St. Paul is only a little over an hour from St. Croix Falls, so we pulled into the city in the middle of the morning. Our plan was to take a walk around the capitol, eat lunch, and then head to our friend Kris’s house about an hour outside Minneapolis. Because it was a pleasant day, we found a city park named Indian Mounds Park a couple of miles from the capitol and decided to park there and walk. We followed walking directions from our phones and had a nice walk on a bike trail, through a couple of small city parks, and up some back steps to the capitol itself. The St. Paul capitol has recently undergone major renovations, and they appear to have been very successful. The entire building is made of beautiful veined marble, and it glows and sparkles in the sun, with only the gold dome and the statue near the top outshining the building itself. It’s surrounded by lots of grassy park, and we saw lots of people out enjoying the beautiful spring day.
By the time we walked to the capitol and walked around the area, we had covered almost four miles. We didn’t want to go back to the truck the same way we’d walked to the capitol, but that was the only route our phones were giving us. We looked at the map and saw that a river walk went very near the park, so we headed down to the river and walked along the Mississippi. After walking for a while, we thought we should be almost there, so we looked at the GPS map of where we were and where the truck was parked, and found that we were very close. But, the reason the GPS hadn’t recommended the route we’d taken was because to get to the truck, we had to cross a very busy highway, very busy multiple train tracks, and then climb a cliff. We had the option of continuing about 2 miles along the river to where we could cross the road and the train tracks after the cliff ended and then walking back along the top, or retracing our steps and finding our way back to our original route. We opted to retrace our steps and fairly quickly figured out where we were, but by the time we got back to the truck we’d covered over eight miles. We were also pretty hungry because lunchtime had come and gone, and the dogs were very thirsty because all the water fountains along the river walk had been turned off for some reason, but we all survived. We drove to see the Indian mounds that gives the park its name, and then headed for Delano.
By the time we got to Delano, it was 5:00, so Kris was done working and met us in the driveway of her beautiful property. We parked between her garden and a barn, and while we were getting the camper set up she cut us a bunch of asparagus fresh from her garden. Asparagus is one of the things we miss in Belize, so we’ve been eating a lot of asparagus from the grocery stores since we’ve been in the US, but the stuff we’ve been buying just doesn’t compare to fresh from the garden. We found ourselves eating it raw, but I managed to save enough for a dinner. Kris called her friend Mark and asked him to bring some fish he’d caught and frozen for dinner, and we all sat down to enjoy a glass of wine while we waited for him to get there. We were amazed at how quickly we were comfortable; she is the sister of our friend Jon whose farm we stayed at before leaving for this trip, so we’d all heard a lot about each other through Jon, but we’d never met. But, it was like meeting old friends for the first time, and we had no trouble keeping the conversation going. After an amazing dinner of local fish and salad and vegetables from the garden, we talked until I could barely keep my eyes open.
The next day, we made arrangements to go for dinner and a visit with Fred and Rosewitha, Kris and Jon’s parents. It should have taken us about an hour to get to their place, but we had to drive through a terrible thunderstorm where everyone just pulled off the road because the rain and wind made it so you couldn’t even see the front of the car. We were very glad Kris had loaned us her car and we weren’t in the camper, because it would have been much more difficult to get that off the road and we would have had to fight much harder with the wind. The storm passed within about fifteen minutes, and we found Fred and Rosewitha’s house in the middle of Minnesota farm country set on a beautiful lake. From the house, you have a 360 degree view of the farm, and besides enjoying wonderful conversation and delicious food, we watched all the wildlife around the house. They sent us home with a big box of canned goods from their garden, which we are saving until Alaska where we think we may have a little more trouble getting fresh produce.
