Happy Thanksgiving and Hanukkah

Today, Thanksgiving Day and the first day of Hanukkah, we spent part of the morning driving and walking around St. Paul and Minneapolis. First stop was taking a look at the deserted capital building before searching for the first geocache of the day. Call us wimps but we just aren't used to the wind and retreated back to the rental car with frozen hands. We then headed west towards the Mississippi River to look at some of the mansions along the way and along the bluffs overlooking the river.

I was surprised to see that the river was not quite frozen over. There was quite a bit of open water and the river is a lot wider than I remember from previous visits. We did look for and find a couple of caches along this stretch. There still isn't any snow, which is also surprising considering the temperature. Again, the wind makes it feel much colder than in Fairbanks. Personally, I'll take the cold over the wind.

Here is something I don't see back home. I believe that these are oak leaves of some sort. Lots of fallen leaves on the trails made for treacherous climbing up and down the trails. The old mansions along the river eventually started to look more like ranch houses though I suspect that they are still pretty pricey just from their location. Chris had suggested going along the bluffs to see some of these older homes and I wish we could've walked along the path longer but it was cold and breezy.

We stopped at the Ford Dam and lock, again to look for another geocache but I had also wanted to see the falls. I do remember seeing these falls from the other side of the river back in the late 60s during a family vacation and being impressed by them. There wasn't any ship traffic so no interesting photos of the lock in use.

Below the dam, you can see the ice starting to reform after getting broken up by the dam. I the background is the lock. Bridget's son, Reuben, is coming by at 2:00pm and we were going to have Thanksgiving dinner here at the hotel. That is all that they are serving this afternoon.

The next time Hanukkahah and Thanksgiving land on the same day is 80,000 years from now which has earned today the nickname "Thanksgivukkah". For those celebrating either, I wish you the best. And for those not celebrating either, I still wish you a great day.

Posted with Blogsy