Thanks to travel hacking, we were once again able to obtain the Southwest Companion Pass for this year and next year. What that means in the Taylor house is that we are going to work on knocking out some more baseball stadiums this summer and next. For our first summer trip, we decided to make our way up to Minneapolis. Shockingly, Chris has never even been to the states of Minnesota (or Aly, for that matter), and none of us were able to claim this stadium yet. The other HUGE reason we chose to hit Minneapolis this summer was to also attend the US Gymnastics Olympic Trials. Going to the Olympics is absolutely still on the bucket list for both me and Chris, but the next best thing for now?? The Trials. I have been lucky enough to go to the gymnastics trials 2 other times in the past, and Chris went with me one of those times. The atmosphere is incredible, and there is really nothing like watching live sports, in person, as these athletes are trying to achieve a life long dream. So, off to the Midwest it was this summer! Unfortunately, we missed day 1 of gymnastics thanks to a flat tire on the plane that turned into a brakes problem that turned into a canceled flight and rebooked for the next day : /
We made it up to Minneapolis the next morning, and took the light rail from the airport to the our downtown hotel. Two different Hyatt hotels, mostly booked with points, of course, felt like a total win the week before the 4th of July and during the Olympic Trials which were also downtown! The light rail in Minneapolis goes to/from the airport, the Mall of America, and even to St. Paul. Honestly, it was so cheap, and I had read negative reviews about the homeless population being onboard, but after riding public transportation all over this country, it didn’t bother us at all. We even rode the bus a few times as well to save us some steps. But holy moly, did we walk on this trip! We covered a lot of ground, and saw a lot of sights in town, as well as going to the 3 sessions of gymnastics and 1 baseball game! Here are some of our fun adventures:
The Bakken Museum
Though small, this museum was really enjoyable, and different! After researching some various options and giving Aly a synopsis of each, she chose the Bakken Museum. The description was a STEM/electricity museum, with a little Frankenstein thrown in. All in a historic house. Sounds cool, right? We took an UBER to this one, as it was a bit far from public transportation but a pretty cheap UBER ride away. There were only a few other patrons in the museum to start, so it felt like we had it almost to ourselves. As a bonus, there was a Legos minifig treasure hunt that you could do as well, which kept us all looking high and low in each room. We laughed through a game of basically Apples to Apples, checked out a cool, interactive book, looked all over for numerical codes to put into an old pay phone and hear interesting or funny messages, and Aly ran back and forth across the interactive color wall.
We checked out the Mary Shelley and Frankenstein rooms (an owner of the house credits reading Frankenstein as a child to his obssession with electricity) and Aly did a good jump during the Frankenstein show! Then we headed to the upstairs of the home, where the static electricity room was. We did all of the fun static electricity experiments on our own, and then an employee came in and asked if we wanted to do a family shock. We didn’t think much of it, and agreed, all giggling until it came time to do the shock (Aly would NOT touch the bottle to start the shock) and we all got a pretty surprising jolt! We elected to not do it a second time 🙂 We also ventured out to the beautiful gardens off the 2nd story of the home while Aly did a second scavenger hunt in the garden.
After the museum, we walked across the street to the path that runs along one of the many lakes (there are actually 11,842 not just 10,000), and then got an UBER back to the hotel.
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden
On another day of our trip, we walked down to the large Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. The most well known sculptures here are the large spoon with a cherry, and the giant blue rooster. We’re not necessarily art museum type of people, but it was a fairly nice (albeit, humid) day outside, and with a free afternoon, we thought it would be nice to walk around. Most of the art was *interesting* but again, a free activity outside. Now we feel cultured 🙂
Minnehaha Falls State Park
I think that this is THE spot that locals recommend to tourists to check out in Minneapolis. It is a nice, easy walk to see the pretty impressive falls here, and we wandered around up top, down below, did a little geocaching, felt the water (not cold mountain runoff like back home), and Aly played on the playground for a while. My souvenir for the day was several bug bites. The mosquitoes are no joke in MN.
Putt!
