After another hearty breakfast we took a slow meandering drive up towards Minneapolis as it was a mere 90 miles or so away (assuming travelling in roughly a straight line). Our first major waypoint was Rochester, which looked a wholly uninteresting town. The only real point of interest is the Mayo Clinic – the world renowned addiction clinic. Interestingly enough as we drove along the highway towards the downtown area all the hotels offered the usual free internet access and the occasional swimming pool, but uniquely also provided free shuttle bus services to the clinic. It just goes to show how important this clinic is to the town. We passed through quickly only stopping to take a picture of a water tower decorated like a sweet corn – my new obsession for this trip is to find unusual roadside features.
We passed over the Mississippi river once again to go into Wisconsin – not that we particularly liked Wisconsin (which we did rather) but we were going to a small town called Pepin on the banks of the Mississippi. The reason for this trip was our new obsession with Laura Ingalls Wilder, Pepin being her birth place and also the setting for her first book!!! Anyway they have built some 5 miles out of town, in a wayside, a replica of the type of small house the Ingalls would have lived in. We of course had to make this stop for some photos and look at the information posted in the house. After this brief stop we continue our journey onwards to Minneapolis through some lovely rolling hills and wooded glens. We again cross the Mississippi- this time at Red Wing, Minnesota. Our mission this time was to visit the Red Wing pottery where the pottery was made that we had seen so much of at Ray’s B&B in Chicago. Unfortunately the large pottery that had turned out so much of the brightly coloured and rather stylish pieces was gone and all that was left was a store selling a range of reproductions with a small pottery attached turning out custom pieces in a more earthen style as opposed the bright daring contemporary designs and colours of the original pottery. Somewhat disappointed we left and again went across the Mississippi.Early evening we reached St Pauls, the twin city of Minneapolis. Our plan was to go to another place to eat from the “Road Food” book. The recommendation this time was an establishment called Café Latte, which was set in quite a trendy area of town. It was less cosy than most places offered in the book, and in fact was very contemporary looking (more Starbucks than Mrs Beaton). We chose to have a salad and soup. The salads on offer were fantastic and we chose the sampler option giving us three of the pre-mixed salads which were extremely tasty and the proportions were extremely generous. For soup myself and Jack tried the Chilli – which was huge again and tasty. To finish off we had a large chunk of chocolate cake between the four of us.
The day would have ended up fine but in reaching the car we found that we had been given a parking ticket. Unfortunately neither Mark or Karen had correctly read the road signage, our mistake costing us $25.00. (No parking 11a.m-2a.m. is a bit misleading...right??)
Slightly saddened we head off the few miles to Minneapolis where we are staying at the Marquette Hotel (a Hilton) in downtown.
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