Sun and Rain in the Twin Cities

8/2/17 Centennial Lakes Park

8/2/17 Parking lot of the Bloomington Country Inn & Suites

From Chicago we took a short flight to Minneapolis to visit with family for a couple of days. While we had consistently beautiful sunshine in Chicago, Minneapolis was a mix. Knowing rain would come the second day, we spent our first day outdoors as much as possible. I got an early start while Greg was still in the shower by sketching the heavy equipment in our hotel’s parking lot, where major remodeling was taking place.

Centennial Lakes is one of our favorite Minneapolis parks (top of page). I knew I had sketched there on a previous trip, so I searched through my blog and found the post – it was in 2013. Interestingly, I had sketched both of the same subjects then as I sketched this year – the arched bridge across the lake and a white heron (possibly the same heron?).

8/2/17 Heron at Centennial Lakes Park

The same day we had a late lunch at W.S. Frost (below), an excellent and popular restaurant with a lovely terrace. With a long wait for a table, I had plenty of time to sketch the diners under umbrellas.

8/2/17 Waiting for our table at W.S. Frost

In the afternoon we went to St. Paul, where we discovered a pocket park called Summit Overlook. A large sculpture of an eagle and its young – apparently a relic of the New York Life Insurance Company – was the park’s centerpiece.

8/2/17 Sculpture at Summit Overlook

8/3/17 Country Inn & Suites lobby

The next day was cold and rainy, so I had to resort to the hotel lobby for my early-morning sketch. Later we shopped at Ax-Man Surplus, a store that has been around since Greg’s youth. Filled with oddities (mostly for display only, not for sale, like a weird museum) and quirky merchandise, Ax-Man is hard to describe or categorize. I can’t begin to name all the strange things we saw, but the unfortunate plastic fellow hanging from the ceiling was the least of them. It would be a fantastic place for a surreptitious sketch outing (I was discreet and quick, so no one saw me).

8/3/17 Strange sighting at Ax-Man

We also sheltered from the weather by touring a grand old mansion. I had an unusual sketch-related experience there that I’ll relate in a future post.