(July 2020) I can’t believe this was one day. We did so much. It was raining so we took lovely county road F to Baileys Harbor for a very small farmers market at the town hall and excellent coffee and chèvre with honey and toasted nuts on a thick slice of sour dough at Bearded Heart. Almost everyone is wearing masks now (which is a relief) after a County mask order.
The rain was in and out most of the morning, adding drama to the bucolic waterfront and farm scenery. We stopped at my dream organic farm, Waseda Farms, to pick raspberries in the drizzle, taking refuge on the porch of a late 1800s school house during a downpour that made the gardens, full of flowers, fruit and vegetables, even lusher.
On to cherry land along Highway 42 from Egg harbor to Fish creek to Ephraim. We stopped at several varieties of cherry store from strange old-fashioned with grandma behind an old cash register (hyline) to sleekly commercial (laughenbach). We came home with raspberries, blueberries (from Michigan!) sweet cherries, brats, goat chèvre, and leftover bbq brisket and ribs from the lovely Wickham house in Ellison Bay. The main house is closed due to Covid but diners and takeout customers enjoyed the lovely gardens-side dining. Every one is improvising due to the pandemic with good results. Wickham house was serving only bbq and it was excellent.
After splurging on a caphrina in the garden we found an amazing empty spot overlooking a surreally calm bay to eat out takeout on a bench, driving deep in the woods until a clearing by the water, at Garrett Bay boat landing. On the way back to Sister Bay we hit a scenic overlook at the end of another clearing in the woods just in time for a spectacular sunset at Ellison bay bluff. We got to Sister Bay just before Door County Creamery closed for some goat milk gelato and then wandered the almost free of tourists main drag. I almost forgot to mention our 5 mile bike ride down Waters end road to Sand Bay, a small beach with soft sand, where we swam in Lake Michigan which was gentler and warmer than I remembered from childhood trips up north in Michigan. Glorious.
Late post:
We rode back to St. Paul along the east side of the river thru dinkytown (the u of Minnesota college town) and the stadium, stopping briefly for some light rain to pass. The kids brought back delicious arepas from Minneapolis for an afternoon snack (we had a delicious brunch earlier at Rose Patisserie in St. Paul.. great quiche). we went to a nearby bar for drinks and then for a delicious dinner at Bar La Grassa in the Minneapolis warehouse district and stopped by the fabulous “bank” bar, an Art Deco masterwork that used to be the farmers and merchants bank (now a hotel) downtown. Couldn’t ask for a better bday with my family!
On Sunday, after a mom’s day brunch at Noah’s apartment on Edmunds Street we drove to Minnehaha Falls, which was full of water, and lined with visitors. onto Lake Harriet for a stroll past the Scandinavian looking pavilion, with lots of visitors too strolling, cycling and skateboarding. Also spotted an old trolley that I am not sure goes where. early Cambodian dinner (green curry, scallion pancakes, omelette), at Cheng Heng in Noah’s neighborhood.
Shockingly bad performance by the Kansas Jayhawks (our in-house favorite) at Iowa State University’s cavernous Hilton Auditorium in Ames – the Jayhawks lost by 17 points. But it was fun to go to a game at Hilton for the first time. We sat high in the nosebleed section so the noise from the increasingly joyful ISU near-capacity crowd was slightly less deafening and we had a good vantage point to see all the flashing lights, arm- waving fan cheers, perky pom-poming cheerleaders and the amusing half-time show with little kids doing somersaults while spinning basketballs.
Busy weekend visiting Noah in the Twin Cities. This trip we spent more time than we have in ages in St. Paul because Noah has moved there from Minneapolis. But we still made it back to our old stomping ground in Uptown, in part because we stayed again at a great Airbnb in south Minneapolis, in a 1917 stucco house a block from the bike trail along Minehaha parkway.
We checked out the revamped Sculpture Garden next to the Walker which looks a little shaggier and less manicured, thanks to the prairie plantings. I’m still a fan although I did notice that the spoon of the Oldenburg Spoonbridge and Cherry has a yellow water stain. I particularly liked the giant blue rooster sculpture. Noah did note, accurately, that several sculpture parks around the country seem to have work by the same sculptors and sometimes almost the same work. The McDonaldization of sculpture parks?
It took two tries (I botched the first one by failing to have my ID, believe it or not) we finally were admitted into Volstead’s Emporium, my first visit to a retro speakeasy, which I gather is a thing. To enter, we walked down a nondescript alley and stood in a short line in front of an unmarked industrial looking metal door where a guy occasionally looked out at us through a peep window he slid open and closed. After a suitable wait to make sure we felt we were entering some exclusive club (shades of Studio 54) he let various parties trickle in after others trickled out.
TakeBetsywithyou 