Preserve Minneapolis walking tour

I branched out to more walking tours!

After how much I enjoyed the Minnesota Historical Society's Summit Avenue tours, I wondered if other Twin Cities organizations offered similar excursions. Late last summer I discovered Preserve Minneapolis, a group dedicated to identifying and preserving the city's historic architecture. A big part of its mission also includes creating educational opportunities for the general public: A couple of months ago, I attended my first event with the organization: the regular Breakfast with a Preservationist event, held every other month at the Mill City Museum. (A Happy Hour with a Preservationist event is held in months that don't feature the breakfast discussion!)

In addition to these year-round events, Preserve Minneapolis also coordinates more than two dozen walking and biking tours around Minneapolis each summer. When I first read about the tours last summer, they were all sold out, so as soon as this year's schedule was available, I chose my first one: the "East Hennepin: Behind the Scenes" walking tour of Northeast Minneapolis.

An excerpt from the website's description of the tour:

"The bustling commercial district surrounding East Hennepin Avenue has hosted many names throughout the years, but everyone knows its unforgettable landmarks: Surdyk’s, Nye’s, Kramarczuk’s, Historic Main Street, and Our Lady of Lourdes Church. . . .  The last decade has brought dramatic change and the area around East Hennepin is now considered one of the trendiest and most exciting places in Minneapolis to eat, shop, and live. Fortunately, the area has managed to maintain its old-world flavor to this day. Join us for a “behind-the-scenes” history of the busy streets, unique businesses, and colorful people that have shaped this popular walking neighborhood."

The tour was set for a Sunday morning that happened to feature an ominous forecast. I drove over to Northeast in steady rain that turned into an on-and-off rain for the first part of our tour before the clouds cleared out by the conclusion. (Rain isn't a problem for the tours, but they are cancelled if there's lightning.) Lots of umbrellas in the early stages made for a spread-out group, especially since there were about 18 of us on the tour.

One of the tour's overarching themes was the neighborhood's layers: different cultural influences shaped by immigration waves, businesses and storefronts that ebb and flow and change. I was aware of the neighborhood's strong Eastern European heritage, but I didn't know that the neighborhood includes the city's oldest church, which was founded by French Canadian settlers and continues to connect to its deep French heritage.

That's Our Lady of Lourdes Church, its steps and doors with the fleur de lis symbol visible in this picture of our group (in the rain):

As we walked along the route, covering about 10 blocks, many of our stops included explanations of the layers of businesses and history that preceded a given space's current occupant. As promised in the tour description, the guides also talked to us about longstanding, well-known and well-loved Northeast institutions such as Surdyk's liquor store, Nye's Polonaise Room and Kramarczuk's Sausage Company. 



Across the street from modern condominiums, the interesting give and take between old and new continued: the tour ended in Chute Square at the Ard Godfrey House - per that website, the oldest surviving frame home in the Twin Cities. It's a space I've run by many times and always wondered about its history.



One of the tour's memorable highlights was our knowledgeable guides: two longtime Northeast residents that made the tour richer and stronger because of how much they love their neighborhood. The 75-minute tour was a great introduction to the area that also showed me how much more there is to learn about the neighborhood, its intricate history and its current era of development. It was only my first Preserve Minneapolis event - but if that was representative of the others, I'll be back for more.

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.

101 in 1,001 update: February 2014

With just over six months to go in my 101 in 1,001 list, I've checked off a few items since my last update. I think I'm at 56/101 complete now, with 17 more in progress!

Here's what I checked off the list this month:

#33 Go to a hot air balloon festival
Josh and I went to the Hot Air Affair balloon festival earlier this month, and it was amazing. I will jump at any chance to attend another hot air balloon festival.

#63 See my out-of-state friends at least once a year
My trip to Washington, D.C., earlier this month completed this goal! I didn't visit these friends simply to check an item off the list, obviously, but keeping this goal on the list reminded me how important it is to take care of these friendships.

#88 Participate in a soup exchange with friends
A few weeks back, Sara and I planned a soup exchange that she hosted at her house. Here's how it worked: six or seven households each brought a pot of soup and several containers. Sara had soup on the stove when everyone arrived, and we enjoyed soup and bread and salad before the soup exchange began. Then everyone introduced their soup (I brought a Moosewood chili), and each person got to choose three soups to bring home in the containers they had brought. It was very fun to have different soups for lunch that week, and it felt like a little treat from each person. Speaking of the guests: another neat aspect of the party was that none of the guests knew more than a couple of the other guests - we all just knew Sara - but the soups were a good icebreaker. I think it'd be a fun way to bring friends from different parts of your life together for a party.

