I had, during a nice nap time last week when dada was away on business for the week (geerp, hopefully for the last time for a while), scoured the discussion boards. Well, the top 40 links on Google anyway. That's not a whole lot of scouring for me, but apparently, from a talk I heard at LLNL before leaving, "people don't look at the Google results past the first 3. Definitely not the second page." Ummm... I habitually go to page 7. And I mean habitually. There are only rare situations where I don't go past the first page. I mean, how aberrant is that, really? Anyway, one little scouring for me, one giant scouring for mankind. Or something. So, I found a few neighborhood candidates - one I *really* wanted to check out. This post from the Star Tribune last Halloween says the Minnehaha neighborhood is looking to earn a reputation for awesome Halloween-ness. They're trying that hard, I have to check it out!
So, I coaxed the kiddies, even took them to... duhn duhn duhn... McDonald's in hopes of getting them to eat whilst in the car - speaking of which, there REALLY needs to be drive-thru good food out there. I would NEVER EVER go to McD again (bLeCh). Anyway, snacks in tow (I should have packed apples, that's all M ate of her "Happy Meal" - what a good girl!), we headed off to Victory Memorial Drive. The closest of the potentials. We had a little lesson on Bald Eagles being the national symbol ("MOMMY! Look! There's a bird on the top of that United States flag!" - S is obsessed with US flags. Yay Montessori!) and why:
Mama: "Well, Bald Eagles live in the United States, they're very regal, powerful, fast and smart. Sounds like a good symbol to me!"
S: "Eagles don't have super powers!"
It seems in the US they do...
So we start our hunt with the least likely prospect first. In fact, luck would be there for us for the entire adventure. I think we continually found better and better neighborhoods from our list as we moved South and the East. I really should have had a tracking program on because the route that we went - just by clicking and navigating to the next closest 'hood on my Google Map layer of saved locations, we went on probably the most gorgeous tour of Minneapolis I have ever been on. Not probably, definitely. It is fall with its vibrant colors at peak, a little rainy to set the mood... we went through parks, golf courses, neighborhoods with fantastic malls and walkways, past beautiful churches, lakes, streams, trains, beautiful old bridges and buildings, Uptown and the Lake Harriet Bandshell, where flooding back memories of my childhood were flowing out of my mouth in my son's direction.
Mama: "And see that building with all the peaks, the white one with the big opening towards us and the big window looking over the lake? Bands and orchestras sit there on the stage and play in the summer and you can play on the grass over there!"
S: "......."
M: "????"
I'm adding a map of our approximate (VERY approximate and likely lacking in some locations, accurate in others) route through Minneapolis Halloween neighborhoods. We liked the Summit Ave. area, but I think we both agree, Minnehaha just beat it out by the slightest of margins. I don't know though, Irving Ave near Summit did have the princess, king, skeleton and bunny ghosts.
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