The Journey 2008: Day 10

Sorry it took a little while. I need to get this back on track and not take so long to update. I know you all are waiting and wanting to know what happens next on The Journey 2008, haha. :)

We begin day 10 at Minnehaha Falls, and what a beautiful day it was. Great day for a wedding and celebrating with our friends.

Little Asian dance group all dressed up for a day at the park. Looked like they were out for a little photo shoot.

This crazy building is the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum on the University of Minnesota campus. Wish we had more time to check out how crazy the inside looked as well.

This crazy modern looking building is the Guthrie Theater. I know Morgan would have loved to go see a musical there. She would love to see a musical pretty much anywhere anytime she gets the chance.

The old mill area down by the Mississippi river.

Now we begin our portion of the journey following (well at least partly for part of the way) The Great River Road, down the Mississippi River.

Here we are at the Midtown Global Market. Amy and I had some good Middle Eastern food, and Morgan had some good Asian food. How can you go wrong with good food from around the world?

Here is the house we stayed at while in Minneapolis. It was a beautiful house in the middle of Lebanon Hills Regional Park off a dirt road with trees, paths and lakes nearby.

Now it is time for Tom and Carrie's Big Day!!!

The beautiful bride walking down the aisle.

A little laugh during the ceremony.

Ring time.

The kiss...it's official!!! It's time to celebrate.

Here is the happy couple.

Off to Wisconsin to catch the party boat to cruise the St. Croix River for the reception.

Tom and Carrie on the boat and ready to celebrate.

It was a beautiful day with perfect weather to be out on cruising the river.

Here is the party table. Santa Maria represent.

Tom showing all the guys the proper way to kiss their lady.

Cheers to the happy couple.

Two happy couples, and look I made it into a picture today.

A couple more pictures of the happy couple enjoying their day.

Good-bye Carrie and Tom...time for your honeymoon. Thanks for letting us share in your special day. It was an amazing day, and we had a great time celebrating it with you both. You are a great couple, and you will make great parents to Small Child who is coming into you life soon. We will have to plan another road trip out to Minnesota with our little one to meet your little one. Sound like a plan? :)

Time for us to head out of Minnesota. We are off to Iowa City, IA. Tomorrow we work our way down the Mississippi River to St. Louis, MO.

We added Wisconsin and Iowa to the state mix. Now we have been to 13 states and only have 6 new ones left to go.

The Journey 2008: Day 9

We begin day 9 in Minneapolis, MN (well a suburb) and at a place you might have heard of...Mall of America.

This place is huge with its very own indoor theme park, and stores for everyone and everything.

We had to go to the Lego store which had all sorts of different large lego models and structures.

Downtown Minneapolis...Some interesting buildings, and pretty dead since it was a Saturday afternoon.

After checking out the downtown area of Minneapolis we went to John Piper's church, Bethlehem Baptist church, which is right in downtown to hear John Piper preach on Psalm 42. If you wanted to listen to it, or any other sermon that John Piper has given for that matter, they are all available for free on his website at:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/

Check it out.

After Church we headed over to Minneapolis' twin St. Paul which is the capitol of Minnesota. Here is state capitol number 4 on the road trip. If those clouds do not look too inviting that is probably because this was the time we were hearing our very first tornado warning siren. We were just wondering...okay what do we do now? Lucky for us it was a Saturday and we were downtown in an area where there was no one around to ask where to go and what to do.

So we jumped in our car and drove to the St. Paul cathedral because hey, we had wanted to check it out anyway, and what better place to hide out from the possible tornado than a large structure built out of heavy stone.

But of course I had to take a couple of pictures of the clouds and possible tornado before I headed in.

Here Morgan is telling me to stop taking pictures and get inside.

They were finishing up a mass when we walked in, so we sat down for the last few minutes. At the end the priest informed everyone that they could stay as long as they like due to the weather conditions outside. Well everyone just left. I guess they have tornado warnings all the time, and so this must not be anything new for them. We were just scared tourists that didn't know anything about tornadoes besides what we saw in the Wizard of Oz and Twister. We decided to follow everyone else, and we headed out to grab some food.

Here are a couple of shots of our tornado shelter. (AKA St. Paul cathedral)

Here we are at Mickey's Dining Car in downtown St. Paul grabbing some grub. We had heard about this place from one of our favorite shows, 'Feasting on Asphalt' and of course had to check it out. Thanks for the tip, Alton.

As you can see it was good.

Well that ends day 9. A day of fun checking out new cities, eating new places and experiencing new weather conditions. Tomorrow more of the Minneapolis area, and the reason for the whole trip in the first place, Carrie and Tom's wedding.