Tena's Visit!!!

Duane and I just spent a LOVELY week with our friend Tena.  She made the trek north for a visit and it was SO GOOD to catch up, and explore the cities together again!

She arrived Monday night, and we hit the ground running!  We met Duane at Italian Pie Shoppe for dinner (because it's THE BEST PIZZA in the Twin Cities!), then Duane came home and Tena and I walked around Lake Nokomis.  It was a BEAUTIFUL evening, and we found SEVERAL "photo ops" (which is a recurring theme throughout this post!).

Tena had never seen Minnehaha Falls, so we drove over to look at them after we circled the lake.  We've had a lot of rain, so they were POUNDING over the edge.

While we were looking at the falls, two guys walked by the edge of the bridge we were on with a bow and arrow.  The arrow had a rope attaching it to the bow, and they were shooting grass carp that were swimming under the bridge.  They got two while we watched, and each HAD to have been around 20 to 25 pounds.  They were HUGE. 

You can't, apparently, throw them back after you catch them (they are an invasive species), so they left them on the bank for wildlife to eat.  They said the two that we saw them catch were their thirteenth and fourteenth!  It was crazy!

After the falls, we headed home, and spent the rest of the evening "catching up"!

Tuesday, Duane took the day off work, and we went to Colossal Cafe for flappers (yeasty pancakes).   Tena had the fresh fruit topping, and Duane and I had the honey, walnuts, and brie.  YUM!! 

After breakfast, we drove up to Taylor's Falls to look around.  We stopped in Stillwater on the way there, because Tena is into "geocaching"...using longitude and latitude to find a network of containers placed by people around the world in which a log book, and various "trinkets" are placed.  You have a geocaching device which you use to locate the object.  Once found, you log your "find" on the geocaching website.

It was kind of cool, but the container we found was REALLY difficult to see.  It was a peanut butter jar that had been wrapped in camouflage duct tape, and was placed at the base of an evergreen bush near the war veteran's memorial.  We almost gave up after about 20 minutes of looking, but Tena saw it just as we were about to leave.  OF COURSE the entire adventure was another "photo op"!!!

The Veteran's Memorial

After geocaching, we went into the Stillwater Courthouse to look around.  It's a REALLY cool old building, and one of the historical society volunteers saw us wandering around and gave us a "behind the scenes" tour of the old jail cells.  Some U of M students were filming a movie in the lower cells, so we went up to the part that no one ever sees (mainly because they use it for storage, so amongst the historical grafitti and turn of the century "prison-abilia", we also saw Christmas decorations, a gazillion file folders and a crock-pot...).

After the tour, we continued up the road to Taylor's Falls.  We started with a climb on the rocks near the river.  Taylor's Falls is such a COOL place!  Very rustic...very beautiful...very fun!

After the "obligatory" SHAKYFACE "photo op" (a recent tradition in which you shake your head back and forth REALLY FAST and have someone take your picture while doing so...don't ask, BUT, as Tena so succinctly put it "hour's of fun!!!")...

...we took a cruise up and down the St. Croix River on the Taylor's Falls Princess, a flat-bottomed, paddle wheel boat, that's been in operation since the early 20th century.

After the boat ride, we headed to the Taylor's Falls Drive-In, for homemade rootbeer and FABULOUS greasy, fried foods (the deep fried green beans are AMAZING!!!!!).

We drove back to the cities after the drive-in, and vegged for awhile at home.  Tena and I then made a run to Trader Joe's so that she could stock up on some favorites to take home.  After loading our carts with dried green mango, honey wheat pretzels, chili lime cashews, chocolate covered pomegranate seeds, and a plethera of other goodies, we headed home, watched a little television, chatted some more, and went to bed!

Wednesday, Duane went back to work (boo!), and Tena and I headed to St. Paul for the day.  We started at the Science Museum.  We got tickets for the King Tut exhibit, and looked at some of the exhibits. 