In progress or about to be in progress:

#23 Visit the dentist four times
This month I notched my third visit since beginning the list. One more trip in August and I'm done! (With the goal, not with visiting the dentist.) Honestly, it has been good to have this item on the list to get me in a regular routine (because there's no good reason not to).

#38 Learn 10 phrases in a new language. I haven't picked my language yet, but when I was in Washington, Ellie showed me this website, Transparent Language's Word-a-Day, that she likes. I'm going to explore this goal soon.

#42 Research three issues in current events. I wrote this goal with the moment in mind when you say to yourself, I have absolutely no idea what's going on with [fill in the blank]. This week I am learning all about bitcoins.

#82 Cook one new recipe per month. This ongoing goal has been one of my favorites, both as motivation to seek out new recipes and a place to collect them. (And I just realized I haven't tried a new recipe yet for February! Luckily and coincidentally, perusing Cooking Light this morning yielded a ton of prospects.)

Here's the list so far: January 2012: bacon-butternut pasta, February 2012: samosa pie and daal with vegetables, March 2012: mini ham and cheese quinoa cups and quinoa mac and cheese, April 2012: sweet corn and quinoa with honey-lemon vinagrette, May 2012: salted nut roll bars, June 2012: caprese lasagna, July 2012: blueberry corn muffins, August 2012: pulled pork tacos, September 2012: Jamaican pumpkin soup, October 2012: pumpkin bread, November 2012: tortellini with pumpkin alfredo sauce, December 2012: chewy ginger cookies, January 2013: roasted potato soup, February 2013: spicy sausage pasta, March 2013: best birthday cake, April 2013: lemon blueberry marble cake, May 2013: southwestern quinoa and black bean casserole, June 2013: cilantro pesto, July 2013: zucchini-basil lasagna, August 2013: tomatillo salsa verde, September 2013: sweet corn and bacon skillet mac and cheese, October 2013: lasagna soup, November 2013: pecan pie, December 2013: vanilla-bourbon peanut brittle, January 2014: slow-cooked carnitas

#96 Learn three poems by heart. I have a few poems sitting next to my computer on my desk, ready to be memorized.

In the "oops" category:
I tried to make a snowman one day last week (that's #13 on the list) when it was warmer and the snow around me was too deep to get it started. Yikes. There are 21 inches of snow on the ground. The snowman will have to wait.

This has been a very long and cold winter, and having a ready-made list of ideas and projects on which I can draw has been just one of the list's unexpected added bonuses. But I am ready to shift my focus to the spring and summer goals. Cartwheel, here I come?!

En español

My second Community Ed class of 2013 is underway!

The last time I studied Spanish formally was when I was 19, and I was comfortable with the language: proficient, though certainly not fluent. I spent three weeks in Ecuador during my sophomore year of college and got a glimpse of the linguistic strides that would be possible by spending a full semester abroad, but I ended up deciding to focus on internships back in the Twin Cities instead.

I graduated and years went by, and I slowly but surely grew less and less comfortable with Spanish - in particular, with speaking. Even now, I still feel okay with reading and writing in Spanish, and can grasp most conversations, but without regular practice, my spoken Spanish has really floundered.

No longer! (Well, I hope.)

For many reasons, I signed up for a weekly intermediate Spanish conversation class. The "intermediate" tag scared me, but the course description seemed appropriate. Even so: I was nervous.

But once you're in class, what are you going to do? Hedge a timid excuse about how you're lousy at speaking Spanish? No, you're going to speak Spanish as best you can, with the understanding that if you keep doing just that, it's going to get easier. That's how it went. Just getting back into the mode of listening and talking in Spanish for 90 minutes was immensely productive: I was surprised by how many verbs and vocabulary came back once it was apparent that falling back on English wasn't really an option (in a low-pressure way). The teacher, who was great, taught probably 90 percent of the class in Spanish, pausing to explain points once in awhile in English. His focus is on getting us to practice talking, and with only five or six other students, it's clear that we'll chat a lot.

A lot came back, but I also had a funny little wake-up about how I had changed since the last time I studied the language: when I was 19, I had no use beyond the basic words for topics on cleaning, cooking, pets and marriage. I clearly did not spend a lot of time musing about these topics in that life stage, because when those topics came up in class, I was barely equipped to discuss them. (Nobody had much to say about cleaning, though!)

I told Josh afterward that even if the class wasn't good, it would still be productive to spend 90 minutes per week in an all-Spanish environment. But I'm happy, of course, that it's better and more than just that. I'm very excited for the next five weeks.

