A walk with Wish

How has it already been two full days since the All-Star Game?

We are returning to our regular routines, and I think the dog is pleased. Yesterday was R&R at home - I'm taking some vacation this week - and today I took Wish for a morning walk around Como Lake. I love walking him there: besides the pup loving the change in scenery, it's great for training because it's always busy (so he can practice and be rewarded for good behavior) but not too crowded.

We usually go in the afternoons, so it was neat to see the lake in the morning.

Wish was zigzagging all over the path at the start - I think he was trying to smell both sides of the trail at once - but settled into a more even and moderate trot soon enough. Near the end of our loop, we sat down for a little break. It seemed like a good time for a picture.

I got up and watched the lake and wildflowers for a minute. Then I looked down and saw that my dog was hamming it up in hopes of getting a treat.

I love the little adventures with this goofball.

Now batting: the Peanuts crew

As a St. Paul runner, I've gotten accustomed to seeing Peanuts statues all over my running routes in the city in which Charles Schulz grew up. (I wrote about stumbling across one of my favorites back in March.) I love unique traditions like these that help tell a city's story, so I like these statues.

Yesterday I couldn't resist visiting 10 new Peanuts statues that arrived in St. Paul last month to celebrate the All-Star Game coming to Minnesota in July. (My household—Wish excluded—is very excited for this, and you'll likely be seeing more All-Star Game content from me in the coming weeks.) Major League Baseball has set up statues in past host cities with themes suited to each city (i.e. apples in New York City last year), and I have to guess that this year's theme was easy because 100 Peanuts statues are already installed around Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The plan was for the 10 new statues to stay in Rice Park for a couple of weeks before moving over to Minneapolis for the duration of the All-Star Game festivities. I heard about the statues when they were installed but didn't feel the urgency to visit them until this week, when the move was scheduled!

I ran over to Rice Park in downtown St. Paul and was delighted by what I saw—from "P. PATTY" on the back of Peppermint Patty's jersey to Snoopy's food dish to the Twins jerseys and All-Star Game-specific details.

It turns out that they moved over to Minneapolis later that day. My visit was just in time.

Garden update: Week 3

It's mid-June, and the community garden is officially in full swing. With the exception of herb plants, our plot isn't quite ready for any kind of harvest, but it looks like some gardeners are nearly ready to enjoy some kale and lettuce and Swiss chard.

Today marks three weeks exactly since I got everything planted, so it's time for an update! (I aspire to be more diligent about actual garden updates and not just garden pictures this year, because I do find myself looking back at last summer's post to see the timelines for the plants.)

Our community garden consists of two large circles. New this year: more structured versions of last year's fences. (They're cedar and smell great.)

Here's a view of our plot from above, a photo that I obtained by standing on a five-gallon bucket:

The key:

1) Grown from seed: purple beans and a few climbing bean plants (that will ideally climb up the fence)

2) A few more purple beans (not yet visible), planted last week

3) Hopefully some lettuce (also not yet visible, also started last week)

4) Onions

5) Rosemary

6) Tomato plant

7) Jalapeno pepper plant

8) Sage

9) Dill

10) Oregano

11) Tomato plant #2

12) The tiniest little basil plant, just out of the ground

13) Tomato plant #3

14) The second-tiniest basil plant, plus another round of 2-3 basil plants (once they pop out of the ground)

15) Tomato plant #4 (there's one cherry and one grape tomato plant among the four and of course I didn't mark which is which)

16) A new batch of purple beans, planted the same day as the green beans in location #2

Early highlights:

Three of the tomato plants I bought settled in well, especially one in particular that is growing wildly and has two flowers already:



The onions, part of a huge surplus batch (truly, dozens or maybe a hundred) that a neighbor dropped off for the gardeners:



The herbs are doing well, though the star so far is actually the lemon balm plant on our patio table back at home. That plant must have tripled in size since I potted it a few weeks back. Lemon balm is in the mint family, so I shouldn't be too surprised by its fast growth.

Anyway, sage at the garden, growing nicely:



I started basil from seed in between my tomato plants. It sprouted last week and is so tiny but without a doubt basil, and I felt excited that I didn't have to google images of tiny basil plant like I had to do last year with the green bean plants (to make sure they aren't weeds).

Also, those clover plants you see on the left side of the "view from above" photo (in between our plot and the next one to the left) are good for the soil - I think I'm getting the names and facts right here - but they were curving over one side of our plot and obscuring it. I noticed this on one visit last week and pushed it back a bit, freeing up about eight extra inches of gardening space on the plot's long edge!

