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.