Marvelous Monday: Week 15

Yesterday's inclement weather motivated me to hibernate for the bulk of the day and thus set me up to start the week feeling recharged and rested. We also took a family self-portrait:

Wish looks more dismayed than he actually is, although he didn't know at that time that we had postponed his "spa day" (trip to get his nails clipped and paw fur trimmed) because of the weather. I hope that will happen tonight.

Onward with Marvelous Monday!

1) Last week, I posted about one set of friends expecting their baby to arrive shortly. It turned out that, in the last week, two sets of friends welcomed sweet baby boys, thanks to one's early arrival. I'm so happy for both sets of new parents and their families and so excited to meet the babies.

2) I finally, finally signed up for a Spanish class, and it begins this week. Yeep. I am nervous, but it's time to start slowly getting back up to speed with this language.

3) I'm devouring (ha!) Julia Child's memoir My Life in France. My most recent read, Cheryl Strayed's Tiny Beautiful Things, was exquisite and extraordinary and I'm hoping to pull together a separate post with some of my takeaways. By contrast, My Life in France is a lighter read, but a marvelous change in pace, especially if you like to picture the narrative in Julia Child's voice, which I do. It's also fascinating to consider that all of this culinary icon's passion for France and French cooking (really, cooking in general) didn't develop until she was nearly 40. Her joy for all of it really comes through and the level of detail is great, thanks in part to drawing on tons of letters that Paul and Julia exchanged with friends and family. (I love letters.) She also concludes some passages with one-word summary exclamations, like "Woe!" and "Marvelous!" and "Yum!" which I also love and might have to start doing more at M&L.

4) It's Boston Marathon Day! For several years (I originally typed "for much of my adult life" but felt silly about that), qualifying for the Boston Marathon was a huge goal for me. It hasn't happened yet and it's definitely not the focus of my running right now (though maybe it will be again someday). Regardless, I still always get a few chills on this day on behalf of thousands of people getting to run this race. So many people have worked so hard to qualify, and I can't imagine the thrill of being on that start line.

5) It's my dear mom's birthday this week. We're not celebrating all together until later in the month, but she deserves a full month of celebrating. That's how wonderful she is.

What's marvelous in your world today, Reader? Anything new on your reading list? Do you speak a second language? And if you live in Minnesota, were you out and about yesterday or were you cozy indoors? Do share!

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.)

Visiting Montreal (Part II)

Bienvenue to the Part Two of my Montreal trip recap: some of the visit's highlights! (P.S. In case you missed it, yesterday's recap focused on the miles I logged during the trip.)

This was my first visit to Montreal, and I was so excited about it: both for the conference I'd be attending and the chance to explore such a historic and cosmopolitan city. Basically, the word was that Montreal is about as close to a European city as one could find in North America. I did some research and figured my group would spend most of our time in the Old Town, the historic district known for its Very Old buildings and cobblestone streets. I was lucky to be able to squeeze in exploring in the morning (on my runs), during the generous lunch breaks, and after conferences sessions wrapped up for the day in the early evening.

First, it is mega-easy to get around Montreal, at least the neighborhoods linked by the Metro. In the last several decades, Montreal has implemented a pretty extraordinary underground city with 19 miles (and counting) of a tunnel system over just four or five square miles. They're tunnels, but they're big: they include subway stations, boutiques, restaurants and offices. It feels basically like being in a mall, and it functions like Minneapolis' skyway system: you can get all over the city without going outside.

This is the interior of one entrance at night. It's a big decorative pool, and the windows you see are all offices.

We walked a lot because the Old Town historic district was only about 10 minutes from our hotel, but we did take two subway trips. Very easy and very convenient.

And now: my top five highlights from the trip!

1) Well, Old Town was really fun. (I heard it called Old Montreal, Old Town, and Old City while I was there, so I think they're interchangeable.) It was the natural sight-seeing destination, a must-see go-to collection of historic buildings, fun restaurants, and sweet boutiques.

And cobblestones. Lots and lots of serious cobblestones. High heels should never be worn in Old Montreal.

Like I wrote yesterday, it was especially easy to picture nineteenth-century Montreal in the morning, without too many cars on the streets. The evening had the same effect.

Actually, with the exception of our first visit to Old Town, the streets were so much quieter than I expected. My hunch is that the city's tourist season wraps up pretty completely at the end of September - some of the tours I investigated ran daily through September and then stopped altogether during the off-season. It looked like a wonderful place to visit in the summer, with rooftop patios all over. By mid-October, though, the crowds had definitely dissipated. Downtown, I should note, was another story entirely - at the start and end of the the workday, the commuters packed the streets like any major city.

