Tour of the West 4: Minnesota

In May, David and I took a three-week road trip from our home in Portland to Minnesota, to visit some of my relatives and tour the Great American West along the way. This post is part of a series on the highlights of our trip.


Downtown St. Paul

We didn't do a whole lot of sightseeing in Minnesota since we were mainly there to visit with Grandma and other family, but we did find time to see some historic places in St. Paul and the biggest mall in the country.

The Twin Cities

St. Paul (pop. 287,000) and Minneapolis (pop. 377,000) are right next to each other and known as the Twin Cities. According to Wikipedia, there has been a fierce rivalry between the two since the beginning with regard to business, architecture and sports. The baseball team had to be named the Minnesota Twins (rather than Minneapolis or St. Paul Somethings) in order to help everyone get along.



In general, St. Paul is the more historic of the two cities and Minneapolis is more modern and cosmopolitan. We didn't get to see much of Minneapolis - only glimpses from the road as we drove over there to visit family - but it looked like a nice city. Since Grandma lives in the heart of St. Paul, we spent a few hours seeing the sights the day after we arrived. Below are the highlights.

St. Paul

Just a few blocks from Grandma's house is the Minnesota State Capitol, built in 1907. We didn't go inside, but I hear the lobby is beautiful.





The Minnesota History Center opened in 1992 near the Capitol. It was an interesting museum showcasing Minnesota's 100 greatest contributions to the world plus other local artifacts.


View from cathedral hill with state capitol


1950s Greyhound bus. Greyhound Bus Lines was founded in 1914 in Minnesota.


The infamous Spam was introduced by Hormel Foods of Minnesota in 1937. It is short for "spiced ham" and was the first canned meat product that didn't require refrigeration. It therefore became a major part of the diet of WWII soldiers.


Socializing in the dining car of a North Coast Limited train, 1962.


Old mail coach


Snowmobile made in 1962

Up the hill from the History Center is the Cathedral of St. Paul, a grand Catholic church built from 1907 to 1958.













White Castle

David was very excited to go to White Castle, as we don't have them out here in Oregon. They do sell the frozen burgers in grocery stores, though, which he likes a lot. Conveniently, there is a White Castle close to Grandma's house, so we stopped by on our way back after sightseeing.



We ordered a selection of items to try, including a couple small cheeseburgers, fries, a pulled pork sandwich, and "chicken rings." We took our order to go.



I was not impressed. Most of it barely qualified as food, with the pulled pork sandwich being the only edible exception. David liked it all, but said the fresh burgers weren't really any better than the frozen versions he can buy at home.

The Mall of America



The following day, we visited the Mall of America in Bloomington (a suburb of Minneapolis). It's the largest mall in the United States. Naturally, it was my favorite place to visit when I stayed with Grandma as a kid! I was interested to see what had changed, and David was pretty excited to check it out too. We spent a few hours walking the entire thing and had a great time.



The mall has four floors, including a theater. It is clean, modern and well laid out - it has a simple square plan anchored by major department stores at the four corners. In the center is an indoor amusement park with roller coasters and other rides. In the basement level there is a huge walk-through aquarium complete with sharks! And of course the food court was far better than most. We were thrilled to find it included a Chipotle, one of our favorite restaurants back home - we had delicious burritos for lunch. Later we made a pit stop at Caribou Coffee, a great local chain, for iced drinks.


Macy's at one corner


Main area of mall


Moose poop


Rocket made of Legos


Amusement park


Roller coaster ride