Posts Tagged “ken”

This morning we had a quick trip to say goodbye to the Mall of America (to return something from yesterday) before we were off! First we headed into Minneapolis to visit the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. We love a sculpture garden!

The most famous and iconic sculpture there is the Spoonbridge and Cherry water fountain by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Our picture doesn’t totally convey the piece though because it was pretty blah weather today with lots of rain, but here you go:

There’s a whole indoor component to the garden as well, but we couldn’t go in there because they were holding a wedding reception. We actually ended up semi-crashing the wedding ceremony!

I’m not sure what was going on because we saw a ton of people wandering around in formal attire, but they seemed to begin the ceremony (in the rain) with only a few people there. There may have been two events, but I think they just decided to go have a quick ceremony with only a few wedding guests because of the rain. Anyway, if the happy couple happens to read this, don’t worry, you guys. I’ve heard a rainy wedding day is supposed to be good luck! (I didn’t figure out who the groom was, but the bride appeared to be handling the situation with aplomb.)

Anyway, we drove through some pretty cute parts of town trying again to get an oil change (we were eventually successful after 3 attempts!) (and by the way, the guy who helped us at Jiffy Lube was totally nice, but he had no idea where D.C. is. He kept asking what state it was in because he couldn’t find it in his computer when he was entering our address. Brian was like, “it’s on the east coast… it doesn’t have congressional representation…”), then we ventured on to our next destination!

We went to the Ellingson Car Museum in Rogers, Minnesota! It was so fun!! They have an array of vintage (restored) cars from before the 20s to the 70s. They even have a Delorean:

And, in case that’s not awesome enough, they also have a wide variety of non-car memorabilia including a collection of signs, cameras, TVs, and Barbie dolls. This “mod hair” 70s Ken is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen:

Next we ventured to Darwin, Minnesota, to see the quintessential roadside attraction:

Yep. That is the World’s Largest Ball of Twine! Or, at least, it’s the World’s Largest Ball of Twine Rolled by a Single Person. (Turns out there’s also a World’s Largest Ball of Twine Rolled by a Community. That one’s in Kansas.) Anyway, when we arrived today, we found out that Darwin also boasts a Twine Ball Museum & Gift Shop, but alas, we didn’t get there until after it was closed for the day. Sorry, Twine Ball Museum & Gift Shop!

After that, we spent several hours driving through Minnesota’s smaller highways in the rain. We did get to see some pretty countryside:

Everything is more difficult in the rain (uff da), but we did manage to get to Worthington, Minn., and we’re staying at (shockingly) another Super 8. I have to say, I’m not as psyched about this one as I have been about some of the others, but what can you do? We are in the middle of nowhere here, people. Tomorrow, we will definitely make it to South Dakota and we are very excited!!