bikeways, roadways, pathways, skyways...

Yesterday, we went to a place called Federico Mike's Cafe before we left Ironwood. We had oatmeal, french toast, and some hash browns and coffee. We fueled up at a gas station, and this one guy outside talked to Dad, looking for a pasty shop. The guy had all these dogs howling in the back of his car, and at one point, he looked behind and out of nowhere yelled "SHUUUT UPPP!!!" really, really loud. Fucking hilarious. Dad and I picked up some cases of Spotted Cow at a BP station inside the outskirts of Wisconsin, and then we had a pretty mellow drive through the country side. Dad pulled over at a random used consignment sale at a Church, and while I was able to buy four cool pieces of clothing for a dollar, I was unable to purchase and bring home the most EPIC couch I have ever seen for fifty bucks. It had orange fabric and all these blue birds and flowers as its design. We stopped at a casino later on, and Dad cashed a gift certificate Jim gave him, and we walked out of there with 20 bucks! The drive was uneventful, and we did not find a good place to eat lunch and watch the Ghana-USA World Cup match until we reached a small restaurant some distance outside of Eau Claire. We had some pub grub and some pints of Spotted Cow on draft, and we watched the overtime match loss to Ghana. Back on the road, it was not much longer until we reached the Twin Cities. We went to the Mall of America and got a new phone for me, and we spent a while walking around and enamoring the mammoth structure of corporate captalism that is THE Mall of the United States. We checked in to our hotel, and then we took a drive through the onslaught of severe thunderstorms into St. Paul to go eat at a place called Mickey's Cafe, a popular eatery that's been in a bunch of Hollywood movies. We had burgers, fries, root beers, and an apple pie a la mode for dinner. At one point, there was a crazy woman getting soaked outside that had a shopping cart that started floating and drifting away in all the rain on the street outside. On our way home, Dad and I purged through the flash floods covering the city streets and highways, and lightning was striking everywhere, probably the most intense summer storm we have seen this entire trip. We made it back to the hotel, and we were asleep after a little while.

Today was our excursion into downtown Minneapolis. Dad and I got ready in the morning, and we went to this small place called May Day Café just south of the city. Dad had quiche and a cinnamon roll, and I had a breakfast burrito with eggs and squash. We both had a very quality cup of coffee, so much that it gave me a wicked caffeine buzz later on. Laura arrived soon after we finished our meals, and after some hugs, we spent some time catching up over a cookie and some more coffee while Dad re-organized the car on the street. We went back to the hotel to re-ice the fish in our cooler, and after dropping Laura's car off, we loaded our bikes and made a drive into downtown. We parked in the garage of the Walker Art Center (which we never got to go inside), and across the street, in the park surrounding a couple of lakes, there was the Minneapolis Gay Pride celebration. It was a massive organization of tents from every perspective of society that came together this sunny day to celebrate the LGBT community, and there was a whole bunch of people coming out from everywhere. There were tents for religious denominations, tents for big and small lovers, plenty of food concessions, various stages with bands and music, tents for gay (or not-gay) pet and dog lovers, drag queens, gay couples, and plenty of people walking around in nothing more then just a brightly colored underwear brief. Overall, the entire atmosphere made me smile at everything, and Dad seemed to have a good time walking around as well. Although none of us were LGBT in any way, we felt the fun and proud energy that surrounded that park today. After a lot of wandering and a lemonade refreshment, we loaded onto our bikes at another end of the park, and we went on a ride into downtown. Minneapolis is rated number one for bike transportation for a good reason: the streets were wide open, there were plenty of bike lanes, and even if you accidentally encroached into a car-heavy thoroughfare, there were plenty of bikers around to make a presence against the rest of the cars. We made a stop into Hard Rock Cafe to get Mom a pin, and then we took a nice ride through some paths onto this one trail that followed a parkway next to the Mississippi River. There were all sorts of sights surrounding everywhere, and the views of the Minneapolis/St. Paul skyline were gorgeous, even better that the sunny day made such a good energy everywhere. We took a ride into a part of St. Paul called Dinkytown, and we made a stop at this Mediterranean eatery for a late lunch. For only 25 bucks, I was able to buy beverages and a huge lunch for all three of us. Dad and Laura had these wraps, but I had this massive vegetarian platter that had all these fried, spiced vegetables, hummus, warm flatbread, and falafel and salad. We rode a lot more and took a lot more pictures on more bridges and trails, and we had fun being total tourists, I suppose. By late afternoon, we arrived back to the museum, and we went to the scuplture garden across the street. We spent a long time taking all sorts of awesome photos, and Laura and I enjoyed laying in the grass all over the place and feeling removed and peaceful from the rest of city for the moment. We finally left afterwards, and we drove back to the hotel, where Laura and I said bye to each other, at least until she comes in August back to Boulder. Dad and I brought our bikes inside the hotel, and we went out to find a place for dinner. We tried going back to the Mall of America, but many of the places were alreay closed (being Sunday and all), so we ended up going to this Japanese Sushi/Hibachi establishment near our hotel called Osaka. Dad and I had some sake and beverages together, and for dinner, we had a lot of miso soup, vegetable and shrimp tempura, seaweed salad, rice, sushi, and teriyaki chicken. Safe to say, we got a ton of food, and we defintely did not finish our plates. We came back to the Super 8 while Dad talked with Mom on the phone the entire way home, and afterwards we went down to the hot tub and sauna for a while.

We've got two long days of driving ahead of us, but I don't think we are too worried. It's about two days of 8 to 10 hours each, and as long as we have coffee and some good music, things should be peachy.

Home sweet home, here we come.

-c