Minneapolis, Minnesota

On the way to Minneapolis we stopped by Madison, Wisconsin’s capital.  The capital’s downtown is wedged between two lakes, and the streets are lined with pubs, coffee houses and boutiques.  Madison is the home of the the University of Wisconsin, and the university life is a huge part of the town.  The best part of the short visit was having pizza at Ian’s.

I’ve been to Minneapolis before, and I’m glad that I came back.  Minneapolis is a friendly, relaxed, outdoorsy, boozy, foody and cheerful city – the parts that I’ve been able to experience anyways.  People say hello to each other.  They smile.  They are very social.  They stop to help you when you are slumped on a sidewalk curb, next to a bicycle with flat tires and a broken public bike pump on a National Holiday when bike shops are closed. A man named Richard caught me in such a slumped position and stopped to help me.  When his pump did not work, he used two of his CO2 canisters and got my tires pumped!  For that, we invited him to the front porch for a beer.  The man talked and talked, was liberal with his profanities, but he did make us laugh now and again, and now we can reminisce about his stories, his character, and have a good laugh.

The city is also very green.  Many people don’t opt for the boring grassy lawn, but build lawns that in the summer spill out onto the sidewalks, making you feel like you are walking through a jungle, not living on a set of The Truman Show.

Having a borrowed bike meant that I could ride around Minneapolis, a wonderful city in which to be a cyclist – you can ride to Dinky Town (the university area of pubs, shops and restaurants,) the downtown that sits on the Mississippi, along the trail that hugs the Mississipppi, or to the several lakes and beaches in the city.  Yup – there is more than one lake in the city (Minneapolis is known to the the state with 10,000 lakes) and more than one beach to don your swimsuit and take a dip on a hot and humid day…especially nice after a bike ride.

The Greenway runs through the city and you can avoid all the stop signs, traffic lights and cars to get to the major hubs in the city.  Many roads leading into the downtown have fairly wide bike lanes – coming from a city like Toronto, the bike system here is lush – cyclists have a ton of safe space without the need to drastically lower speed limits.)  And there are a ton of cyclists around so there is a vibrant bike culture.  On the way to see the fireworks on Independence Day, cyclists were abound emasse in the downtown area – it was amazing to see and be a part of that cycling crowd.  I wasn’t here to see this, but I heard about it a lot – the Powderhorn24 cycle around southern Minneapolis – 24 hours of cycling, eating, drinking, and I suspect, mostly cycling:  http://powderhorn24.com Anyone can join in 🙂

J lives in Minneapolis, so I spent a few days in her home.  She lives in a quadruplex house, and all of her neighbours, including the lady in the house next door, a retired ballerina, often huddled together in the backyard, round a fire and BBQ, with wine and beer and other goodies people brought down.  It was delightful to sit and listen to these people chat, laugh and play harmonica.  J took me around different parts of town, to the places she’d know I’d like to visit – a Japanese restaurants, coffee houses that served real Chai (made there using spices and tea, not a powder mix,) Eastern European delis and cheese shops.  We went into a Surdyk’s liquor store where we were greeted with wine glasses, and asked to try a variety of wines.  We could even wander around the store with our wine glasses as we perused the store’s selection – it felt very posh and we left the store feeling a tad-bit dizzy 🙂

J also took me on a tour of the bookshops – You have to visit Wild Rumpus – this is an independent bookstore that is like a jungle – cats, rabbits, gerbils all live in the store and many are free to laze around the store.  Another great independent bookstore is Birchbark Books, owned by Ojibwe author Louise Erdrich, whose Love Medicine and Master Butchers Singing Club I am currently reading in my tent before I fall asleep.

While here, Minneapolis was commandeered by a huge storm – torn down trees, a loss of power, flooded basements.  As the storm set in we were still a ways from home, on our bikes, full of sushi.  We rode adjacent to the wall of storm clouds, but it did eventually catch up us in the last 5 minutes of our ride – fat globules of water hit our faces, and the wind made it difficult to pedal and keep momentum.  Even in the 5 min we were riding through the storm, we got drenched.  As you ride through a storm, you kind of feel like Tarzan on a bike, invincible as you pedal hard through the gusty wind and rain.  Once in awhile you see a driver look at you in wonder, and you think to yourself, you’re cozy in there, but I’m the one having all the fun out here.  I could not get rid of the smile on my face. And the shower, dry clothes and then sitting in front of an open window watching the rain and listening to the thunder while your host plays the harmonica feels a lot like heaven.  Oh, add a cold beer to that and there, you certainly have heaven.  One type of heaven, anyways.

I will be back in Minneapolis by the end of my trip, and hopefully have the itch to take photos.  I was too comfortable to think of this part of my trip as a holiday – it felt like home.

I include a photo of butter – I find that the dairy here is particularly delicious, tasting like the dairy that I remember having as a child in Poland.