Frankly, when Kasey asked if I was available to take three-year-old Jayvyn for a day, I was frightened.  He's one of those children who does the silliest things to make adults laugh, but he's also a child who is very dramatic if he doesn't get what he wants.  What was I going to do with him for an entire day?

Turns out, the answer was at Linden Hills in Minneapolis, Minnesota where we started the day by crawling on rocks at the shore of Lake Harriet.  We collected feathers and threw dandelions into the lake.

From there we took a break at Dunn Brothers where Jayvyn helped roast coffee beans.  He loves grinding coffee in an antique grinder I have at my place.  One time, when we were in the grocery store, he saw rows of whole beans in their plastic dispensers and he yelled, "Hey!  How do you work these things?  Can I have a quarter?"  Hmmm.  Coffee beans dispensed like gumballs.  Now, there's an idea.

We headed back to Lake Harriet and caught a ride on the trolley, then went back to my place for lunch and  to watch the movie, Bambi, which he was sure he wasn't going to like, but did.

Toward the end the day we entertained ourselves by throwing those helicopter-like seeds from the balcony and watching them twirl and spin to the ground.  We polished off the evening with a light supper at Houlihan's, where he wore his cloth napkin like a cape on his back, then came home and fell asleep to the movie, Shrek.  That's our boy!

When I was little, my dad used to pack us kids into the old green station wagon (a vehicle which often chased me in my nightmares) and we'd head to Redwood Falls, Minnesota for a drive through Alexander Ramsey Park.  It was a reprieve from the wide-open prairies and the drudgery of the bean fields we kids got to know so intimately.  Ugh.

 I shouldn't say that.  I can remember when we needed to purchase some major item for the farm, instead of going to the bank, dad would say, "I'd better sell some beans."

But, I digress.  Alexander Ramsey Park is the largest municipal park in the state and magnificent, with a zoo, overlooks, the Redwood River,  historic WPA projects, paths, ballparks and playgrounds, and camping.  Whew!  And it has a paved road that curls through the landscape and used to terrify me when I was little.  I couldn't look away from the steep slope on one side or the other.  Thrillsville.

I've accumulated a number of photographs of the park and put them together in a video, which also includes a brief look at downtown Redwood Falls and a couple of places one can go to eat.  Click here to view the video.  The music has been provided by Edward Klamm from Minneapolis.

Lunch at The Grinder in Granite Falls, Minnesota

When I returned to work Monday morning, my co-workers asked me if I had a nice visit at Granite Falls in southwestern Minnesota.  Ohhhhhhhhhhh yes!  We got a late start Saturday morning after lazing around watching the movie Beautiful Girls, which happens to have been filmed in Minnesota and Wisconsin.  Cindy kept saying it was filmed in the midwest because people in the movie were wearing Wisconsin sweatshirts, but I didn't believe her. I completely missed it.  When the credits rolled around, there it was.  Thanks to the Minnesota Film Board. Good eye, Cindy!

We ate lunch at the Grinder Coffee House which has to be one of my all-time favorite coffee houses in the state.  After that, we headed to the Yellow Medicine County Museum located on the edge of town, near the Minnesota river.  Oh boy!

I took an awful lot of photos, so I think it would be best if you took a look for yourself.  Click here to see the Granite Falls photo album. I was in heaven.  I love history.  The more local, the better.

Lucky for me, Cindy loves history too.  Now here's the great part.  The museum wasn't officially open, but we were allowed in to photograph relics (without my flash) and visit the newly finished preserved log cabin.

The door had been painted just that morning.  We were very careful not to leave our imprint on this 1877 cabin.

I think I heard Cindy discussing a future visit for her grade school class.  This newly spruced up museum not only looked great, but had a sense of well-ordered history. It's hard to describe the feeling one gets when surrounded by pieces of other people's past.  It's feels almost spiritual.