Traveling to the Twin Cities

That's right folks! Greetings from Minnesota, one week later :) The first week of July my family and I traveled up to Minneapolis to visit family. While we were there, we got to see some amazing sites, such as the Minnesota History Center, Fort Snelling, the Minnehaha and Saint Anthony Falls, the Walker Art Center's outdoor areas and the great neighborhood around my relative's home. Fun was had by all! I toted along my road trip bag for the 10 hour car ride and got ready for  great vacation in the northern Midwest.

Now get ready for a lot of pictures!

On the first night we went to this great restaurant Town Hall Tap. OH MY GOODNESS THE FRIES. Just look at them with me- ahhhhh. Some of the best fries I've ever had. They had the perfect amount of crunch and a slight sprinkle of cheese and spices along the top that came together as a celebratory bite in your mouth. I could have eaten a whole extra plate of these beautiful things.

The chicken sandwich was also delicious, with a good ratio of condiments to chicken. This place was spectacular, and if you find yourself in Minneapolis I highly recommend stopping by.

Wednesday we headed to the history center, where the cool "Welcome to Minnesota" super-sized postcard comes from. We saw several exhibits on Minnesota, but there was one particularly cool one on toys of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I was surprised at how many toys I had played with myself. Sometimes this meant I played with the updated version of the late 90s, but other times the same toy was right there, on display. After going through the exhibit, I couldn't imagine why kids would want to be glued to screen all day when they could be playing with Barbies and Hotwheels.

That afternoon we went to Fort Snelling, my favorite place of the whole trip. It's like an interactive fort, with people representing the types of folks who would have lived and worked in the fort. There were presentations throughout the whole day that people could participate in and/or listen to, as well as a closing "parade" of sorts at the end of the day. A really cool history spot!

The next day (Thursday) was outdoor day, and we went to the Walker Art Center's mini golf course temporarily set up this summer. It's full of artist-designed holes that are both maddening and tons of fun. Every hole is different and brings a different challenge. The one above was like those coin funnels you see at the mall, only it was your golf ball doing the spinning.

Before and after the golf, we walked around the neighboring sculpture garden and saw the famous Spoonbridge and Cherry, as well as many other cool outdoor art sculptures. I especially loved this tunnel-like structure with all the different flowers scattered around.

That same afternoon we saw two beautiful sets of falls, one at Saint Anthony and the other at Minnehaha. Above are the Minnehaha falls- that is an insane amount of water tumbling off a cliff! It was both remarkable and very, very frightening to see the water plummet to the bottom. We don't have anything like this where I live, so the falls were a really cool experience.

Of course, you can't go to Minneapolis without stopping by the Mall of America. I was interested in a couple of stores we don't have where I live and to, of course, see what it's like when you put a theme park in the middle of a mall. You can kind of see in the picture how the rides fill the middle of the mall. I had to get a snap of the American Girl store, since I loved it so much as a kid (Samantha fan for life!).

After Fourth of July shenanigans (and some of the BEST fireworks I have ever seen- sorry Disney World), it was time to go home. Our drive took us into Wisconsin, so naturally we had to stop at the World's Largest Culver's to finish off our vacation. It was a great finish to a great trip. The  Twin Cities are really cool to visit (don't even get me started on the wonders of Caribou Coffee) and I loved getting to see them with my aunt and uncle.

Have you been to the Twin Cities? What are your favorite things to see there? What cool places have you traveled to this summer? I'd love to hear from you in the comments!