Church vs. State vs. the Dark Knight vs. the Joker: Day Six of Our Anniversary Trip

We spent the majority of our last day in Minneapolis with Stacy (Wade's girlfriend) while Wade worked. Our first stop was Stacy's ultra-cool apartment, where we had the extreme pleasure of meeting Flash the bulldog and Lydia the hairless rat.









Stacy drove us out to Minnehaha Falls, and we walked around for awhile. It was so gorgeous there!











After lunch at Sea Salt, we drove out to St. Paul. Stacy was convinced that we needed to see the capitol building, as well as St. Paul's Cathedral. I'm very grateful for her convictions, as both were well worth the time.

Since Charles Schultz was a St. Paul native, there are Peanuts statues all over the city. We saw this one in a park near the capitol building.



The capitol building was awesome! We decided to head out on our own instead of joining a group for a tour. We almost immediately ran into a very sweet old man who was carrying the same camera I was hauling around. We got to talking a bit, and then I asked him if I could take his picture. (I'm not going to post it here, though, because it's not a very good picture.)

Anyway, here are a few highlights from the capitol building.















We joined a tour group just in time to go to the roof of the building.





(There's nothing like gold horse asses, is there?)

Then we went to the bottom floor of the building. I really liked looking at the portraits of all the Minnesota governors.







Stacy made a friend!



Our next stop was the Cathedral of St. Paul. What a truly amazing place. Since I was raised Catholic, I felt a special sort of affinity for it, even though I am not practicing anymore. It's hard to describe, but let's just say that I can appreciate the beauty and history in such a sacred place and even experience a sense of awe at being in such a place. I just have no desire to return to Catholicism - ever.





This is St. Patrick. He was my favorite out of all the statues there.









We were exhausted by the time we were done at the Cathedral, but we made one last stop: the shoe tree. As you can see, this is a tree with tons of shoes hanging from its branches. I'm not sure what the history of this is, but it's pretty cool to look at.



Stacy was an awesome tour guide. She even dropped us at Wade's to rest up for the evening to come. Without her, we would not have gotten to see St. Paul at all. Thank you, Stacy!

We had a few hours of downtime at Wade's house, so we rested and read. I photographed Wade's extensive book and music collection.





A little later, Roy and I took one last walk so I could get a few photos.





Once Wade was off work and Stacy came over (again), we headed over to the Bad Waitress for our final Minneapolis dinner.







Afterwards, we went to a late showing of The Dark Knight. It was awesome; the only thing that annoyed me was Christian Bale's voice (as Batman). Otherwise, it was a great flick, and I highly recommend it. It may even be my new favorite Batman film, although it's hard to top Batman Returns.

We got home around 1:30 AM and were asleep by 2 AM. And then we were awake four hours later to catch our flight home. We made it to SLC early and then had to sit in the plane for an hour, but other than that, we made it home without a hitch.

Am I happy to be home? Sure, all our stuff is here, as well as our cats and our life. But it's been hard adjusting to reality since we had such a wonderful time in Minneapolis. We have Wade and all of his group (especially Stacy) to thank for showing us a little bit of what the city has to offer. Thank you for having us, Wade. We are so grateful.

And the Cherry Ran Away With the Spoon: Day Five of Our Anniversary Trip

Thursday was probably my favorite day of our trip to Minneapolis. Yes, I loved our anniversary and all the other days, but Thursday was dynamic and exciting for many reasons.

First of all, it rained! I love rain. I love clouds. I love that special darkness a room has when there are thunderclouds looming outside. I love that it decided to rain while we were there. It felt like a gift especially for us Southern Californians who don't see a drop of rain during the summer. Thank you, rain gods!







Secondly, I had a photographic breakthrough. I had started reading Understanding Exposure the day before, and I was having a hell of a time making sense of how one can tell when an exposure is "correct" based on the camera's light meter. That morning, as we were trying to decide what to do with ourselves that day, I was complaining to Roy that I didn't know what the hell the author of the book was talking about. We managed to make sense of it together, and I spent the rest of the day shooting many correct exposures! (Well, I'm not sure they were entirely correct, being as there are so many small things to take into account when shooting. But they were more correct than I was shooting before.)