Mixed success:

Purple beans: It feels wrong to put the beans in the "mixed success" category because they were the first seeds out of the ground. But even though they're growing well, they've been attacked by some creature that's making holes in the leaves. (You can kind of see the holes in the "view from above" photo.) The leaves aren't completely gobbled, so I'm crossing my fingers.

The dill plant was also part of a surplus donation, and it's not quite robust yet. One tomato plant is also in that category.

Less successful (or more accurately, not at all successful):

Lettuce and Swiss chard: Areas 2 and 3 on the map are still pretty quiet, and that's because I planted lettuce and Swiss chard that never sprouted. I think the problem is that I planted the seeds too deep. (The seed packet recommends just 1/8 of an inch under ground!)

Late last week, I tried again with more lettuce, in three even rows, so I'm hoping I'll see some progress soon. I used some of the space to plant another batch of purple beans, to stagger the plot's bean production.

To do:

• Buy and plant a poblano pepper plant.
• Try again with Swiss chard in the remaining free space.
• Bring a stake over for the pepper plant sometime soon.

That's the three-week update! If you have a garden, what successes and challenges are you seeing? What herbs or vegetables am I overlooking that I could still get settled in the remaining space next to the tomatoes? (And of course, if you are cringing at a mistake I'm making, definitely drop me an email or comment! I welcome all advice and tips!)

James J. Hill House tour

Earlier this year, I bought a Minnesota Historical Society membership. I've had wonderful experiences with the organization's museums (including the Mill City Museum and Minnesota History Center) as well as the Summit Avenue neighborhood tour and the F. Scott Fitzgerald-themed walking tour, and I'm excited to support its great work and learn more about history, locally and statewide.

Last week, I visited St. Paul's James J. Hill House for the first time!

James J. Hill was a railroad magnate who built the Great Northern Railway that connected St. Paul to Seattle in 1893. His mansion was finished in 1891, and he lived there with his wife and most of his 10 children. I'm learning more about houses (thanks to lots of HGTV) and one detail that floored me was that this home is not 5,000 square feet or 10,000 square feet, but 36,000 square feet. The tour guide—who also led the Fitzgerald tour I took!—did a delightful job of blending architectural details with stories about how the family used each space. The 75-minute tour surveyed all three floors plus the basement, though there are additional tours that take different angles (such as the Nooks and Crannies tour offered in the summers, which sounds great). Our group of six or seven also paused toward the end for a short video, played in the Hill boys' schoolroom, that provided some context about James J. Hill's work.

I didn't expect this, but knowing I could (and likely will) drop by sometime soon for another tour left me feeling more relaxed. Instead of trying to absorb every tidbit our tour guide told us, I'd think more about a story she had mentioned, imagine the house back in the 1890s, and notice more details that piqued my interest.

And, oh, the details were plentiful:

The end of the tour brought our group to one of the mansion's several porches. I have a soft spot in my heart for porches and I liked wrapping up the tour by visiting one of them.

If you can't already tell, I enjoyed the James J. Hill House tour greatly and highly recommend it. I loved learning some of the stories and history behind a Summit Avenue landmark I've passed by so many times.

Art crawl

On Friday night, my brother, sister, sister's boyfriend and I went to the semi-annual St. Paul Art Crawl to see two of our cousins, who are among more than 300 artists exhibiting their work this weekend in more than 17 buildings. We walked all over St. Paul's Lowertown and Downtown neighborhoods on a pretty spring evening.

 Along the way, we peeked inside the recently (and beautifully) renovated Union Depot, learned more about the neighborhood and Art Crawl's history, and got to see our talented cousins and their work. I've visited the Art Crawl before, but this year's visit (and reading about it afterward) gave me a better understanding of its significance, scope, and how it showcases the vibrant arts community here. It's a remarkable event.

Morning light

Early yesterday morning, I brought Josh to the airport and started my run as the sky was getting light.

The city was quiet and still in my early miles. I made my way over to the St. Paul skyline in time to see the sun actually lift over the horizon, one orange sliver at a time. In Minnesota's capital city, it reminded me of the peaceful sunrises in the Great Smoky Mountains and the Boundary Waters.

Through downtown St. Paul, that golden light was bouncing off the buildings, too.

On one bridge overlooking the Mississippi River, I noticed that what looked like debris in the water was actually patches of snow and ice floating downstream: another sign of spring.

I wanted to get a closer look, so I ran down to the bike path you can see in the picture above.

Total: 11 gentle miles on a quiet morning in early spring.

