Filed under: Missouri
Day Two of the road trip starts in Missouri. Turns out Independence is pretty close to Kansas City so we stopped to see President Truman’s home town. We saw his house, which is pretty posh. And we learned a lot about him – like he was a haberdasher before and after being President.
Also we talked about his big decision to “end the war decisively”. It was an interesting discussion about what we would do if we were in his shoes – and how glad we were not to be in them.
We also saw (from a distance) Independence Temple, which has one of the most interesting steeples I have ever seen. It was designed by Gyo Obata and was the headquarters of the Church of the Latter Day Saints.
And we got our kicks briefly on Route 66. And landed in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Filed under: Missouri
OK it’s been more than a year since I posted anything – but we’re on the road again so I’m going to post.
The girls, Grandpa and I are on the road. We’re going to New Orleans, where we’ll be meeting with Grandma, Katie and her family and Billy. We just finished the first lag of the trip to Kansas City. I learned at a conference earlier this year that I love Kansas City.
We are staying near the Plaza, which I have to say is beautiful even through it’s really an upscale, outdoor shopping mall. The older girls spent the afternoon shopping there. Aine and I spent the afternoon at the Nelson Atkins Museum. We saw the amazing shuttlecocks and the touring The Four Seasons by Phillip Haas.
In the late afternoon Aine, Grandpa and I went on a quick tour of Kansas City Startup Village – an amazing community with Google Fiber. It’s in a working class neighborhood (mostly) in Kansas City, Kansas. Matthew Marcus gave us the tour. He is one of several instrumental entrepreneurs in the neighborhood who have worked at making the community fertile ground for other entrepreneurs. Several houses in neighborhood have been turned into homes for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial efforts. In the area they have about 54 startups in 15 local houses in about a square mile area. I’ll be writing more about it for work – but I will say the idea of a community bubbling up organically, starting with access to Google Fiber is so compelling to me.
We had yummy barbeque for dinner. After dinner, I walked around the University and the girls went swimming. Tomorrow we head to Little Rock.
Filed under: Minneapolis
Got any plans for your summer? We plan to get out to see the street art in the Twin Cities – one street or neighborhood at a time. I’m a fan of street art; I’ve been lucky enough to see Banksy in New York, murals in Belfast and Blu in Berlin. This summer, I’ll be staying home but I figured there must be some sights to see in my home town too with. So my plan for the summer is long walks with a camera.
We started with Lake Street – from the Lake Street Bridge to Lake Calhoun. We started there because my favorite street art is hidden under the Lake Street Bridge on the St Paul side. It honors a soldier; I remember when it went up two years ago around Memorial weekend. My hope this summer it to find more hidden gems like it. (If you know of any art I should check out please let me know atreacy@treacyinfo.com.)
Under the Lake Street Bridge
The street art in Lake Street is primarily paintings and murals. Some are clearly commercial, some are community-focused and a few might have been unsanctioned. Heading from St Paul, the art starts rolling with the Longfellow Artists in Lake Street (LoLA). They are sponsoring lots of opportunities for artists, such as the utility boxes along Lake Street. (The Minneapolis Public Arts Administration issues permits and supports “wrapped and painted utility boxes” around the city. )
Lake Street Utility Box: Gordon Coons
As we strolled down the avenue we found that street art increases as languages in the shop windows increase. There were a lot of scenes celebrating different ethnicities Mexican, Native American, African and Scandinavian. Some of these seemed commercial; some seemed like community projects. We saw quite a few between the train station on Minnehaha until S 1st Avenue.
Lake Street near 15th
There were some store fronts that seemed to sponsor or promote street art such as Urban Ventures, Safari Restaurant and the former Resource Center of the Americas.
Urban Ventures
There were also a lot of art that was clever or good or otherwise struck us. We were surprised at the dearth of street art on Lake Street in Uptown. Perhaps that’s because for this trip we stayed on Lake Street. We learned that sometimes the most interesting work happens off the main drag; we’re hoping to get to more of that later.
Lyndale and Lake
Originally I thought we might spend a day or two traipsing the city to uncover gems but we’ve learned you’ve really got to be walking to get the flavor of a community and it’s going to take all summer to get a decent start. If you see us out in your street, please tell us the story of your local art. (Or feel free to post a comment.)