After about an hour, we then met Duane for lunch at the corner of Wabasha and Kellogg.  There are about seven food trucks that congregate at this location every Wednesday during the summer.  We read about it in the Pioneer Press, and wanted to try it.  It was SOOOO cool!  Check out this blog for details: http://blogs.citypages.com/food/2011/04/food_truck_food.php. 

I had a pulled pork and grilled cheese sandwich from "Fork in the Road", Duane had the pulled pork and sweet potato tacos from Chef Shack, and Tena had the Thai Chicken tacos from Gastrotruck.  AWESOME!

Tena even got interviewed by KARE-11 news, which was doing a feature on the food trucks and local, sustainable food.  It hasn't aired yet, as far as we can tell!

After the food trucks we walked around downtown for a bit, and OF COURSE found a lovely "photo op" at Rice Park.

After walking around St. Paul, Duane headed back to work, and Tena and I went back to the Science Museum to see the King Tut exhibit.  If you are anywhere near the Science Museum, I highly recommend seeing the exhibit.  Very well done, very informative, very beautiful, and it's ASTOUNDING to me how old and well preserved the artifacts are.  They have King Tut's reed woven bed...HOW COULD IT POSSIBLY HAVE LASTED THIS LONG??!!!  Very cool!

After a few hours at the exhibit, we headed back to Eagan.  We made a quick stop at Bed, Bath & Beyond.  I recently watched an infomercial for "The Magic Bullet", and had resisted the temptation LONG ENOUGH.  It was WAY cheaper than we thought it would be, so was a TOTAL deal!

After drooling over the recipe booklet for awhile, we met Duane at Chevy's for dinner near the Mall of America.  Chevy's has the GREATEST homemade salsa, and their chips are amazing too.  It was delicious!!!

Duane then went home, and Tena and I went to IKEA to look around.  On the way back from IKEA, we stopped at the grocery store to buy frozen fruit with which to experiment in making smoothies in the Magic Bullet.

By the time we got home, and got everything unpacked, we were too tired to actually MAKE smoothies, but still had time left in the visit to do so, so left it for another time, and went to bed.

Thursday, we got around, and headed to the OTHER Twin City...Minneapolis.  We took the lightrail from the 28th street station (WAY easier than driving downtown, fighting traffic, and wrestling with parking).  Thursday is "farmer's market" day on the mall (instead of their usual location near Target Field). 

It was crazy busy, and there were vendors with booths all along Nicollett Avenue. I was VERY excited to find that "Chef Earl" and his wife are there on Thursday! They make the BEST barbecue sauce EVER, so I OF COURSE had to buy another bottle of their "hot and spicy" sauce.

After walking amongst the stalls, and shopping our way down the street, we ended up at Brit's Pub.  Tena introduced me to a DELIGHTFUL beverage called Pimms.  It a lovely fruity beverage...QUITE refreshing!!!

Me with my Pimms!

After Brit's we headed to Hell's Kitchen for lunch.  I had a FABULOUS ham, pear, and gruyere panini, and Tena had bison benedict, and their AMAZING porridge.

It was BEASTLY hot on Thursday, so we cut our downtown tour short, and headed back to the suburbs.  We spent some time shopping at the Mall of America, then went over to Robin and Dave's so that Tena could see all the renovations they've made on the place in the last couple of years.   They've done some AMAZING stuff with their house (and now yard), and it was nice to spend a little time chatting with them.

After Robin and Dave's we came home, regrouped, and then Duane joined us and we went to Houlihan's for dinner, followed by gelato at Ring Mountain...yet another DELIGHTFUL DAY!!!

This morning, Tena packed, which is always a SAD, SAD thing, and headed back to Iowa.  It was SOOOOO great having her, and we've already started working on our "To See" list for her next visit!!!!

Oh...and I'd love to tell you how AWESOME the Magic Bullet is, but, after all the talk, and a trip to Rainbow to buy twelve different kinds of frozen fruit for smoothies...we didn't actually have time to play with it!  Tena will JUST have to come back again soon!

Here's hoping YOU were able to spend time catching up with dear friends recently too!!!!