Minnesota - Day 8 - Rochester and Twin Cities

Minneapolis Northwest KOA, Maple Grove

Thursday, 8 September 2022

Because I knew it might be a long day today, I left the campground at 7:00.

today's route

On the way into Rochester, I was changing lanes and didn't see a car that was in the right lane.  I almost hit it, seeing it only at the last minute.  The weird part was the driver didn't honk to warn me - he just looked at me.  I've been noticing the people in Minnesota seem to be trying to prove Americans can be as nice as Canadians, because most of the people I've met have been very nice indeed.  But not honking when you're about to get hit by a big vehicle seems to be going a little too far.

Central Park in Rochester

We spent a little time in Rochester, pop. 121,395, stopping first at Central Park.  This is an old park - a plaque there said it's the first park in Rochester and the land was donated in 1856 (the town was founded in 1854).

Rochester has a series of one-way streets that made getting to the park a little tough, and then driving around town was also tricky.  Since I was here, I wanted to see the Mayo Clinic, which turns out to include quite a few buildings, none of which I could get to because of a lack of parking for vehicles like mine (parking garages don't work for us).

In particular I'd heard there was an exhibit called The Transparent Man that the Mayo Clinic sponsored at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair.  And it is still being exhibited by the Mayo Clinic, but now in the basement of one of its buildings.  Sadly, that meant I needed to park to get to it and, because Rochester's downtown seems to be quite busy, I'd have to park some distance away and walk back (without Dext), and I just wasn't sure this exhibit was worth the hassle.  If I come back with a parking-garage-friendly vehicle, I'd definitely go.  Here's a link to a photo and some history of the statue.   https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/1933-flashback-transparent-man

And then north-ish we went, heading toward the Twin Cities.  We crossed the Zumbro River 3 times, and passed through a town called Pine Island (founded 1857) which is not an island but was named for a Native American word meaning "isle of pines," which I guess referred to the trees in the area.

And then shortly, we came to the town of Zumbrota, named for the Zumbro River, where a historic covered bridge still serves as a pedestrian bridge over the river.  I didn't know it was there until I passed the sign and wished I'd known before so I could have made the turn.  Built in 1869, it's the last functioning covered bridge in Minnesota.  Pine Island and Zumbrota are in farming country, and the Dairy Farmers of America have a large facility in Zumbrota.

We passed the town of Cannon Falls, pop. 4,220, and then the Cannon River.  I was just beginning to think the towns in this area were all more populous than I'd found heading south to Lake Louise when I came to Coates, pop 147.

Near the St. Paul area, a sign told me I'd come back to the Great River Road.  This is the route I followed, when I could find it, in all the states I've visited that border the Mississippi River.  The headwaters for the river are here in Minnesota and I have plans to visit them in a few days.

West St. Paul has 20,759 residents; East St. Paul has 20,615 residents (do you suppose they divvy them up evenly?) and then I was in St. Paul itself, with a population of 311,527.  The downtown area is very attractive, and I saw 4 of these overhead walkways.

It occurred to me that the walkways might be needed to encourage pedestrians to come downtown in the middle of winter, to keep them from having to fight through snow and ice which are apparently plentiful here.

The state capitol was easy to find but hard to get to, and this was as good an angle as I could get for a photo.

Minnesota State Capitol

This is an extreme enlargement of the figures above the entrance.

An actual recognizable picture is at this link   https://www.mnhs.org/capitol plus an explanation of its significance.  To me the most significant part is that the sculpture was created by Daniel Chester French, best known for his statue of Pres. Lincoln that stands in the Lincoln Memorial.

A mile or so from the capitol is the Cathedral of St. Paul.  In a way, that was more accessible and in another way, it wasn't at all.  This is the only photo I got.

I think it's a chapel or something similar - it's attached to the back of the sanctuary.  But the front door of the church faces onto a very busy street with zero place even to pause, so I downloaded this photo from the internet.

Cathedral of St. Paul

Amazing-looking building, isn't it?  It was built 1906-1915, and that dome is made of copper.

Immediately behind the church buildings is an oldish apartment house, followed by some other oldish houses.  When I was going around the block to try to get an angle on the church, I found a nice neighborhood park and stopped to take Dext out.  It didn't take him much longer than a minute to find and eat something that was definitely not food, so I hustled him back into the RV.  I can't figure out any other way of explaining to him that's not allowed, but it doesn't seem to be very effective.  I'm a lot more comfortable with positive reinforcement than negative - it's more pleasant for both of us and I think it works better.  But the best positive reinforcement for him is a treat, and he considers the contraband he's eating as a treat, so he keeps doing it.

Anyway, we didn't get to walk around the park as I'd hoped.

That whole area around the cathedral is full of massive old mansions and row houses and oldish apartment buildings.  Unusual mix.

From there we headed west, past the MSP airport, crossing the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers and historic Ft. Snelling at their confluence.  When I have more time, I'd like to visit Ft. Snelling; oddly, it figured in a historic US Supreme Court decision.  The camp doctor had bought Dred Scott in Missouri (where slavery was legal) and brought him up to Ft. Snelling in Minnesota (where slavery was illegal, though apparently allowed at the fort).  An account of Mr. Scott's experience and court case is at this link   https://en.wikipedia.org/Slavery-at-the-fort  In its Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, the Supreme Court overturned an entrenched precedent of "once free, always free."  The injustice of this decision was a contributing factor in the onset of the Civil War.

I would just note that it's extremely rare for the Court to take away a right that had previously been well-established.  And when it does, it often leads to tremendous societal upheaval.  I am not one of those who thinks we're headed for another civil war, but I'm not blind to the upheavals throughout our society today.  It's becoming quite clear that when the Court overturned Roe v. Wade a few months ago, that decision sparked more long-term changes than many expected at the time.  In that very limited sense, the Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision will come to share a place in history with the truly ghastly Dred Scott v. Sandford decision.

I was headed for the complete opposite end of our societal spectrum: the Mall of America®.  As far as I could tell, the Mall was a little like the Mayo Clinic in that it seemed to include several buildings of several stories each and multiple parking garages, none of which I could access.  And as with the Clinic, I just wasn't interested enough to park in a lot a fair distance away and leave Dexter (who would probably bark) just to go see rampant commercialism.  Though again as with the Mayo Clinic, I'd like to come back some time in a parking-garage-friendly vehicle to see it.

The entire Twin Cities area - and especially Minneapolis, pop. 429,954 - is a maze of highways and elevated roadways.  Very fortunately Google's directions were accurate and got me through town with my temper intact.  I would have liked to see more of the city, but without having a specific place to go see I found the city intimidating.  Not sure why and I'll look forward to coming back sometime.

I headed northwest through comparatively smaller towns - Brooklyn Center, pop. 33,782 and Brooklyn Park, pop. 86,478 and Maple Grove, pop. 70,253  - heading to the county's recycling dropoff center.  Unfortunately, when they learned I didn't have a residence in their county, they refused to accept my recycling.  I pointed out I didn't have a residence anywhere except in my RV, but that we'd be temporary residents in this county for several nights at the campground - but that didn't do the trick.  They gave me firm directions for how to get out of their facility and gave me the address and directions to another dropoff site.  Which I followed.  And discovered all I could drop off there was trash.  My clean recycling materials aren't trash, so I headed back to a grocery store and my next campground.

I was seriously disappointed not to be able to get rid of the 2 trash bags I have full of #1 plastics that aren't bottles, but I'll keep carting them around (and starting a 3rd bag) because I know I'll eventually find someplace to take them.

It wasn't far after noon when we got to the campground, and we'll be staying here for several days.  I'm hoping for a wifi signal and some sleep.