5FF - Places

Lisa asked for a post on my favorite places in MN. I thought it would be a great idea for this week's Five Favorites for Friday, so here you go (in no particular order).

Alexandria

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I'm probably partial to this place because it's my hometown. :) I lived there from mid-3rd grade through graduation. It has a cute downtown, lots of area lakes, parks, beaches. Big Ole makes an appearance at one of Broadway, and the Kensington Runestone isn't very far away.

Inspiration Peak

from the Ottertail County Website

This is a little wayside park north of Alexandria in Ottertail County. It is so beautiful up there! Growing up in Alex, my family hiked to the top several times in my youth. I always loved it and have such great memories of going there. One day I'd really like to go back again.

Big Lake Wilderness Lodge

from their website

We first took a family vacation here the summer of 2008. We had so much fun that the next summer, we convinced even more of my family to come along. I've been a bad blogger and I can't seem to find any pictures online from 2009. Oops! We all made the trek up to Ely again last summer.

Big Lake is about 20 or so miles outside of Ely. I love it there because they have free access to kayaks, canoes, and paddleboats. They also have free day passes into the Boundary Waters for canoeing/kayaking or hiking. It is so gorgeous in northern MN!

Minneapolis Chain of Lakes

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This series of lakes is so fun! You can circle them by walking, biking, blading. On Lake Calhoun, you can even rent kayaks, canoes, paddleboats and other fun non-motorized water toys. I think it's so beautiful! And I just enjoy being around so many people, outside, enjoying nature.

Downtown Minneapolis

Source

Even though I grew up in a small town, I grew into a city girl. I love the buildings and the parks and the people that come with living in a big city. I love the Minneapolis skyline. I love the skyway system. There is easy access to bike lanes, the light rail, and public transportation. There are museums and theaters and sports venues. The Mississippi river is at one end and Loring park at another.

In writing this post, I've realized that there is a lot to MN that I've never really explored. Hopefully, I'll have an opportunity to view and see more of this great state in the next year. :)

If you live in MN (or ever have), what are some areas/things I should put on my MN bucket list?

If you're not in MN, what are some of your favorite places where you live?

Welcome, BlogTrotters, to Minnesota

Land of 10,000 Lakes

The North Star State

The Gopher State

Land of Sky-Blue Waters

The Bread and Butter State

Whatever you call it, I call it HOME.

I was absolutely delighted to receive a comment on my blog last week from Carabee over at BlogTrotting inviting me to give a little tour of my neck of the woods. BlogTrotting is a fun blog where you can visit other exciting places around the world.

I am genuinely thrilled to share with you a few of my favorite things about Minnesota.

I'm a Minnesotan, born and raised.

I grew up in Alexandria, MN. Hop over here for a brief tour of the main street of Alexandria, as I remember it from my teenage years.

Alexandra is the heart of the Central Lakes area, where are plenty of lakes for swimming and fishing.

I've since moved from Alexandria (more than 15 years ago) and now reside in St Paul, our state capital.

But what I really love about living in St Paul is living across the street from the University of St Thomas. Both my husband and I are students at UST, and we love our beautiful campus. We love to walk the grounds and will generally take any visitors we have on a quick tour.

 

The St Thomas Arches are an important part of UST culture. Incoming freshmen walk through the arches to the applause of current students and faculty, welcoming them to their new home. Neither of us started as freshmen, so we didn't get to experience this, but we are looking forward to Commencement when graduating seniors walk back out through the arches and head out into the world. I'm not sure if this will be a part of my graduate commencement ceremony, but it will definitely be a part of Jeff's. We have two more years of school before we head back out into the real world.

I've actually only lived in St Paul for a year and a half. Before that, I always considered myself more of a Minneapolis girl. While St Paul is growing on me, I definitely prefer the downtown of Minneapolis.

The Minneapolis skyline is beautiful!

The skyway system is wonderful!

You can easily stay dry and warm in the rain or snow.

Another thing I love about living in the Twin Cities is all the fun running paths!

I love to run with my little girl, Sallie...

And take walks with my husband.

We've moved a lot around the twin cities.

We've lived in Minneapolis near the Minnehaha Falls

and in St Paul near Crosby Lake .

