A Multimodal Train Day (and MSP Home Tour) and May Day Weekend

We had one sweet potato left so why not make breakfast tacos again. This time I roasted the sweet potatoes the night before and reheated it in the morning to make it faster.

Brooke is a breakfast goddess.

I recently made Meadow eggs for her kitchen. We get both brown and white eggs so I had to make both.

This weekend was packed with lots to do. First off we went to my favorite event, the Minneapolis-St Paul Home Tour. Since I knew we wouldn't have time to get to see everything I chose my top 5.

The first house was pretty opulent for the northside. Supposedly it's going to sell for more than $300,000. That's incredible for our area and more than twice the value of our home.

I always love the layouts of Victorians, although the size of them are too big for me.

That staircase is a waste of space, but beautiful.

The third floor great room at the second house was quite cool.

This woman had a lot of doll collections. I had to keep telling Meadow to look with her eyes.

We got back on our bikes and rode to the next place, which I was excited to see the most.

We visited the Pillsbury A Mill Artist Lofts. We had put in a reservation here with the intent on selling our place. We decided that wasn't going to be possible a few months later. We could afford it, but we had a lot of work to finish on our house, which we still aren't completely done with.

It felt strange being here knowing we almost lived here. Except we wouldn't have had a view like this.

It would've been a pretty great view. I was surprised to see families and folks of all ages living here.

We could've parked down there, but it wasn't meant to be.

Meadow really enjoyed being here.

Onward. We biked across the Mississippi over to the closest light rail station.

For whatever reason when they upgraded the light rail trains they thought it was a better idea to put the bike holders on opposite ends of the cars.

 I think the older trains actually had four racks per train.

Scott's plans for the day included Train Days at the Union Depot. It was mostly train nerds showing off their train displays.

While perusing old homes and buildings is great, I thought Meadow might like this even better.

Some of the displays let kids drive the trains.

It's so fun to see kids so excited for all the train goodness.

Once outside we got to tour the trains.

We were going to get on the 261, but the line was too long and we had another home to see.

The old post office in St Paul was converted into half luxury apartments/half hotel.

Here's the view from the very small balcony overlooking downtown St. Paul.

They asked us if we were really interested in the units. I had to laugh a little inside. We are nowhere near in the market for luxury anything.

$2000 for a tiny 2 bedroom apartment isn't exactly what we are looking for.

After a nice ride down University Avenue we were back in Mpls.

We got off the last stop and biked home.

The next morning we met up with Anna and Aaron to bike to Mayday. We met with them early to go to an old friends house for a potluck brunch. Scott decided not take photos there.

I had to save my film for the parade. Oh, wait...

I have been thinking about getting a cargo bike for awhile. Especially since it will be impossible for me to bike with two kids. Anna's new bike makes me really want one, except I prefer the back cargo bikes.

I'm still thinking we should get an Xtracycle.

We biked on down to the southside via downtown.

After a wondrous brunch we made our way to Powderhorn Park.

Usually we get to the parade early and sit near the middle where less people go. I didn't realize how busy it was in the park pre-parade.

We made just in time to see the crust punks. Meadow was scared poopless by the polar bear bike.

I have never seen her so scared. Once she realized it was just a crazy bike she was fine.

The kids were more interested in snacks than the parade. I was still full from our awesome brunch.

It was really good.

We found a perfect corner to peer over the masses.

You know the parade had something to do with mother nature and Monsanto.

Meadow was interested in what she could see. She kept asking, "What's that?"

For the second year in a row they had a major social justice component.

Roman was getting antsy and wanted to go back to the playground. Meadow wanted to go too.

When we got to the park Aaron picked up some cheese curds (That's his favorite part of May Day.) and the kids played on the playground. Eventually we made it over Powderhorn Lake.

All of our brunch buddies found us and we plopped down on the hill.

We never quite made our way to the puppet show, but we got a view of the launching of the bird boats.

After everyone started parting ways we decided to head home. Meadow was apparently excited to see the ceremony. Next year Meadow, next year.