Cross-country trip photos, pt. 1 (mostly Minneapolis)

[rootbeer1]

Ray (profkampf) and I recently drove cross-country from Boston to San Francisco (and Glendale)
recently. Here are photos from the first part of that trip (and for photos from the previous week at
Provincetown, see here).


This is me inside the theme park at the Mall of America, which is no longer Peanuts-themed, but
Nickelodeon-themed. I was a little disappointed in it -- I was expecting it to be the hugest
thing ever, but it was just a really big mall.




We drove close to 800 miles the first day and spent the night in Massey, Ontario. The next day
for lunch we crossed back into Michigan at Sault Ste. Marie and had lunch at the Antlers Cafe,
a taxidermy-themed diner. The food was unimpressive, but we had the first of what would prove
to be many orders of onion rings.


Ray and I stopped by the Walker Art Center's sculpture garden as part of our tour of the Twin Cities.


The house used for exterior shots of the Mary Tyler Moore show. It's a beautiful house
in a lovely neighborhood, unlike her followup apartment, which is in a crappy highrise in a
bad part of town.


At the home of Lee (nlotic) and Mark (kingfridaybear), we had to pose with
their cool Jedi light-saber.


Here's Ray as The Happiest Jedi.


We had dinner with Mark and Lee, and Jamie (reslbear, left) and Jeff (bearinslc, right)
at a Cuban place that was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. The food was pretty good,
although there were no cheese curds on the menu, spoiling my plan to have cheese curds at every meal
while we were in Minnesota.


After dinner we stopped by the long-running Bear Coffee hour to meet and greet the locals. Here's
former San Franciscan Tim (bluedevilsf) and Steve.


Also at Bear Coffee, here's John (perkk), my host Randy (rooooo) and the
visiting Woofer (wooferstl).


A better photo of Lee and Mark at Bear Coffee.


Jeff and Jamie at Bear Coffee.


Randy and Jeff spaz out after having had too much caffeine at Bear Coffee.


After coffee, we went back to Mark and Lee's to watch Project Runway, and after spotting
the light saber, Randy showed us how it was done.

I was very impressed with Minnesota -- it was clean, the people were friendly, and there were
tasty cheese curds wherever you went. Thanks again to all the people who put us up or came
out to meet us.

Comments

[reslbear.livejournal.com]

You should come back at the end of this month for the Greatest State Fair EVER! LOL You'd have more cheese curds than you could possibly eat, but most of it is fried. I prefer the cold/unfried "squeeky" version much more so.

It was wonderful to see you and spend time with you and Ray!

[rootbeer1.livejournal.com]

I'd love to come back! I 've heard so much about that state fair, with all the foods and drinks on a stick ... even the sticks come on sticks.

[reslbear.livejournal.com]

I got more sticks to show ya! :-)

[rootbeer1.livejournal.com]

Like I said ... sticks on sticks ...

[rooooo.livejournal.com]

My my, I like your light saber!! It's so...long!

[rootbeer1.livejournal.com]

Your light saber photo came out great! You should make it into an icon!

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

That photo of you with a light saber is now my favorite one of you (with your shirt on)! I love it! :)

[wooferstl.livejournal.com]

it was so much fun meeting up with you guys. *hugz*

[nlotic.livejournal.com]

I look stoned in that one picture.

We brought the Cheeze Its and Pretzels on vacation by the way. We made a bigger dent in them but they are not gone yet.

[rootbeer1.livejournal.com]

The bag of potato chips lasted until our last day! Those were truly magic snacks.

[bearfuz.livejournal.com]

The Mall of Hysteria! John and I have been there.