I can't forget to mention Como Park Zoo. This is a fun, free zoo. They do accept a suggested donation of $2 for adults and $1 for children. We've gone to this zoo a couple of times .

I could go on and on about this great state! There are so many things I didn't mention like:

and SO. MUCH. MORE!

IMINNESOTA!

No matter where I live, I will always consider MN my home.

Feel free to browse through my blog to discover other random things about me (and occassionally MN, too). If you've visited any of the links in this post, you might have noticed many were from my *other* blog, Dodson Journal. Go ahead and pop over there for even more exciting advertures! I love MN, but I also love to travel and see new things. Mostly these adventures are with my husband, so naturally, they get posted on our family blog.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed my little tour of Minnesota.

Journal Topic: Describe a favorite childhood friend and some things you did with him or her.

Tara Wildman
She was probably my best friend in 7th grade. We had so much fun together. I remember when we got going, we would just laugh and laugh and laugh.

We were on the softball team together in junior high.

One time, we went on a field trip in 7th grade to the cities to see a concert and go to the Science Museum. We were on the same bus on the way home, and we were just silly.

A month or so after that, she spent the night one Friday night at my house. I remember how much fun we had together.

I also vaguely remember camping in her backyard.

There was singing, I definitely remember that. We would get a song in our head and just belt it out. Two songs that we would frequently sing were “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips and “It Must Have Been Love” by Roxette.

Journal Topic: Did you have a favorite subject in school? One you dreaded?

When I was in 7th grade, my favorite subject in school was Choir; however, my favorite teacher was Mr. Schmidt who taught Social Studies. I know this to be true because it was written in my journal. (Upon writing this post, I checked to see if he was still teaching in Alexandria; he is. I remember his wife had a baby the year he was my teacher; the baby came really early, I want to say 2 1/2 months?)

For the most part, I remember really enjoying school although I didn’t particularly have a favorite subject. Now that I really think back on it, I think I usually enjoy Math and Social Studies over other subject. I really did not like English class—especially if literature was involved. This might seem odd, since I loved to read (and still do!) growing up. I disliked having to be told what to read and when to read it. When I remember this, it seems almost laughable that I first thought I wanted to be an English teacher.

Seeing that one of my favorite teachers was my Social Studies makes me very pleased with my decision to switch over to a Social Studies licensure. I actually really do love learning about history and the world we live in (geography).

Since I mostly really enjoyed school, it was usually specific teachers that I disliked—not the subject. Recently, I’ve read over a few of my journals/papers I’d written in junior and senior high. It would seem like I enjoyed teachers who were more structured and tough; I didn’t like teachers who were too lenient.

Journal Topic: Describe walking down the main street of your hometown.

Alexandria, MN 56308

Broadway was the main street. There were lots of fun shops on this street. It wasn’t that often that I would walk along the street, unless I was specifically shopping for something. Here are a couple of memories from a couple of the stores. I have no idea if any of these shops are even still around.

From the Heart—this was a cute little gift shop. They sold all kinds of little trinkets. One year for my birthday, I received a little pail of fudge from my brother Corey that he had purchased there. It was signed, “With fudge, Corey.” I thought that was pretty neat! This store was fun to walk around and just look at all the little gift items.

Braun’s Bakery—I could be wrong about the name of this bakery, but it was on the corner of 5th & Broadway (I’m pretty sure). I loved when we could stop in for doughnuts! My favorite was a custard-filled Bismarck. One funny story:

Clarinda (about to eat Long John doughnut): I wonder if this doughnut has feeling.
Mom: I think you mean filling. I doubt your doughnut has feelings.
Clarinda(biting into said doughnut): Ouch! See it does have feeling.

Old Broadway—this was one of the fanciest restaurants in town (or at least on Broadway). When I was in high school, my friends and I would sometimes go out to eat here. I remember we would order fun drinks, like virgin strawberry daiquiris. It made us feel special to have dinner at such a fancy place.

Taco John’s—nothing too special about this fast food chain, but it was one of my favorites. I remember many a stop by Taco John’s. I think it’s far superior to Taco Bell! I know for sure that this Taco John’s is not in the same location as I remember. It’s about twice the size as before and moved several blocks down the street.

