Ever since our first experiment with AirBnB (where we snagged a New York City...
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It’s Japanese to Me
Moto-I's award winning Abura Ramen.
They had us at “sake brewery;” but discovering that Moto-I in uptown Minneapolis also specializes in Asian street food made it a completely irresistible stop for us.
Anyone who has followed our travels for any length of time knows we like our drink: beer, wine, scotch, bourbon – it’s all good. We enjoy sake, too, but haven’t really had it often enough to know much about it. What better place to learn, we figured, than at the first sake brewery and restaurant outside of Japan?
History is Written by the Victor
This fresco hangs above the State House of Representatives in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I wonder if they see the irony. Perhaps a better inscription would read “History is written by the victor.”
Mansions on the Cheap
Minnesota State Capitol Building, St. Paul, MN
One sure way to break the travel budget is with lots of mansion tours. The Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC, is fantastic, but as one of my readers correctly pointed out ‘at the price they charge it’s no wonder.’ Entrance fees for Biltmore can run as much as $64 per person. The Breakers in Newport will set you back almost $20, and the James Hill House in St. Paul, Minnesota, runs eight bucks. If you’re wondering who in Sam Hill is James Hill, all I can say to you is – exactly. Continue Reading →
(Not) Extreme Kayaking
Waterfalls, three of them, are what drew us to a hike along the Presque Isle River in Michigan’s Porcupine Mountains. For awhile we thought we’d get the unexpected benefit of seeing some extreme kayaking. Mostly we watched this guy evaluate the falls and then carry his kayak around them. I guess he decided that risking bodily injury for our entertainment wasn’t a good idea. Wus.
Great
The Great Lakes are great for many reasons, but the word, in its original usage, simply meant large. And that they are. So large, in fact, that in many places the curvature of the earth hides the opposing shoreline from view; so large that the moon’s gravitational force causes measurable tides. Sitting on the beach, or bobbing in the water, you gaze at the horizon as if over the expanse of a vast ocean.
Some months ago we left the oceans behind with a heavy heart. Dry land can be awesome, but even the most boring towns are made more interesting if they’re on the water. Thankfully, this part of our voyage wound us East to West through the Great Lakes. I’d seen Lake Michigan from the shores of Chicago, but I still didn’t expect the beautiful blue and green water we encountered throughout much of the region. At times, when the light was right, blue water would mix with reddish sediment to cause purple striations close to shore.
We expected large, we found great.
Everywhere Once 