Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Minnehaha and St. Anthony Falls

On Sunday morning after a wonderful breakfast of homemade blueberry pancakes and apple butter, Chris took us on a tour of some of the sights around Minneapolis. The first stop was Minnehaha Falls and the surrounding park. Since we have few waterfalls readily accessible around home, it was really cool to see these falls in the winter. I actually vaguely remember stopping here the first time I was in Minneapolis sometime in the late '60s but only remember the location, no details.

We walked down on the trail to the creek at the base of the falls to do a little more exploring. (No geocaches were found) I guess the falls at this time of year are barely a trickle compared to their summertime flow. There was only a slight breeze so it didn't feel as cold as it did a couple of days ago in St. Paul.

This is the creek at the base and we followed it for a short ways before heading back up the stairs towards the parking lot. I'm still amazed at the lack of snow but I'm not complaining. The weather guessers are saying that it'll be -17°F by next weekend and it was -24°F back home in Fairbanks. Here, it was above freezing with scattered clouds.

 

After Minnehaha Falls, we drove up along the west shore of the Mississippi River. This is on the opposite side from where we were on Thanksgiving Day. We stopped at the Stone Arch Bridge to walk across. This is the bridge I had a picture of yesterday. These buildings are just downstream from St. Anthony Falls. According to the posters, the falls were rapidly deteriorating and instead of allowing them to turn into rapids (falls are more geographically contained) they added concrete to keep it in place.

 

I guess I really like to look of all of the old commercial buildings and warehouses along the river and enjoyed hearing of the history of the area.

These are locks on the west side of the falls. Chris pointed out that this lock is much narrower than the lock at Ford Falls, which are shown in the previous post, to handle smaller boats and barges.

Here are the St. Anthony Falls. Even though these are much larger, I still like the appearance of the Minnehaha Falls and from the drawings of what these fall originally looked like, it was looked more scenic before when it had a nice "U" shape.

After the Stone Arch Bridge, we visited my cousin and his wife for lunch then went to one of Reuben's rehearsals in downtown Minneapolis. It was like getting a private concert as the small group was practicing for an upcoming gig. They sounded pretty good.

On Monday morning we headed to the airport but not before getting at least one photo of Chris in his natural environment. In this case the Ural since "snow pellets" were forecast later in the day. Thank you to Chris and his wife for hosting us for the last couple of days. We thoroughly enjoyed spending the last couple of days with them.

 

This post is was made using Blogsy on the iPad, email from the iPhone, BlogGo on the phone and I finally had to use the browser editor to clean up the mess that all of the apps made. They really don't work together very well.

 

16 comments:

  1. Doesn't look like things are cold enough yet for Chris to have taken you for a ride on a frozen lake on his URAL rig. That would have been something!

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    1. Nowhere near cold enough for the lakes to freeze that solid. He mentioned that he waits until he sees trucks on the lake. If it'll hold a truck then the Ural shouldn't be any problem.

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  2. It was great to spend time with both of you again. You are welcome back anytime. Thanks again for the birch syrup.

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    1. It was wonderful to meet with you again and we finally got to meet your wife. Please pass on our thanks!

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  3. 150 miles north-northeast of the cities and the lakes are safe to walk/skate on. Last night we picked up 6-8 inches of snow. They're expecting another 6 or so by Thursday night. We've got snow!

    It's pretty cool to see the frozen falls. And yes, in the spring the water flow is a LOT better.

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    1. I guess the Mississippi never really freezes that solid in Minneapolis and most of the lakes we looked at prohibited motorized vehicles anyway. These were all within Minneapolis. I guess things are different in other areas. I hear that there is a winter storm heading your way.

      Chris had an interesting story about the falls. Apparantly, the President was visiting the falls and to increase the flow rate, the fire hydrants in the area were turned on…

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    2. It's still early. The lakes will get plenty of ice and they'll get their snow down in the cities. Last winter was an odd one for most of MN. The Twin Cities went almost all season with no or almost no snow, while I was up to my neck in it!
      We're still under a winter storm watch/warning... More snow's coming.

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    3. I think we left MN just in time and we missed the last cold spell here at home. It's supposed to be nice all week.

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  4. Richard:

    thanks for the frozen waterfall. I don't think I've ever seen one. Still looks too cold for me. I liked the locks. I guess it must be an inland thing, no locks here either. I think I passed a few in Ontario but no time to stop

    I don't think I would walk out on a lake either, unless I saw a truck

    Nice to have friends in far away places

    bob
    Riding the Wet Coast

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    1. It certainly was nice to have friends in far away places. It was great to be able to visit with Chris again and to finally meet his wife. Plus, he really knows a lot about the area.

      Another benefit is we are going to try to slowly move towards a plant based diet.

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  5. Great photos! Pretty landscape, too. Thanks for sharing the visit.

    Birch syrup? Makes excellent root beer.

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    1. Yes, birch syrup is a local Fairbanks product. The sugar content isn't as high so it takes a lot more sap to make it. But the process is similar.

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  6. Really neat pictures of those falls.

    So cool you got to stay with Chis and Mrs. Everyday Riding too. They are good people.

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    1. I haven't seen frozen waterfalls that were still flowing before except in videos. I would like to see what it looks like in the middle of winter (assuming that it is still flowing.

      It was great to be able to stay with Chris and his wife. They are both fascinating to talk to.

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  7. It looks like you really got a pretty good tour of Minneapolis while you were here!

    I'd meant to get to Minnehaha falls during the summer, but I never quite made it. I remember going there a couple of times as a kid.

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    1. For the amount of time we had, we were able to see a fair amount. There are lots of things that we would have liked to see as well but just didn't have the time.

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