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- Under the Lake Street Bridge
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- Lake Street Utility Box: Mary Ila Funtemann
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- Lake Street Utility Box: Gordon Coons
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- By Deals & Discounts on Lake Street
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- By Deals & Discounts on Lake Street
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- The Hub on Lake & Minnhaha
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- Mosaic Cafe
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- Under the Train Station at Lake Street
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- Across from the Lake St Cemetery: “FInd the gold bugs”
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- Los Gallos on Lake Street
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- Lake Srteet and 28th
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- Lake Street & 17th
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- Ingebretson’s on Lake Street
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- Lake Street near 15th
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- Lake and 15th
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- Heart of the Beast
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- Lake near 13th
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- Lyndale and Lake
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- Lyndale and Lake
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- Lyndale and Lake
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- Lyndale and Lake
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- Jungle Theater
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- Fujiya
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- Urban Ventures
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- Safari Restaurant
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- Ultimo mandatory de neustro venerable senor cuauhtemoc
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- Don’s Towing
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- Urban Ventures
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- Urban Ventures
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- Urban Ventures
Filed under: St Paul
It was roughly 400 degrees below zero during the St Paul Winter Carnival – so I’m super proud that we made it to see the snow and ice sculptures. The Twin Cities Daily Planet was kind enough to post our review of the sculptures – but I had a few more photos to share…
Filed under: Chicago
We went to see the Chicago cousins for Thanksgiving. It’s another family tradition. We’re lucky in that my sister makes the whole meal. We just show up!
This year many of us went to visit the Chicago Institute of Art; Aine and I love that place and it was fun to see it with more people.
Filed under: California
In the fall I made a trip to San Jose. It was nice to not be cold for a while – admittedly if I knew how cold the winter was going to be I might have put off the trip a few months. I saw some fun things while I was there. I happened to be there while the Make-a-Wish Batkid events were happening. It was fun to see that – and fun to see the whole city (of San Francisco actually) turn out to see them make Batkid feel like a super hero. I also did a wine tour, visited the beach with huge seals and got to walk around San Francisco for a while. I went to one techie Meetup – lots of very focused, aggressive people from all over the world. Very interesting folks.
Filed under: Minnesota
Well I think at least two of us were surprised but turns out the girls all wanted to go to Nelson’s Farm to see the pumpkins, the kittens, the go carts and the trebuchet. We ate lunch at our usual place in Waverly. We stopped to see the largest ball of twine in Darwin.
Filed under: New York
The girls and I had one and a half days in NYC. (Grandpa dropped us off and went on to see carwashes and friends.) We made a list of all of the things we wanted to see while we were there. We saw everything on our list except the Statue of Liberty. We just decided that it was too much of a time commitment to make that trek. I wore my FitBit (which is just an expensive pedometer) and we learned after the first day that we had walked 18 miles! That’s pretty good.
We started the day getting up early to watch Good Morning America – mostly because we were staying in a hotel in Times Square that was feet away from the taping. Unfortunately none of us watch the show so we didn’t really recognize the people or know much about what was going on. So we headed south – partially because I was armed with a map of Banksy works. We were lucky enough to be visiting during the month that Banksy had taken residency in NY. So we were table to see lots of his street art. I was amazed at how much had been scrubbed away or defaced in the short time it had been up- who doesn’t know Banksy?! But I was happy with the amount that we were able to see.
We walked to the Brooklyn Bridge – and half way over it. We got bagels, which was on the girls’ culinary list. We toured the gardens of remembrance (sort of sneak previewed) at Ground Zero. We walked around Rockefeller. We went to FAO Schwartz – and got a creepy doll that has followed us to different places. We walked about the highline walkway – which is a cool elevated, artsy/nature path.
We went to the Museum of Modern Art, which Aine and I loved. Although with the visual arts, they had lots of small performance arts stuff happening around the galleries. We went to some cupcake place that the girls had seen on TV. We had slices of pizza. We had macarons at Laduree – somehow the girls knew about them. We walked through Central Park.
Who loves a road trip more than us? No one! We had a family baptism in New York so we decided to turn it into a road trip. Yes we were in the car as much as out of it – but that’s OK. Mostly it’s OK because Grandpa is the best driver ever. He drove every single mile there and back!
We started by going through Chicago to Northern Michigan. I don’t think I’d actually been to Michigan before. It’s very pretty – especially in the fall. It seems like we spent the first day or more driving. We did get the thrill of entering Canada. We had lunch there. The girls recognized that Canada is not exactly like the US – but it’s not really like London or Dublin either.
Also we all got a lesson on data plans. Only the mom gets to use International data roaming plans! So everyone else spent a few hours unplugged. OK maybe not the favorite few hours of the trip, but we all lived to tell the tale. We ended our time in Canada viewing the Canadian site of Niagara Falls. Unfortunately it was pretty dark but still pretty impressive. Also I realized that Priceline does not differentiate between US and Canadian hotels when you search for a place to stay near the border – after getting through the curt and unfriendly US border control. Luckily we also learned that we can get out of reservations made via Priceline if you call as soon as you figure out your mistake.
So we spent the night near Niagara, which was super nice for the two of us who got up early enough to check out the American side of the Falls. Though it was very cool. I always think it’s kind of amazing to see something that’s been around for so long. Then we continued on our voyage to New York City!
Filed under: Wisconsin
To celebrate some big birthdays, Grandma and Grandpa brought everyone to a very fancy cabin in Northern Wisconsin for a fun weekend. I’ll just say that the best part of having a brother who is a chef is not eating hotdogs or hot dish at family events. We ate like royalty! We also got to spend time on the boat and just hanging out in a very beautiful location.
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