Last Saturday Patrick and I went to the Sculpture Garden at the Walker, one of the local art galleries. The Walker is predominantly modern art, which means I love it and Patrick doesn’t. But we both enjoyed the Sculpture Garden, most famous for the Spoon and Cherry.
Over the summer the Walker is also hosting an artist-created, environmentally-themed mini golf course. We got there just as they were closing. The people were funny and said they had decided when we were crossing the street that they would let us play if we asked but that we were the final golfers. So we played the quickest game ever – and tied.
After dinner we had a light dinner at The Heartland, a very nice restaurant close to out house. It was good as always. Their cheese plate is perhaps the best in the city with cheese from – where else – Wisconsin.
Then we headed home – but lucky for me the neighbors were having a gathering in the back yard. So while Patrick went to bed I talked to folks for a while. It was nice to be home.
Filed under: St Paul
Today we woke up at 6:30 (on a Saturday!) to see them implode St Paul Smoke Stack. It was so worth it. It was the coolest thing I’ve seen in a while.
The smoke stack is part of the power plant. It was 574 feet tall. Dad worked the math and figured the stack would fall about 900 feet. They had piles of sand to help break the fall – although the tower completely missed them.
I can’t believe my luck I started running the video about 10 seconds before the smoke stack went down. First came the huge boom. Then in super slow motion the tower fell. Then a second boom as it hit the ground. Dust billowed up but blew away before it hit us.
The footage is taken from Superior Street (I think) – down from West Seventh on St Clair anyways – very near to where the TV camera were. We scoped out the perfect place last night. We were so thankful not to be on the high bridge – I think our view was better where we were and I think the high bridgers got the full burst of smoke stack dust. (Imagine washing that out of your wash and lungs!)
My body was shaking and my heart was beating for a while after the big event. My heat still jumps when I watch the video.
Forgot to add, we saw our neighbors the Howards there too. People were super friendly – but a little crazy. We were on the edge of a cliff – some people chose to hop the barriers for a closer look. Then we saw one crazy group on the roof of their house – never mind the houses in that area are about 100 years old. Luckily as far as we know the smoke stack was the only thing that fell.
10 Questions About... 