Snoopy's doghouse

One of the highlights of Saturday's run (besides seeing frozen Minnehaha Falls) was seeing my new favorite Snoopy doghouse, part of St. Paul's extensive collection of "Peanuts" statues. (The comic strip's author, Charles Schulz, grew up in St. Paul, and "Peanuts" debuted in the local papers here.)

This one, in front of Half Price Books in Highland Park, is called "It was a dark and stormy night."

Besides being really striking (and featuring clouds), I loved it because the walls are designed to look built from books, and each author's name on the book spine has been reworked to be dog-themed.

That means: Bark Twain, F. Scott Spitzgerald, St. Bernard Shaw, Virginia Woof, JK Growling and John Steinbark, among others.

I've likely driven by this little doghouse dozens of times, but it's really intended to be fully appreciated by pedestrians. I stopped midrun and must have stood there for two minutes laughing at the reworked names.

Week in review

During the workweek (Monday through Friday), between meetings and meet-ups with friends, I usually have plans on two or three evenings. This week's calendar was fuller than usual, and though I didn't plan it intentionally that way, the timing was good. I love my nights at home, and with the temperatures still low, low, low, my homebody tendency is more pronounced than usual this time of year. This week's plan was heavy on new activities and new places: just the ticket.

Monday night was a trip to the movies with Sara. We drove to a suburb to catch a screening of "That Awkward Moment" before it left theaters, primarily because we've been fans of Zac Efron since "High School Musical 2." (True story.) What did we find? $5.50 tickets and an empty theater.

Making plans to catch a weeknight movie was very fun, and I need to do that more often.

Next: thanks to my brother's suggestion, I attended my first Policy and a Pint, a monthly event hosted by The Current, the Twin Cities' member-sponsored radio station. This month's conversation was about the state of education in Minnesota - a set of issues about which I'm passionate - and the discussion, in front of a big audience at the Varsity Theater, was thoughtful and thought-provoking. I learned a lot from the panel's community members, and by the end of the evening, my head was full of more questions and ideas. I will be marking my calendar for future Policy and a Pint events.

Bonus: getting to spend time with my brother and sister in a neat venue.

Also, Josh is coaching baseball now, so most weeknights he's with the team at practice, but he had a new adventure of his own this week: he went to Costco for the first time and came home with a gigantic bag full of grapefruits for me!!

Later in the week: Ladies Night Out on Grand Avenue! Grand Avenue is a St. Paul street lined with shops and restaurants, and the avenue's business association organized a night with sales, specials, samples and that kind of thing. I met three friends at a salon for blowouts and makeup, and then we headed to dinner, with stops in between for a wine tasting and picking up a free spice at Penzey's. Leisurely strolling Grand Avenue is so nice in the warmer months, and this was a great reminder that it's still fun even when the weather is cold. (The strolling was just less leisurely.)

And today I went with Sara to see the American Swedish Institute's amazing Papercut! exhibit. It featured the work of a Danish artist named Karen Bit Vejle, as well as several other artists. The exhibit's link will give you a good sense of what papercutting looks like (its technical name is psaligraphy), but basically, it's the art of drawing with scissors (tiny scissors). Papercutting has a long tradition in Scandinavian countries, particularly in Denmark, and Hans Christian Andersen was well-known for his psaligraphy work.

I've loved the aesthetic of papercutting for a long time, before I actually knew the name for the art, and it was incredible to see the pieces up close and in person. The intricacy of the tiny details was stunning.

one example of Karen Bit Vejle's psaligraphy

I could not recommend this exhibit more highly. It was also our first visit to the American Swedish Institute, which is in Minneapolis and links a historic mansion to a modern gallery. The papercutting exhibit is in both areas, and the mansion also houses a more permanent exhibit on Swedish history and culture. It's a beautiful space.

This week's new experiences were a good antidote to our subzero days.

Shadow Falls: winter edition

On yesterday's run I ventured down to the Shadow Falls trail, a rare treat. This place is fairly new to me, but I have a soft spot in my heart for it because it's right in St. Paul, next to a busy road and pedestrian path, but it feels so quiet and peaceful. The little half-mile path leads to a waterfall, which I discovered last year in late March. Josh and I visited again in early June, but it was too muddy to get to the waterfall. (We also went there for some of our engagement photos later that month.)

Yesterday was the first time I've seen the area in the winter, covered in snow. The path was neatly packed down by the ice climbers, hikers and runners that use the trail in the winter. I ran over to the waterfall and looked at it (frozen and covered in snow!) from up high but didn't hike down to see it up-close.

First amazement: after an extremely cold winter, the creek is still open:



I think this stream will always remind me of our Tennessee hike back in November 2012, but the memory was even stronger this time because the stream was steaming, just like the creek in Tennessee had been steaming at the end of our hike.