That’s about it for specific places I remember. An overall description would be a fairly typical, small town main street with storefronts lining both sides of the street.

Oh, I almost forgot about Ben Franklin, a little 5&Dime store. Behind it (not on Broadway) was the library, and kitty corner to that was the junior high. I remember many, many a stop by Ben Franklin after school for some Now & Laters or Laffy Taffy or Jolly Ranchers or any number of other little candies that we could buy by the piece. There were also lots of craft supplies. It was a great store to get lost in.

Of course, I can’t leave out Big Ole! He stands at one end of Broadway.

Journal Topic: Describe a childhood birthday.

I don’t remember any of my birthdays from my childhood clearly, so I took a brief dive into some old journals and picture albums to try and jog my memory.

I have a couple of pictures from my 2nd birthday. I do not remember this party at all, but it looks like I had a Big Bird cake and was surrounded by family. I have one picture with Grampy (my great-grandpa); another with my sister, Treva, and my cousins, Tara and Katie; and another picture with my cousins, Katie and Ryan.

The next birthday I have any record of was in 1986—my 9th birthday. I do remember this birthday vaguely. It was my first birthday in Alexandria. My cousin, Katie, came up from the Cities for my birthday party. I was so excited for her to come and visit. She probably stayed for at least a few days. We had been best friends for my entire life, but everything changed after this birthday. I don’t remember what happened exactly, but things were never the same between us after that. Two of the girls in the picture were neighbors of mine. We were marginal friends. I remember being very excited about the third friend in the picture to come to my party. Her name was Dawn Calloway, and she was a friend I’d met at school. Having a summer birthday always made it difficult to have friends come to a party, so I remember being so very excited to have a friend from school come celebrate.

In 1991, my dad took me to Valleyfair for my birthday. From what is written in my journal, it sounds like it was just him and me. Apparently, it was very busy that day, and we only got to go on 3 rides. All the same, from what I wrote, it seemed that I had great fun spending time with my dad. We had a little party later that evening with pizza from Godfather’s and I got some clothes for my gifts. I also got to go to a church dance later that night. I was probably pretty excited to go, but I wrote that it was pretty lame—I only danced with one boy, Adam Smith, who apparently was very nice.

I also found some pictures that are dated 1992, but I have a feeling that they are actually from 1991 when I celebrated my birthday in Alexandria with my mom. I was big into collecting porcelain dolls back then—especially if they had August somewhere on them. I still have some of the dolls I received that year. I think the year might be wrong because in my journal for 1992, I only mention going shopping with my mom for my birthday. It seems odd that I wouldn’t have mentioned the gifts, but I did mention a party, so perhaps the date is correct.
From reading through my journal and looking at old photos, I gather that I loved receiving clothes for my birthday—especially if I got to go shopping to pick them out, and that we usually celebrated with pizza. Today, I still love getting new clothes, but my tastes have gotten more expenseive, usually we go out for steak for dinner.

Journal Topic: Describe your yard as a child - did you help with the yard work? What are your memories?

There are two backyards that I remember from my childhood—one in Brooklyn Park (until I was 9) and one in Alexandria (from age 9-17).

The one in Brooklyn Park was on a farm. It was very expansive. The yard butted right up against the fields—corn, soybean, strawberry. There were lots of trees. I don’t ever remember helping with yard work here. Perhaps I was too little...? My cousins lived just down the street; they were our closest neighbors. In fact, we had a little dirt road, running through the cornfield, which connected our two houses. Anyway, my favorite memory of this backyard was when we would play baseball. We never had enough people to play, so when we would get a hit and run to a base, which were the trees, we would have to leave an imaginary runner on, say 2nd base (if that’s how far we’d gotten), and go back and hit again. Sometimes, it would just be my cousin and I playing; sometimes my brothers and another cousin would join us.

The backyard in Alexandria was also quite expansive and also on a farm. This farm only had cows—no crops. While there were other neighbors around, this backyard did have a small trail, from constant walking, connecting our house to grandma’s house. The yard wasn’t exactly flat, and yard work was definitely a chore. I do remember having family yard work days when the whole family would spend the day outside, picking up sticks, mowing, gardening, etc. I think that I generally saw yard work as boy’s work, so I tended to try to stay inside—not that I was necessarily doing housework while inside!