Day 94 Minneapolis
Minneapolis,
Minnesota,
United States
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Day 94 Minneapolis
A later beginning for the day had us on the road at around 9:30am heading to the Mall Of America, a large mall that encloses an amusement park within the structure.
We found our way with the instructions Karon received from the helpful KOA park staff, it avoided the busy freeway.
We arrived and turned into the entrance to find the one way system branched into car parks with a height restrictions of 7ft, oh boy we travelled around the road to come to an overhead pathway without a height written on it. When you are in a wide 12ft 5in high Castle we are used to observing the heights of overhead structures and leave nothing to guess work. We stopped the forward progress and Earnie made use of the rear ladder to ensure we would go under without harm.
This achieved we came through the other side of the Mall to observe open parking over the road, we headed there to find a large truck, bus and RV designated parking.
We back alongside another RV and headed towards this mall, we passed a security guy on a bike booking (or in American lingo "tagging" ) a car for parking in the Large vehicle car park. We stopped and had a chat with him and found he had visited our country a few times, obviously aboard a US navy ship, but he had good memories, and was happy to chat for a few minutes, assuring us we were safely parked at no cost.
Into the Mall and ask a few questions about the Light Rail that goes into the centre of the city.
We chose to take a trip in and delay our wander around the mall until we had checked the city out.
Well this should be simple, read the instructions on the ticket vending machines, insert our $20 to purchase a ticket for $1.50. GEE how exciting the machine released a lot of returns, it sounded like the payout from a poker machine. We capture our coins expecting to find a stack of Quarters in change, that would not concern us greatly as the laundry machines require quarters. What are these gold coins, they appear like tokens for the light rail. Oh BOY how many rides do we intend to take.
Never mind we feed more into the machine to recover tickets for us all to catch the ride.
The light rail system appears to be an efficient system and we were in the city within 35 mins, Hop off and look at a map we had been given to choose a direction.
We walked around the Plaza shopping district with not a lot of people visible and the shops appear to be closed, until we observed some people in the shops.
We walked into an open courtyard type shop, and found this was a city shopping type mall, it appears the shopping centres and business district in the city centre are all linked with over head walkways. We guess it is for when the snow is around, it is possible to still complete any business and shop without venturing outside, IdeaL!
We walked towards the river to reach the Mississippi river and the site where the first ever bridge was built across this mighty river. The existing bridge is the third to be built on the site, the site was originally a ford for river crossing by both the original Indian inhabitants as well as the European when they travelled this way.
The first Ferry crossings were conducted by an Indian woman in a canoe, this was later replaced by an European until the first bridge was built.
The bridge overlooks some falls slightly down stream with a lock alongside to allow boats to be lowered into the lower reaches of the river.
We walked along the informative historic trail alongside the river and the locks in time to watch a boat depart the upper lock.
Alongside this area are the historic Flour mills of Minneapolis, this city was obviously the centre of a flour milling industry, the mills used the power of the water from the Mississippi River to drive the machinery plant in the mill. Ingenious tunnels and canals were created to draw the water from the river into the various mills alongside the river, off course the river was the means of transportation of the flour.
The city has had a chequered history of attempting to be the staging point for the Western push of the development including a staging point for railroads.
Also after a disastrous explosion in one of the flour mills a young engineer redesigned the canals and tunnels to improve the efficiency and safety of the mills, this design was also used to convert the water power to electrical power when it became available.
The City has also had many ups and downs from labour disputes and has a history of a lot of people moving in,to, head west, when the lumber and other jobs dwindled the town went through a stagnation and has had various boom and bust periods, including labour disputes such as the Coopers (Barrel makers) had their wages reduced and they chose to set up a co-op to support themselves, this was successful until the technology over took them by way of the advent of the flour sack! Yes, they used to ship the flour in wooden Barrels! The city also had a tough time in 1950 era and appears to be constantly attempting to reinvent itself to shake the Poor city image.(These are "impressions" not essentially correct) They are in the process of restoring the famous mill sites and creating a park area alongside the river.
We found the city not to bad on a Saturday afternoon to wander around in.
We found our way back to the Light Rail and headed back to the Mall of America, at this point when we alighted from the train, we looked around to attempt to cash in our "tokens" but of course no attendant, Rick decided to catch people buying tickets to sell them direct, he managed this with one person and then tackled the next two suspects, they asked a few questions and chose to buy 3, and as were completing the transaction one guy looked at them and said "They are the new $1 coins" his mate didn't know about them and of course neither did the Aussie travellers, but upon a closer inspection we found, yes indeed they are a $1 coin, We have been in this country for 3 months and this is the first time we have encountered them, and obviously the locals are not fully aware of them as well, really interesting, we gave up attempting to "resell our train tokens" and headed into the mall for something to eat. Karon decided to test the $1 coin theory, by offering them in exchange for her lunch, She was successful, so we guess they are genuine currency! Another learning experience for us along the way.
Karon decided to set sail and look around and a meeting point for the boys was arranged, they could amuse themselves if they wanted in the amusement park in the centre. We mention here that there were no less than six roller coaster type rides, and a Ferris wheel, all set up in the nickelodeon scheme, with some rides we would not entertain attempting. This amusement park catered for all ages and had an endless variety of entertainment for whatever age, big or little kids show their face.
The centre is a large complex with many different shops, types and variations, we enjoyed the wander around and managed to hook us all together after a couple of hours and set sail for home.
We watched a movie and were pleasantly surprised to have a phone call from the family at 11pm at night , they were gathered to be introduced to Jessica May at Donah's place and decided to call us to have us there as well.
Thankyou everyone a nice thought and we were happy to hear from you all.
Tomorrow we head further east, route and destination yet to be advised.
