Back to my Minnesota travelogue

One of our stops while we were out touristing around was the sculpture garden. There were lots of interesting sculptures there, ranging from ones that were really cool, to ones that really had you wondering "what the heck was the artist thinking? (or smoking - LOL)".
The there were the ones that had you thinking "That was really cool, but what was the artist thinking? Like the huge bent spoon, sitting in a pond, balancing a misting cherry. Cool, but why?

I didn't take pictures of everything, but here are a few...

***Pause***

I interrupt my vacation travelogue to report on todays hike. I took the dog walking up Porter Fork in Millcreek Canyon tonight. Porter is one of my favorite summer time after work hikes, as it low enough in the canyon that I can get there quickly, it's shady and cool, as spring fed creek run alongside the trail. Well, trail isn't right, as it's really a one lane asphalt road, which is kind of nice if you end up coming back in the dark. Does pavement makes it a walk instead of hike? Or does the fact that there's about a 1200 ft elevation in the 1.5 mile walk to the end of the road make it a hike? Either way it's pleasant after work workout.

The road services an area of about 40 summer homes - rustic cabins, quaint cottages and a few new summer homes that make my real house look shabby. It's still pleasant up there despite the homes. Most are tucked back into the trees, and it seems rare that more than 4 or 5 are occupied at anyone time. Usually there are more hikers and dog walkers up there than summer home people.

I had a laugh when I walked by one cottage that was right alongside the road. I'd never seen a lemonade/dog treat stand when I was out hiking before! Too bad the stand was abandoned when we walked by, I'm sure Daisy would have liked a treat!

Minnesota Travelogue

I have always wanted to go to Minnesota. I'm not sure why, other than it is a cold weather place and I'm a cold weather person, or because I enjoy Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" Radio show or liked his book "Lake Wobegon Days" or maybe I wanted to see the 10,000 lakes. My brother moved to the Minneapolis area a few years ago, the kids and I each had a $100 Delta airline that needed to be used by August I had a holiday weekend and the kids were both in town, so we jetted off to Minnesota for a long weekend.




My brother lives way out in the western country/suburbs In the little town of Minetrista. The area is every bit as lovely as Garrison Keillor portrays it in Lake Wobegon Days. Green trees and idyllic farmsteads with waving fields of wheat and beautiful old barns. Lots of lakes, the biggest being Lake Minnetonka. We stopped along the lake at the cute little town of Wayzata, an old historic railroad town. The old train depot is now a museum, and outside the station they had this cute model train running outside.

Lucky Week

A butterfly I saw while hiking Bowman fork tonight

I am not quite sure what happened in the universe recently, but apparently last week was my luck week. I checked my facebook page and found that I had won a little contest a friend of mine sponsored. She owns Creekside Creations, a company that makes all natural soaps and lotions etc. and I one some of her marvellous products. Thanks Caryn!

Monday was also "dumpster day"; the one day a year where the county places big dumpsters on the street for us to discard "big stuff", so it's a good time to trim trees etc., One of my friends recently purchase a very high quality, professional pruning saw, and he let me borrow it to trim a tree who's branches were whacking my house. Thanks Jamie. I spent most of Sunday using that saw, and had piles and piles of branches lining the street by the end of the day. I snuck out of work early Monday, dreading that I had so much stuff to toss in the dumpster. Imagine my surprise when I turned the corner toward my house, and all my piles of branches were gone! My neighbor was out hauling her branches to the dumpster, so asked her if she knew who had taken care of mine. It turns out the county sent a big truck and scooped up all my branches!!! Talk about good luck! I may as well have won the lottery! I'm sure my poor neighbor wished she'd hauled hers to the curb the day before. You can bet we'll all be trying that strategy next year!

If that wasn't enough luck for one week, I actually won a subway gift card during a vendor show at work. I am simply not accustomed to having such good fortune!

Farmers Market

This morning my daughter, her borfriens and I went downtown to the farmers market. Peppered amunst the produce and craft sellers are musical acts. My daughter stopped to listen to a piano player, who interestingly, had the top of the upright piano open so that you could watch the mechanism. I walked up toSarah and said "Do you find it more interesting to listen when you can see inside the piano?" No" she replied, "it's more interesting when tha piano has been pulled behind a bicycle." I look over, and realize that in my fascination with the hammers hitting the strings, I never even noticed; that the piano, whick was on wheels, was attached to a bicyle! I'm not sure how much a piano weights, but I can't imagine pulling one with a bicycle. I can only presume that the owner must live in the flat part of the valley.

4th of July Weekend....

Saturday I went out with the mountain bike group for my first ride of the year. We road Pipeline trail out, which, by mountain biking standards is a relatively mellow trail; fairly flat, not too technical. I pretty such suck going up the big, steep uphills, and the big steep downhills can be a little scary, so for me this is an excellent ride. I did manage to successfully ride a few "technical" spots that are challenging to me so I was pretty pleased. I love this picture that Mike, one of the group organizers (and coach, cheerleader and total enthusiast) took. It really makes mountain biking look like, well, MOUNTAIN biking. I am the middle rider.


Sunday was spent at a creek side picnic with a friend. We were supposed to join other friends at the beach at Pineview Reservoir, but were turned away, for crowd control reasons by a cop doing his best "Dirty Harry" imitation. So we found a lovely picnic spot instead.


So the weird thing about Utah ... 4th of July fireworks are held on Saturday the years the 4th falls on a Sunday. No one here seemed to get the message about "separation of church and state". Two exception (that I know of)... the Salt Lake Bees has a big fireworks display after their July 4th game, and The Country Club did theirs on the 4th. Luck for me I get a great view of The Country Club's fireworks from my deck.