Abby and Jill in Minnie

Here is more of the weekend summary in pictures, words and links...

Dinner on the roofdeck of the Bedlam Theatre.

Saturday morning (afternoon) started with shopping and tasting the many, many artisan offerings of the Mill City Farmers Market vendors. This particular farmer's market holds true to its stated mission:

Our mission is to promote local, sustainable and organic agriculture, increasing economic opportunities for farmers, urban youth, small businesses and food artisans.

Jill, Abby and I enjoyed a DELICIOUS breakfast of blueberries, raspberries, 2 kinds of bread and 2 kinds of goats milk cheese all purchased from vendors at the market.

The market is couched between and among the ruins/entryway of the Mill City Museum and the new Guthrie Theater building. After breakfast, we headed over to the Guthrie entrance to play with our reflections.

Then, we headed up to the Endless Bridge. This was the highlight of the building for me. The placement and shapes of the windows serve the exact purpose the architect intended: they force you to look at all of the awesome things in the area of the city that surrounds the building.

The view from one side looks towards the new 35W bridge. It just so happens that we were there on the 2nd anniversary of the collapse of the previous 35W bridge.

One of the views from the other side of the bridge is of the Gold Medal Flour sign. This sign was our most photographed icon during the weekend. We couldn't seem to get enough of the Gold Medal Flour building.

From there, we took a long walk along the river and then up and over the Hennepin Avenue bridge to NE Minneapolis. We walked past Nye's so Abby and Jill could start getting excited for the evening's plans and stopped at Surdyk's to get wine. After a stop home to drink some wine and change clothes, we went out for dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Minneapolis: French Meadow Cafe. Since we were in the neighborhood and Abby and Jill hadn't met my sister before, we stopped by her place before going to Nye's.

When we finally did get to The Best Bar in America, it was all Abby and Jill wanted and more. Abby got a beer and a shiny booth.

We got to hear the piano bar music and the World's Most Dangerous Polka Band. Jill got hit on by a smarmy Australian named Reed with a subtle hipster mullet haircut. Like I said, it was all they wanted and more!

We had a late night, staying up until nearly 3am. So, when the alarm went off the next morning we were all groggy. Then, this happened. Luckily we were able to eat, get Abby to the airport and Jill and I were able to get to St. Paul in time for the Wabasha Street Cave Tour. During the tour we learned all sorts of interesting information about local history including mushrooms, gangsters and ghosts.

All that and Jill and I still had time to go out to lunch at Tao Natural Foods, get pedicures and bring her to the airport.

I'm sure I left lots of things out from this little recap since we packed so much into such a short time. It is Tuesday and I still feel like I am recovering from the flurry of activities, the flow of wine and the concentrated catching up time. It was really great that the three of us could be together and it was lots of fun for me to share my hometown with these east coast girls. Thanks for the great visit Jill and Abby!