Frozing in Fargo: WOW! Now that's a LOT of lakes!

Since Brad is working with the Concordia College football team, he gets the opportunity to travel with them too. Once Jenni heard that they would be playing at a school near Minneapolis, she decided to tag along too! After successfully securing the day off of work, we book the hotel (Days Inn of course!) and got ready to head out East!

After a few weeks of excited anticipation the day of our departure finally arrived. We stopped for lunch at Subway, then hit the road. We drove past Barnesville, at which point Jenni got maybe a bit too excited at the fact that this was the farthest into Minnesota she had ever ventured! Next came the blasting of the Kia Soul hamster commercial song, which seems to be have become one of the theme songs to our trip...here's the commercial so you know what we are talking about:

After dancing our way through the next few miles, Jenni started to notice the scenery and proclaimed (multiple times) WOW! Now that's a big lake! The license plates of Minnesota sure don't lie...the land of 10,000 lakes...this is definitely true. The views were amazing the farther we got into the state. Picture open land punctuated with huge lakes surrounded by fall colored trees...magical! Here are some examples of what you should be imagining right now...

Sadly, Jenni is not the best moving car photographer

So these are the best you get...

A couple of hours, and a snooze for Jenni, later, we were greeted by this glorious sight...A REAL CITY SKYLINE!!!

It was this amazing sight that made both of us realize that we are, in fact, city mice. We both came to the conclusion that the country life is really not so much for us...we need this kind of environment to be happy mice!

We easily found our hotel, thanks to Google Maps and Jenni's amazing (sometimes) navigation skills. After resting and taking a quick power nap, we got ready for a night on the town. First stop, Panera! Jenni got inspired to look for a Panera in Minneapolis after seeing the cast of NCIS enjoy some delicious goodies from this happy place. Turns out there were so many to choose from! We picked the one right downtown, walking distance to the British pub that Jenni wanted to visit.

Oh Panera, it had just been too long!

After enjoying our delightful soups, sandwich and salad, we took a stroll down the Nicollet Mall (an outdoor AND indoor area downtown) to the Brit's pub! Brad had a nice glass of Guinness, while Jenni enjoyed a Strongbow with blackcurrant. YES they had Ribena...this pretty much made Jenni's year :) We enjoyed our adult beverages while watching the Wales v. Australia rugby match having intelligent conversation about the huge size of #4 on the Australian team. Seriously, this guy was a beast!

Cheers!

SO happy! :D

The next day, Brad had to work the football game, remember the ACTUAL reason we went to Minneapolis. So Jenni dropped him off, then used her Sat Nav to get her safely to Starbucks for a much needed coffee delight. While Brad worked, Jenni decided to take this time to wander around the Lake of the Isles in Uptown Minneapolis. This place was ahhhh-mazing! Jenni took 2 hours to slowly stroll around the 2.6 mile loop around the lake, admiring the dogs, the houses, the geese, and the views of downtown. It was the perfect day for admiring so many things. Blue skies, sunshine and crisp cool air. HEAVEN! The lake was surrounded by colorful trees (the show probably would have been better if we had made it out there a few weeks ago), which meant many chances for photo opps!

LOVE IT!

Over the years, Jenni has become a self-picture taking pro!

A Loch monster in Minneapolis!?

Artsy goose shot!

After a nice morning at the lake, Jenni then went back to pick up Brad from his victorious football game. After pissing off the Sat Nav, "GO BACK TO SNELLING AVENUE, GO BACK TO SNELLING AVENUE" the woman bellowed at me, as I tried to veer off course to avoid traffic, Jenni made it to Hamline University to Brad and a much needed loo break! We went straight from the university to downtown Minneapolis to spend some time admiring the view of the Stone Arch Bridge. Thanks to Jenni's navigation skills, or lack thereof, we stumbled upon the most amazing spot to look at the bridge and the skyline of the city.

From our perfect viewpoint, we spied a nice grassy mound across the Mississippi river, and said..."we must go there". So we busted out the smartphone, and found our way back across the river into downtown to the Gold Medal Park (named after the flour!). We walked up the sprial path to the top of the mound and got some more shots of the bridge (see the last few photos above). On our way back down, Jenni declared, "This is a perfect hill rolling hill, I'm going to roll!" and roll she did, giggling the whole way down! Here are some action shots...

And she's off!

Roly-poly!

Ending with a giggling fit!

After the excitement of the hill roll, we headed back to our hotel to rest and watch some much needed NCIS (yes, we are quite addicted to this amazing show) before heading into St. Paul for a delicious Italian (pronounced "eye-talian" by some out here) dinner. We ate a restaurant called Cosetta, which was recommended to Brad by the freshman kicker, who Jenni misheard his name as "Vader" on their Concordia team. All we can say is thanks to "Vader" for a great eye-talian meal! After dinner we strolled down the block to the Xcel Energy Center, where the Minnesota Wild hockey team plays. This is where 2 of our beloved Sharks, Dany Heatley and Devin Setoguchi, now play so of course we had to photograph our visit to their new home ice!

The next day, we got up, had breakfast, Brad enjoyed the complimentary Days Inn waffle bar of course, before heading back into the city! We started out at Lake of the Isles. Jenni wanted to share the gloriousness of this place with Brad, including the mansions surrounding the lake. He was of course impressed by Jenni's wonderous discovery.

After admiring the lake once again we headed to Starbucks for a mid-morning delight, then made our way to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Brad had heard about this amazingly random sculpture...you know how we LOVE random sculptures, so we decided we MUST visit this random sight. Here it is...

Yup, that is a giant spoon complete with giant cherry!

After the glory of the random spoon and cherry sculpture, we made our way over to the Mall of America! This mall is HUGE. It is one of the biggest in North America, second behind a mall in Edmonton...yup that's right, Jenni researched! Inside the mall is a theme park...in fact as we walked in, we were greeted by the sight of roller coaster tracks...which, yes we RODE! After wandering around the mall, we decided that a nice spin on the orange coaster was needed. So we bought our 10 tickets, enough for us each to ride, and walked right onto the roller coaster. Laughing our way around the track, we both posed with cheesy grins for the coaster camera, in true theme park style, then pirated said picture instead of paying the extortionate amount of money the park charges for proof of riding these rides! Enjoy!