Nearby to one of our hotels was an indoor putt-putt golf facility that caters to the 21+ crowd in the evenings, but allows players of all ages to enjoy during the day. I have been to a similar spot in Omaha and it was a lot of fun, so we decided to check this one out. The three themes were the Conservatory, the Library, and Art. We paid for the all you can play and ended up doing 4 rounds of 9 hole putt-putt and enjoyed a few drinks (and a mocktail) while we played. This was a fun family activity downtown to beat the humidity!
The Mall of America
I mean, we couldn’t come to Minneapolis with a tween girl and NOT go to the mall, right??? Aly requested a meal at the Rainforest Cafe (and we randomly had gift cards for the Landry group), so we knew we were going to at lunch at the mall anyways. Mom and Dad, I am so sorry for making you eat at the Rainforest Cafe when I was younger. Overpriced, cold fries for me, not so great lasagna for Chris, and zero interaction or water refills from our waiter, but hey, we had gift cards and our kid was happy. Hope we don’t have to repeat that any time soon. We wandered all over the mall, made custom family M&Ms at the M&M store, even bumped into the purple M&M, and Aly scored some clothes for back to school. We didn’t ride any rides this time, but it was fun just to see everything.
Minnesota Twins game at Target Field
So we lucked out big time for this game, and got great tickets from a friend of a friend. We ended up sitting in the Thrivent club, with amazing cushioned seats behind home plate, right by where the media sits for the game. Going to all 30 MLB stadiums really adds up, so we definitely do not splurge on this level of ticket unless it’s our time and we really want good seats (and honestly, even then we probably don’t spend as much as these would have cost). We had a separate entrance, separate bathrooms, and concessions, AND there was a lovely breeze and some clouds during the game. We did venture out to the “common folk” area of the stadium so we could get a feel for the place, and I’m going to place the Twins stadium in my current top 5 stadiums. It was clean, people were friendly, and the best part is they have a value food menu and it was also dollar hot dog night! Also, with it being a newer stadium, it just has that smaller, more intimate feeling that some of the old-ish stadiums don’t have. So, A+ experience at the Twins game, Aly enjoyed reading her Kindle 😉 and the Twins won!
Food!
I had high hopes for the food in Minneapolis, but overall, it just felt okay. We did have some standouts, including:
The Jucy Lucy at Matt’s Bar. They claim to be the original, hence, the different spelling of “jucy.” This place was everything you want after spending too much money on so-so food on vacation. One waitress in a small bar in a neighborhood that is running her tail off, they only take cash, old wooden booths, and hot, fresh food that is delicious. We all approved of our burgers and fries at Matt’s.
Hell’s Kitchen in downtown Minneapolis for brunch. Chris had the Huevos Rancheros (of the Gods) which were delicious, and Aly had some lemon ricotta pancakes that were amazing but too rich for even my breakfast loving daughter to finish. The cheese curds with the pepper jelly were on point too. Yum!
Hai Hai Vietamese/Asian food. We were kind of split on this place. It came recommended to us, and I even made reservations for our dinner here. There was a long line of people waiting to get in when we arrived, and the chef has won some awards so the word has gotten out. We all agreed that we liked the sticky ribs appetizer, and the spring rolls were pretty good (minus the weird spam lookalike sausage in there), but there was something about the texture that neither Aly nor I could get past. We did like the coconut rice, and Chris enjoyed his Balinese chicken thigh. Overall, it felt like a little bit of a letdown for me.
Nelson’s Ice Cream (St. Paul). Holy wow! Thankfully, we had been recommended to come here by our friends, and also warned that we should only get the kiddie size. The kiddie size ice cream at Nelson’s was 6 (SIX!) scoops of ice cream!!!!! I mean, I love ice cream, but geez, even I would feel sick. You can choose up to 2 flavors for a kid’s size, and they had something like 50 flavors to choose from. We each got different flavors so we could try everyone’s, and I asked for half of the normal amount of a kid’s cup because I knew there was no way I could eat that much ice cream. Definitely worth the trip over to St. Paul to check it out 🙂
Overall, we had a fun time together up in the twin cities, and we checked another baseball stadium (and another state for Chris and Aly) off the list!