Old Town had a charm for sure.

2) I got to try poutine!

Poutine is a dish that came out of Quebec and can be made in lots of different ways, but it's traditionally three items: French fries, covered in gravy and cheese curds. This combination sounds dicey, and I would never post a picture of it, because a photo obviously wouldn't do it justice. But it was good. Really good. Surprisingly good.

And it's all over Montreal at the city's cafes, too!

Montreal is a fantastic food city and I ate great food like crepes and the baked vegetable soup, but I will remember my first batch of poutine for a long time.

3) On my first run in Montreal, I passed a beautiful stationery shop: Essence du Papier. I went back later, and it was wonderful. I picked out my holiday cards (and had to leave about four boxes of next-best choices behind) and also ended up with a few new notebooks. It was inspiring and exciting to see all the different cards, papers, pens, and notebooks.

4) We walked by the Notre Dame Basilica on our evening walking tour and went into the cathedral later in the trip. Here's the outside at night:

It was the most magnificent cathedral I ever expect to see. It's gigantic in its structure and exquisite in its details, and the whole space is even more striking once you learn that it only took five years to build, from 1824 to 1829.

5) Finally, the French language, the city's official language. I didn't speak a word of French before I left, and I think it was the first time I've traveled to a place where the language wasn't one I spoke fluently or had studied. Even more interesting: how thoroughly bilingual the city and its people are. The street signs and menus and billboards and television stations are all in French, sometimes with English in a smaller type size below the French. Every waiters or storeclerk with whom we spoke could switch seamlessly, without fail, between flawless French and English. I kept thinking how impressed I was each time I saw this, but by the end of the short trip, it was clear that this bilingual model was simply the standard - which was almost even more impressive. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it.

The days were so full, and I left Montreal yesterday with lots of ideas and inspiration - both from the conference and the city hosting it.

Night at the museum

I used to travel a lot for work, especially in the fall, and one of the many takeaways from that experience - in addition to a precise ranking of my favorite Hampton Inn breakfasts - was how to get around completely by myself. (I'm sure I've written about this before, but it's teeing up the story of my evening, okay?) Part of that was the actual logistics: carrying a folder full of Google maps, navigating different regions of the United States in a rental car, and mapping out a schedule for each day that would fit everything in. But another part was learning, more broadly, about how to be an independent traveler on her own for long stretches of time. I grew comfortable with going to a restaurant on my own and carving out sightseeing during sporadic windows of free time alone.

That lesson has been a valuable one, and it stayed with me. Even without that travel schedule now, while I obviously love spending time with the great people in my life, I also quite like time spent puttering around town solo: checking out movies, exhibits, the farmers market, and so on.

Tonight was just one of those nights. My friend (and M&L reader) Katie had given me a heads-up, based on my love of Just My Type: A Book About Fonts, that tonight was Third Thursday: TypoGraphic at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. (Love, love, love tips and recs that come from things I post on this blog. Thanks, Katie!)

Every Thursday, the museum stays open until 9 p.m., and there are fun themes every third week. This month's was the result of a partnership with AIGA Minnesota, basically a professional association for design. There was a pop-up exhibit featuring some of the organization's award winners, a printing studio, a public font creation project, and so on. It was really neat to see the award-winning design projects collected in the span of a few tables. It was a great way to learn more about design - not just seeing billboards and magazine spreads and television ads every day, but in an intentional space showcasing some top-notch work. Super cool.

What turned out to be my favorite part of the evening, though, happened when I got to the museum a little earlier than I expected. I had brought a book in case I wanted to sit outside and read, but then the little lightbulb went off in my head. Hello! You are at an amazing art museum, open for visitors, to which you rarely go. Only you would think about reading a book instead of going into the museum.

As it turns out, a museum such as the MIA is the perfect place to let your mind wander and wonder and stretch. I felt more creative just being in that space.

I perused all kinds of art, from all different eras and places. Sometimes I paid attention to the context next to the art. I love the tidbits each card reveals, like this one:

The figure it's talking about, the man in the red coat, is a pretty key feature of the painting. I tried to imagine the thought process behind adding him in, two hundred years after the original was finished. You know what this painting could really use? A man in a red coat.

Other times I looked around at the museum itself:

The light and layout are just gorgeous.

All this beautiful space, about a mile away from bustling downtown Minneapolis!

