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Published: August 14th 2011
The Twin Cities. Kind of like Arnold Swartzenegger and Danny DeVito.
We stayed Friday night just outside St. Paul in a Motel 6, where we made a reservation at the only hostel we could find in the city for Saturday night. We passed out early from a long day of riding and got up pretty early Saturday to do a little exploring. First, we drove around the city of St. Paul for about an hour, before deciding that there wasn't much to see of interest. We started driving slowly toward Minneapolis on Mississippi River Boulevard, which traced the high banks of the mighty Mississippi as it splits the two cities apart.
We stopped at a "Scenic Overlook" that was crowded with trees and brush and only offered a glimpse of the spill-over of a dam. We asked a guy sitting there what there is to see, and the only advice he could offer was to go to the Mall of America. So we did. I wanted to see the stadium seat bolted to the wall honoring Harmon Killebrew's 522 foot upper-deck home run in the old Twins stadium. Killebrew was from Payette, Idaho, and went to high school with
my Uncle Phil Skelly.
After seeing the mall in all it's grandeur, we went to look for the hostel. We weren't sure if they would allow Leche, so I hid her in my jacket and snuck in a bowl of water for her. We dropped off our luggage, and went downtown. Downtown was not happening at 5 P.M. on a non-Twins Saturday. We went to a bar called Sneaky Pete's, we were two of four patrons there after they kicked the drunk guy out. After a happy hour appetizer and a beer each we bounced. Then we discovered that there was an attached strip club up stairs, and that was the only reason for there to be the bar downstairs.
A little dis-heartened about the mood of the city, we went back to the hostel to rest up and then try again when people would actually be out. At the hostel we learned that really close by was Uptown, a different place to go out on the town. We rode over there and parked the bikes to walk around in search of a happening bar. After seeing 100-person lines out the door of a couple clubs and bars
with maybe a dozen people, we went back to Cowboy Slim's. Conveniently enough that was exactly where we parked our bikes.
We got seats at the out-door half of the bar. There were two girls sitting there next to us already, and Dan started chatting to the blonde sitting next to him, and the other girl ended up buying me a shot to try to get a little more conversation out of me. I think she was a little offended when I didn't offer to pay for the shots that she ordered, and that was the end of that conversation. Dan, however, continued chatting. It was getting late, and I was tired, so I headed out and left Dan to the whim of his vices. He stayed there until closing.
Now we are about to get packed up and head off toward Canada! We will ride to Fargo, and then get as far as we can today before pulling off and setting up camp. We looked into hostels and Motel 6 in Winnipeg, both were about $100 U.S.! so camping it is for a while.
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Steve McNally
non-member comment
Update
Hi Bryon, I'm loving these updates, I think you've inspired me to maybe use Travelog, I'll see. I can't believe how expensive USA seems, $100 per night HOSTELS!!! Bloody hell, no wonder Americans seem so rich us Scottish people, it's because they're so used to paying a lot more. You could get a 3-4 star Hotel Edinburgh city centre for $100 per night. Most hostels would be about $25 per night. Maybe your next trip should be Scotland ;-) We leave Gwnagju in 4 weeks, to continue our World Tour, and will hopefully end up in Dubai around April 2012. We plan to tour North America 2013, and eventually end up in South AMerica teaching, leading up to Brazil World Cup 2014. Looking at yoru prices, it looks like we'll need to save a LOT or camp a lot !!! Keep the excellent writing going and safe travelling. I hope our paths cross again.!