Second amazement: the snow had frozen on the rocks in the prettiest way:

Third amazement: I haven't seen anything green in nature in months, but tucked in this little creek in the ravine, here we are:

I also loved the little footbridge at one stream crossing, covered in snow:

I only had a few minutes to explore, but I love rediscovering this place in each season.

Surprise swans

Reader, I am a Saturday morning long run fan through and through. But two degrees and a -20 windchill this morning had me leaning toward heading out tomorrow morning instead, after a forecasted overnight snowfall but with milder temperatures before the big winds and cold come back Sunday afternoon. (Big kudos, by the way, to all the runners who participated in a local half-marathon, 10K and 5K this morning!) By noon, the ship had all but sailed on the notion of me completing a run today.

You'll understand, then, how surprised I was at about 4 p.m. - after errands, shopping, crafts and a few HGTV shows about beach houses - to find myself thinking that it was a good time to see about that run.

I figured I should go with it, so I bundled up (the temperature had risen to seven degrees, with a light breeze) and scurried out to make the most out of the remaining daylight. I stayed pretty comfortable (thanks to my facemask) and enjoyed some peaceful miles around town.

In one Mississippi River crossing, I was admiring the St. Paul skyline from my bridge:

You can see there's a long open patch of water in the otherwise frozen-over river. When I got closer to the bridge's end, and thus closer to the open water, I noticed what appeared to be two swans!

I think the ice looks like coastline on a map, so I like to pretend that the swans are gigantic. Giant swans or not, this surprise fauna sighting was one of my favorite parts of a rare-for-me late afternoon weekend run.

A quiet weekend run

One of my favorite things about running is getting to see my city in different lights.

Specifically, seeing the neighborhoods on a weekend morning is particularly wonderful. Depending on where you are and when you're there, you might see lots of other runners, walkers and cyclists - or barely anyone at all.

Today's run fell into the latter category.

It's fun to get this look at a city that nearly 300,000 people call home.

Something new

On the parkway along the Mississippi River, at a spot where the road curves in a horseshoe shape near the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, there's a mysterious-to-me little trail that veers off into a ravine a few steps below the popular pedestrian path.

That isn't even new to me, exactly. I run on the river road often, as I've written before, and there's a sign at the little trail's start that briefs the reader about ice climbing somewhere down the path. As a runner who logs most of her miles alone, though, I'm not prone to ducking off a well-traveled path to explore a pretty isolated trail, so I think I had just stopped considering this trail an option. Today, though, I saw a big group of hikers trekking along the ravine below me, and on a whim, I decided to follow the well-defined path in the snow to check it out. What's down there?

Guess what? As I gleaned from quick internet research afterward, the little ravine has a name. It's a real park! It's called Shadow Falls Park.

And then I found what I have to guess is Shadow Falls! It was in seasonal transition, like the rest of the neighborhood. Ice-climbing wasn't remotely possible, but the ice wasn't gone, either. A persistent water stream was rushing over the rocks.

Here's exactly what I saw, which made me gasp dramatically. (I was having the best time.)

I crept closer:

And a little closer:

Standing next to the half-frozen waterfall, listening to water streaming down, on a cold and bright Sunday morning, in a silent space in my home state's capital city, steps from a path my feet have touched hundreds of times, I was in awe.

There is always something new to discover.

Night at the museum

To the museum we go! It's date night!

I'd been eyeing a couple of Minnesota History Center exhibits for ages and noticed recently that admission is free after 5 p.m. on Tuesday evenings. (Tonight's visit - spoiler alert! - sealed the deal that I simply must just  buy a Minnesota Historical Society membership because I want to support the good work that they do and also visit the History Center anytime.)

The big exhibit right now is called Then Now Wow and pulls together the "wow" moments that define Minnesota's history.

I had been a little uncertain of what to expect because the exhibit is billed as kid-friendly, but it really is just appropriate for everybody. It was, at a minimum, a great overview of what shaped Minnesota for both visitors and longtime residents. There are eras and events in this state's history covered that are challenging to process for people of any age, so in a way, I actually appreciated seeing them presented in a narrative that a wide range of ages could take in.

Anyway, there aren't enough adjectives for how fascinating I found the exhibit, both in terms of the content and how it was assembled. The whole experience is about as far away from the stereotypical quiet museum as you can imagine. It's multisensory and multilayered and interactive and brilliantly creative in conveying an enormous range of Minnesota experiences, people and events in one project. The level of detail is incredible. I was so impressed.