It was a really nice way to spend a Thursday evening: a little out-of-the-ordinary but still relaxing, a quiet place to see hundreds of years of creative work from all over the world in one space.

Exploring the Mill City

Here at Miles and Laurel, Tuesday brings a recap of my family's field trip over the weekend to the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis.

First, it's important to outline how this field trip took shape. We had been throwing around the idea of the museum ever since my dad went there and recommended it highly for a family field trip.  Then, one day, I went into yoga class and came out an hour later to find, like, 600 texts on my cell phone.  The entire event had been settled via text.  Who are you, and what have you done with my family!?

What's even more extraordinary: this all happened, like, 72 hours before our field trip. It appeared that a free block of time had magically floated onto six adults' schedules on Sunday afternoon.

Josh and I hosted brunch at our place first, to celebrate my mom's upcoming birthday and kick off the festivities, and then we all went over to the museum.

Here it is!!
 

I'd like to host a caption contest for this next photo. My best guess is that my sister is blissfully dreaming about what the museum might have in store for us. (I also think, in the background, that Josh is pounding the parking meter, which was being difficult.)

The museum is in the city's warehouse district has loads of beautiful historic buildings that have been restored and renovated into condos and lofts. I love the big windows and the stone.  I would definitely love to have those windows, so I like to look at the buildings, and sometimes I like to take pictures of them. 

Until Josh reminds me that I am essentially taking photos into peoples' homes.

I have definitely posted pictures on M&L of the Washburn A Mill, which forms the back side of the museum, because I think it's one of the most striking views I see on a run along the Mississippi Riverfront.  But I never really knew anything about it!

You are used to seeing it from this vantage point, taken from the river road by the Stone Arch Bridge:

What do you think the view looks like from way up there, on the eighth floor?

I'll show you!  (Cue sighs of relief.)

That view is courtesy of one of my favorite parts of our trip to museum: the Flour Tower, a multimedia elevator tour to the eighth floor that took about 15 minutes. It was beautifully done snapshot of the mill's history. The elevator would stop intermittently at different floors, and the doors would open to show various scenes from around the mill. Sometimes footage or audio interviews about working in the mill would play. I learned a ton during the Flour Tower.

I should back up! Minneapolis, as I mentioned earlier this month, was known as the Flour Milling Capital of the World for about 50 years around the turn of the 20th century because of the milling industry, thanks to the water power generated by the nearby Mississippi River. The city's population grew exponentially during that time, but after World War I, the use of electricity became more widespread and applicable in mills and factories, and the river's proximity wasn't so special anymore. The Washburn A Mill, which is where the museum is today, closed in 1965 and nearly wrecked by fire in 1991. (I definitely didn't know that the mill's ruins were caused by such a recent fire.) Later, we went into another room and watched a 19-minute video about the history of Minneapolis, narrated by local playwright Kevin Kling. That was fabulous, too. Every Minnesotan should visit this place.

There are big, big views on the eighth floor (see my mom doing her best ape impression below) and it looks down on the skeleton of the mill, now part of the museum's event space. There are large windows and lots of brick above ground, and in the lower levels, there are loads of exhibits about the river, the history of the people who settled there, food, flour, baking, milling, and water power. There's also a wonderful gift shop.

Okay, here are some more pictures of the things I just described:

I definitely don't remember the last time my family and I went to a museum together, let alone one that none of us (except for my dad) had ever visited. And let alone one that focused on such an integral part of the history of the urban area I call my home. Like the Desert Museum in Tucson, this struck the jackpot of being appealing for all kinds of audiences: families, all ages, solo travelers, and so on.  That's the mark of a fantastic museum.

My family loves our birthday celebrations and dinners, but over the last year or so, we've started striving to go on more adventures together.  (Kayaking and bowling - check!) You may also recall (actually, you probably won't, unless you've memorized my list, which would be odd) that this field trip fell into two 101 in 1,001 list items:

• #65 Do a new activity with my family
•  #39 Go to three new-to-me museums

After we left the museum, my dad mentioned that I must have checked at least one item off my list that day, and I said I actually had covered two but had to decide which one to count it toward. (My family advocated for checking off both!  Non!  Guys, we have until Sept. 28, 2014!)

I decided that I enjoy my family's newfound adventurous spirit so much that I have faith we'll find another field trip before the 1,001 days are done (and hopefully more than one!). Thus, let the Google document show: I have visited a new-to-me museum!
Kudos to my dad for this great idea. You must check this place out!

P.S. Does your family have any adventures that we could try? Anything you'd love to do with your family but haven't had the chance yet?  Comment away!