Skip to main content

38th Birthday Bike Ride and More

I woke up to a nice birthday note from Meadow. 

I had some PTO to use, it was Scott's birthday, the weather was supposed to be unusually warm and Blake and Daniel were in town.

Since our ice rink was melting we thought we'd go for a bike ride. 



We were almost to their hotel when Blake said they were at Hard Times.

I had to take a picture of my bike rack for Meadow.

Blake and Daniel, what're you doing here? Well, Daniel had a projection project at the Cedar as a part of the Great Northern Festival.

Daniel had to head to his gig. We thought about getting a beer at Palmer's but they weren't open yet. 

I have been wanting to hike Winchell Trail so that's where we went. This is the oldest hiking trail in Minneapolis dating back to the 1880's. Yet it's older than that as it was a path the Natives used to get from Cold Water Spring to St Anthony Falls.

I didn't know there were mini waterfalls over here.

There are a few along the Mississippi River gorge, though most have disappeared.

This one is fed by an entombed creek.


You see that manhole. That was once flush with the ground. It seems the engineers underestimated the erosion from heavy rain.


We biked back to our house to pick up the kids after Blake dropped us off back by the Cedar.

I decided on Marhaba Grill for dinner before Daniel's show. It looks way better in person and not an iPhone SE2.

Theo approved.

After dinner we played at home until it was time to see Daniel's show at the Cedar. Funny enough their creations would be similar to one of the performers.

That weekend Brooke helped paint the trim since most of Theo's room was done. She's better at these kind of details.

Meadow got a Jiji cat knock off lego set from St Nick. It is so hard that I had to take it over. Some steps take me over an hour to do.

Then we went to the Riverview Theater to see the latest and possibly last Ghibli film The Boy and the Heron.

I thought I had been here before but I was totally wrong. Not sure why we hadn't been before.

Well, I went to movie with our buddy Tyler years ago.  

When we got back the kiddos went for a skate. Blake had walked on the rink earlier in the week and we realized, wait, it is skateable despite the warm temps. Sweet.

To get the kids to leave the house again I promised them tamales at La Loma.

Tonight there was an illuminated walk at Afton State Park. I had always wanted to go to one of these. It was a bit crowded due to the warm weather.

It was a bit strange without snow, but better than staying home on a Saturday night.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Backcountry Camping with Kids in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Day 1  Back in May I stumbled upon Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I had no idea there was a National Park in North Dakota and that it was the northern end of the Badlands. Usually our summer vacations coincide with Scott's work trips. Since he didn't have any this summer I thought we should take advantage of actually taking a vacation. What, my workcations are always classics? I suppose a second real vacation this year wouldn't hurt. We definitely have more time than normal. As long as we took Covid-19  precautions and avoided people. We finally settled on a time to go. Blake joined us so we borrowed our dad's van so we could ride together. Scott had just driven from Michigan the day before. Blake had met my parents in Wisconsin to get the van and then drove from Duluth to pick us up. I offered to drive since I literally only drive twice a month.  I was still pretty tired from a long drive home. Since we were near Fergus Falls we had to stop by the abandoned state ho...

A Park Rapids-Walker Workcation

We were going to just go overnight on Saturday with Scott for a work trip. With a snowstorm in the forecast we left right after the kids were done with school. Meadow is still chugging away at her rug hooking.    We stopped at the China Star buffet near St Cloud. They really upgraded the interior since we were here last.  Don't worry about me. Just noshing on the green beans. Can a guy get more veggies in these buffets? We ended up changing hotels and staying in Walker at the... Walker Hotel . The room was a bit old fashioned and TV a wee one. But the pool had a slide, so that's a win. Right? The falling snow outside the pool window made it slightly magical.  Meadow got Theo's hair dry after we got ready to take a drive down to Park Rapids. It doesn't look that bad, but it was nerve wrecking driving. But I do have to say that the Escape PHEV did pretty well in the conditions. The slippery mode for snow and rain kind of rules even if we don't have 4WD. We tagged alon...

Brooke's Birthday Fish Fry and Many Minneapolis Walks

My actual birthday happened to be on the first Friday of Lent. You know what that means, church fish fry!  One of our favorites is at St Albert the Great in south Minneapolis. Usually we have to wait for a little while up in the sanctuary, but we got downstairs to the hall super quick. All the gray hairs were out for the night. Can't blame them. The kids usually opt for spaghetti.  The best part about this place is you get to pick two desserts.  They actually let you have as many you wanted this year. In past they had two tickets per person, but not this year! The same gregarious priest as always was keeping the crowd entertained. I swear he wasn't back last year, but it was good to see him back doing his best. Theo got chosen to pick the winning numbers for the 50/50 raffle. The priest gave us a hard time for not getting a raffle ticket. Don't worry about me. Just daydreaming about a back screen porch like this. I made Brookie a brookie brownie. Could've used more brow...