On 09/27/2011 01:46 AM, Maarten Lankhorst wrote:
Hey Scott,
On 09/27/2011 08:41 AM, Scott Ritchie wrote:
Against my better judgement I thought it would be neat to give myself an extra day to tour Minnesota. Anyone else not leaving until late Monday? What do I do?
Ask jwhite about the secret boat codeweavers boat trip. ;)
It's a secret!!
No boat ride this year, I'm afraid - we're pinching pennies atm :-(.
But we were thinking of doing something informal Sunday night at our office for anyone still in town.
In no particular order, here's a list of fun stuff that would be easy and relatively easy to get to:
Museums: Walker Art Center / Sculpture garden - 15 minute walk to see the iconic spoon bridge + cherry sculpture garden. The Walker is also a good museum of modern art. Mill City Museum. Learn about the explosive power of flour. (This is not the greatest museum in the world, but is kind of a fun one, with real local color and history). Minneapolis Institute of Arts - traditional art museum (this one is a bit further afield)
Theater: We have a zillion good theaters in town (we are #2 per capita behind New York, and the #3 overall theater town in the US). The Guthrie is beautiful and worth a trip; there are a number of other theaters close to the hotel.
Music: We've got a lot of great live music, although not sure there will be much on a Monday.
Outdoors: The JJ Hill bridge and upper lock & damn down by the river would make a nice visit, as would the sculpture garden. But a great outdoor jaunt would be to snag one of the 'nice ride' bikes (they're everywhere; easy to rent) and go for a ride. Ride along the river to Minnehaha falls, or maybe down to Lake Calhoun; you can probably even go by Uptown for a change of pace.
We apparently just slipped in our ranking; we're now the #4 bike commuting city in the US :-(. But we've still got good trails, and the leaves are going to be perfect this weekend.
Sports: Our big name teams are all not playing, so I don't think we've got anything there. Sorry.
Shopping: There's the mall, of course. But you've done that. Downtown has Macy's, the galleria; loads of shopping, actually.
Local thang: The skyway system. One thing that might be worth a little bit of your time is to wander the skyway system - the largest private skyway in the world. You can traverse much of downtown without going outside (something you'd value more in January).
That would likely be fun to wander for a bit on a Monday.
Cheers,
Jeremy