Advertisement
Published: September 28th 2013
Edit Blog Post
image
One of the many lakes by the highway of interstate 94 The state of Minnesota is on the shore of the biggest of the Great Lakes - Lake Superior and it is where the world's 3rd largest river the Mississippi begins. 680 miles of the Mississippi flows through the state.
Population of Minnesota is 5.3 million with 3.2 million living in the twin city area of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Minnesota is in the upper mid-west and bordered by Canada on the north, Iowa on the south, Lake Superior and Wisconsin on the east - and North and South Dakota on the west. Off into the city today. Minneapolis traffic is busy but nothing like Calgary that's for sure. Drove the RV downtown - now that's an experience in itself. RV's are great on the road but a headache in major cities! Hard to park - cities just dont accommode them...finally after going round and round we found a carpark in the warehouse district of the city.
Walked up to Target Field - home to the Minnesota Twins Baseball team. We did a tour of the stadium $17 each. The tour went for 2 hours and was very comprehensive. This ball park is number one in the country for energy conservation
image
Lobster lake - which is very impressive! the field is warmed during the winter months by using recycled energy from the waste disposal centre that is next door to the field. The disposal centre burns household garbage and converts it into steam. This steam is then used by the ballpark to heat the playing field, through underground piping, which would otherwise be frozen over in the winter. There is zero smell from the garbage.
Target field also recycles water and provides 5 shelters with leftover foods after each game. They believe in giving back to the community which is great to see happen in today's world.
Ball games are famous for their organ music and Target Field is one of the few parks left that has an organ player at the stadium. Most of the parks these days have prerecorded music. We got to meet Suzanne (the organ player) during the game - she has been playing here for 15 years And what a friendly, happy lady she is! And all the locals know her well!
During the tour we found out there was a game on in the evening so we got some tickets and went about organising
image
Walmart even has its own street sign ourselves for the game. We were advised to park the RV out at the Mall of America (about 12 miles from the city) and catch the light rail into the game.
Took a drive around one of the city's many lakes - Harriet Lake which is a huge lake used for lots of different recreation purposes. Boating, fishing and swimming - there are several beaches around the lake as well as bikeways, walkways and children's playgrounds too.
Minnieapolis has leafy inner city streets with some grand style mansions around the lakes and small quaint cottages line the suburban streets. There is good public transport within the city and a skywalk that takes pedestrians around different parts of the inner city in an enclosed air conditioned walkway - a great idea. Actually this city has a number of ideas which other large cities could learn by.
We found our way to Mall of America - the largest mall in North America - it has more than 500 shops, 50 restaurants, Aquarium, Nickalodean Universe theme park, 14 cinemas and more. 7 Yankee stadiums could fit inside this mall! Tomorrow we will try and find our way around this place!
image
Harmon Killebrew statue played 1961 to 1974 Caught the light rail into Target Field for the 7.10pm game. $4 each for a six hour rail pass - 45 minutes ride straight to the baseball field. Our seats for the game were close to the Twins dug out (16 rows back and Geoff says that's good). Baseball is not really my thing but Geoff enjoys the game - it's something you got to do when visiting the USA - along with checking out the worlds largest cow and buffalo!
Arrived back at RV at the Mall of America at midnight...found the closest Walmart and straight off to bed.
Weather has been fine and hot today. Temps in the 80s.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.271s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 72; dbt: 0.0603s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb