A great day with a great friend!

I really don't get out and enjoy Minnesota as much as I should/want to. There are so many pretty spots, and there are still tons of places I haven't been. Little hidden things that I wouldn't expect.

Today we went to Fort Snelling State Park.

View Fort Snelling State Park in a larger map

I would really like to visit Fort Snelling itself one day, but it's only open on Saturdays in Sept/Oct (and more in the summer) and I just haven't made it. The park, however, is open year round and would probably be excellent for skiing and stuff in winter. The park stretches to the south in the Minnesota river valley. There is an island called Pike Island which is where the blue marker is on the map and where we went today.


The Highway 5 bridge. I cross this thing all the time: airport, Mall of America, some ice rinks, etc etc. We walked right over it above a tunnel--you can't tell at all from the top that you're over a highway.


One of the buildings at Fort Snelling (where we started the day).


Totally need to go back when I can go in this stuff!


I believe this is the highway 55 bridge--from where you have an amazing view of both downtowns, St Paul and Minneapolis. I really want to walk across it someday but we went about four miles already today so it wasn't gonna be on this trip. Now I know how to get there!


Kara looking adorable, on the bridge to cross over to Pike Island.


~Historical marker~


We were walking through woods like these for a long time.


Then we came out along the Minnesota river, which we walked along for awhile.


Until we got to the spot where the Minnesota (right) and the mighty Mississippi (left) meet. Nice little confluence (zing!).


Looking back up the Minnesota.


And up the Mississippi.


We saw several deer on the island.

Then we went for dinner. We visited the Groveland Tap because they had....

Poutine!! Poutine is a Canadian food (Quebecois originally) which is fries with gravy and cheese curds. This poutine had beef and veggies on it--it was delicious even though I wasn't expecting the extra stuff. We also split a bacon cheeseburger which was amazing as well.

Then we traveled to this place called Shish on Grand--I will definitely go back someday for real food because they had a million delicious things listed.

We had this turtle cheesecake--the part with caramel was DELICIOUS but I wish the caramel had continued under the nuts :(

All in all, a great Minnesota Sunday. <3