This is the bird that was trapped in Wade's basement. See how he's standing in the corner, all Blair Witch style? Wade was able to wrap a towel around it, pick it up, and put it outside.



This is a shot of the hallway of Wade's building.



We decided to go to the Walker Art Center to start our day. With the rain, our original plan of going to Minnehaha Falls didn't seem like such a good idea. So the Walker it was - and it was a great choice.



The museum's focus on modern and contemporary art pleased me very much. (I have come to realize that I am actually quite taken with more recent art movements. It has taken me awhile to get here, but it's a good place to be.) I wasn't able to take any pictures of the art itself (I couldn't even use a pen to write down the names of the things I liked!), so here are some photos of details of the Walker design/decor.





We crossed the street and went to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, otherwise known as Heaven. I cannot tell you how excited I was to see all the amazing pieces! Here are some of my favorites. (I bet you can't tell which one is my absolute favorite!)













This one is a product of that camera waving stuff I love to do.



The grounds of the Sculpture Garden were gorgeous as well.







At this point, I was pretty giddy with excitement. And once we walked back to the museum, I realized that I was also pretty hungry. And then I got pretty grumpy when we learned that the museum cafe was closed. So we ended up leaving (even though Stacy had just arrived) to feed the monster.

We went to French Meadow for lunch, a yummy health food place. It was really tasty. We need more of these places here (and less chain restaurants, please). We went back to Wade's to rest up for the long night ahead. And once we were rested and it was time, we went to the Mill City Museum to see a free show by Roma di Luna.

The Mill City Museum was very cool, especially the courtyard. The show was supposed to be held outside in the courtyard, but with the rain earlier in the day, it was moved inside.







A few words about Roma di Luna: I'd never heard them before this trip, and I am so glad we went to their show. They are a truly amazing group of musical artists (and happen to be Minneapolis locals). I bought both of the CDs they had available for sale and was able to get one signed by the main singer/violinist of the group. And by the way, her voice (the lead singer's) is heartbreaking and beautiful. I sat through the entire show just transfixed by the power and energy of the music unfolding before me. It was incredible. Also, I was pretty much a born-again concert virgin, not having been to a show since 2002 or 2003, so that made the experience that much better.

One of the best moments of the show was when they announced that their next song was for Jane for the occasion of her 52nd birthday. Jane was sitting relatively close to us, and so I got to watch her cry happy tears throughout the song (requested by her significant other), which of course made me tear up as well.

I didn't get any good pictures, but here are the two kind of decent ones I took.





Check out this 2007 video. It's not the same as seeing them live, not even close, but it's still pretty cool.



And of course, you can hear them here; listen to "The Romance of Wolves" (it's my current favorite song).

After the show, we walked next door to the Guthrie to use the bathroom. (There was no way I was going to use the crowded bathroom at the museum!) The Guthrie is this giant blue theatre that offered some good photo opps.

I love this picture! It's of Roy looking out of the window, but I took it of his reflection in the reflective window sill.







This is another reflective picture.





We walked to Sawatdee for dinner. I absolutely love Thai food, and this place did not disappoint. I had the massaman curry and some drink called a Monkey Lover. Well, I can't be sure of the name of the drink anymore, but it was something having to do with a monkey. My favorite part of the menu was this:



After dinner, we drove over to Grumpy's for karaoke. I'd been hearing about karaoke all week; apparently it's a big thing with Wade and his friends. They were all pretty excited when they saw that a big group of drunken women were doing karaoke. Wade wrote a really good blog about the experience, which you can read here.

I didn't actually think I would do karaoke (again, that shyness factor), but later I decided that Wade and I had to do a song together. The most natural choice seemed to be "Baby One More Time" by good ol' Britney Spears, and Wade was all for it. Once we got up to the front of the room, three of the crazy drunken women asked if we needed back-up dancers. Like, duh. Of course. We performed our set, the crowd went wild, and I sealed my place in Grumpy's Hall of Fame.

Um, not. I think Wade sang over me the entire song, which is probably the best thing that could have happened for everyone in attendance.

All in all, it was an interesting night. I had five drinks and didn't even catch a buzz, which was shocking. Grumpy's had the best tater tots ever, and of course, the drunk women will hold a special place in my heart forever.

(Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures during karaoke, but one of Wade's friends did, so maybe Wade'll send them along to me one of these days.)