We both learned a lot. Josh gives a thumbs up to Minnesota:

And then we stumbled across a nearby exhibit that was all about Minnesota weather, and the whole visit got even better. Weather!

WEATHER PERMITTING!

Friends, I highly recommend a trip over to the History Center. I'll be back soon, hopefully with a membership card in my hand, because I need to see two more exhibits: Minnesota's Greatest Generation and The U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. (And maybe go back for another peek at the weather one, too.)

This Side of Paradise: A Summit Hill tour

Another neighborhood tour! Can you believe it?!

Recently I read in the newspaper that the Minnesota Historical Society was hosting tours of the Summit Hill neighborhood where F. Scott Fitzgerald grew up in honor of the writer's Sept. 24 birthday. This is the same organization that coordinated the walking tour Nat and I attended back in July, which we both thoroughly enjoyed. I clipped the event listing enthusiastically, posted it on my fridge, begged Natty to come back to Minnesota for the tour (my plea didn't work) and called that week to reserve my place!

(Can you tell, Reader, that there's absolutely no neutrality here? In the last year or so, I've figured out that I simply adore tours - and really, it's no surprise, because the idea fits so nicely with what Miles and Laurel is all about. I love walking around a neighborhood with an expert who tell me all kinds of things about the layers of history behind each place. Some bloggers want to get sponsored by companies that sell running gear or beauty projects or food or whatever. Can I figure out a way to get sponsored by historical societies and then just go on every tour in Minnesota?)

The tour started at the Commodore, a building near the intersection of Western and Summit. There were four tour times available for the weekend, and about 20-25 people had signed up for the early afternoon time slot. We split into two groups and got started.

Scott and his wife, Zelda, lived in the Commodore after being evicted from their White Bear Lake residences because of their raucous parties. Our guide said that his income spiked to coincide with the Jazz Age - a term that Wikipedia says Scott actually coined himself - and Scott and Zelda really lived it up during that era, including a great year in New York. (If the tour had been longer, I would've loved some more elaboration on that year!)

What I didn't realize before the tour was how many places in St. Paul connect to Fitzgerald, his family and his friends. Why is that, you ask? Well, Scott's maternal grandmother invested in real estate and had property around the area, his parents moved frequently, and he also simply just had a fab social life. He was born in St. Paul and left several times for reasons like boarding school, but St. Paul was a nostalgic place for him: after all, he brought Zelda back to St. Paul so their baby could be born here.

The tour was full of stories about how he spent his years in St. Paul, from attending dancing school before he was a teenager in the space on Grand Avenue now occupied by Ramaley Liquors to hanging out with friends on a porch that I run by often.

Here's our guide elaborating on those topics in front of one of his old girlfriend's houses:

Even though the tour covered some of the same ground from the neighborhood walking tour I took with Natty, I was surprised how little content was duplicated. I don't think the other one, for example, mentioned author Sinclair Lewis's former house!

My favorite stop was a building a few steps away from Summit and Dale. He had been away - in New York, I think - and moved back to Minnesota to live with his parents after a bad period of rejection, both personally and professionally. He told everyone he was ready to write a novel, and it sounds like his friends and family essentially smiled and nodded gently in response. He buckled down and wrote all summer in the third floor of their home, posting chapters on the walls, and soon got a letter that This Side of Paradise had been accepted for publication. Take that!

We also walked past some of the schools in the neighborhood, including the early campus of St. Paul Academy - again, close to Summit and Dale. (Excuse the power lines in the photo. Oops.)

I loved this part of the tour, too, because even though Scott was several years older than Coco from Through No Fault of My Own (the book I just read about a girl growing up on Summit during the Jazz Age) the tour connected some of the places Coco references in her diary entries. It felt like puzzle pieces fitting together right in front of me.

It was also fascinating because of what happened to the Summit Hill neighborhood after the Jazz Age hey-day. The whole neighborhood fell into terrible disrepair for many years - in fact, as one person on our tour told our guide, his parents basically called the streets we were walking through off-limits to him growing up because of the crime rate.

It's hard to get my mind around that idea, because today's Summit Hill houses are by and large beautifully restored. Beginning in the 1970s, an era of urban renewal began, and people began investing in the neighborhood again and restoring its houses. Before that time, our guide told us, even some of the houses with Fitzgerald connections could be bought for next-to-nothing, including the place where he wrote This Side of Paradise. I need to learn more about this era in St. Paul's history.

And maybe that's the mark, Reader, of a really good tour: one that simultaneously gives a lot of answers and begs more questions to dig into down the road. Tell me: What's the best tour you've ever taken, and why was it so good?