard for me. I don't have gears on my bike like Scott.

She never used them on her old bike, so this seemed perfect. Once and while she needs gears. I didn't even want to bike up the steepest hill in Minneapolis.

At this point you stop heading east and turn south towards campus.

Between northeast and campus is the dreaded missing link in the Grand Rounds.

You have to take the street trails through the Como neighborhood, the second place I lived off campus..

We then cut through campus. Even though I'm here everyday Scott enjoyed reliving his college days. 

We stopped at the Lock and Dam #1. I had never actually been down here before. 

I thought it was funny that they opened them for kayakers and pontoons.

I wonder how much it costs each time they pump water into the lock?

This dam powered the Ford Ranger plant over in St. Paul until it closed recently.

We also found out that lock and dams only go as far as St. Louis along the Mississippi. Has something to do with the grade of the river north of that point.

As we hit the southern point of the Grand Rounds we skipped Minnehaha Falls and started to head back west.

We end up riding along the Minnehaha creek for awhile. With the drought this year the creek was clean dry. Had I thought about it I would have realized that meant no waterfall. That would have been a sight to see.

I suggested we stop at Wise Acre since we've always wanted to try the frozen custard here. 

How could I say no to frozen custard?

We came here for our six month anniversary and I was surprised at how casual people were dressed. We actually never ate here because we waited for a host to seat us for a good 10 minutes and not a single person greeted us before we left. 

The custard was a little icy and not creamy at all. I also asked for a cone and she gave me a cup. Most of their food is local and everything is compostable or recyclable   I really want to like this place I do, but I'm just not impressed.

I really don't get how they could mess up with there ingredients  Maybe they didn't have enough fat content in the mix.

After cruising along Minnehaha Creek some more we took our last major turn to the north and started the long trek from the southside to the northside.

Though we had already passed Lake Hiawatha and Nokomis this is where the chain of lakes starts in earnest. This dad and kid were looking out across Lake Harriet. This along with Lake of the Isles has the ritziest homes across the parkway.

Looking back across Lake Calhoun towards downtown is a Minneapolis tradition.

After passing by a few more lakes passing an interstate highway and meandering through a wooded trail we were in Theodore Wirth Park, our home park of sorts.

We got married and had our reception here.

This last part of the trail was the hardest. Too many hills.

Can't argue with that.

And we made it. Surprisingly I wasn't as tired as the first time. And we did the whole thing in 4 hours including the stops we made. I think the last time we did it it took the whole day.

That's roughly 42 miles for those wondering.

 I made hearty veggie friend rice with shrimp for dinner. Most fried rice you get a restaurants doesn't have many vegetable this is the opposite. You can throw anything you'd like in. I used collards, bell peppers, green beans, red cabbage, onions, celery and carrots.

I started by chopping up all the veggies and then the shrimp.

I fried all the veggies and then set them aside. After that I repeated the same procedure with the shrimp.

The rice was cooked a day ahead and chilled, once fried all the other ingrediants were mixed in with some soy sauce. It was delicious and the perfect meal, post-Grand Rounds.

The end.