East Side, West Side

Today's schedule called for seven miles. Coach Higdon said time didn't matter, just get in the miles, so I stopped and took pictures along the way. I'm not sure he meant to take it quite that easy, but he wasn't here to tell me otherwise. :-)

There's a great trail that runs along both sides of the Mississippi River. I started in the Southeast part of town, at the Mill Ruins. This rapidly gentrifying area is birthplace of the flour mills that earned Minneapolis the name "Mill City." In fact, its minor league team is called the Millers (St. Paul's is called the Saints.) The mills sprung up to take advantage of the power generated by St. Anthony Falls. The Pillsbury A Mill was once the largest mill in the world.

I headed west across the Stone Arch Bridge, a railroad bridge that has been re-purposed as a pedestrian/bike bridge. It's a great place to watch the Fourth of July fireworks. Sorry the picture is so crappy; I was using my cell cam and couldn't even see the screen! All I could do was point in the general direction and shoot. I might as well have been blindfolded. :-(

The wind was blowing pretty hard from the north, so I planned to run into the wind, then have it at my back for the end of the run when I was more tired. But first, I had to check out the new Gold Medal Park, which is adjacent to the Guthrie Theatre. It opened up last month.
I ran around the park and up this little hill, which gave a nice view of the river. You can see this park from the Guthrie and a bartender there said the mound was supposed to be reminiscent of Indian burial mounds.
Here is a picture of the bridge I just crossed; you can see how it got its name. That's the Pillsbury A Mill in the background. The two cranes are for the lofts that are coming up near the mill site. The A Mill is on the national register of historic places, so they can't mess with that.


As I headed north, I was delighted to find this Dino X Raysaurus. Laurie had mentioned the invasion of the dinosaurs upon the Twin Cities in her June 26 post, so I knew at once why it was there.

Since rivers need to be crossed, and ferries are so-o 18th century, there are a lot of bridges along this route. This beauty is one of my favorites--the Hennepin Ave. bridge. It sits at the location of the first bridge to unite Minneapolis with St. Anthony (where the mills were.) St. Anthony merged with the city of Minneapolis over a century ago. I wasn't able to get the entire bridge in the picture, but you get the idea. One year I ran across it for a Thanksgiving Day race and felt like I was crossing the Verrazano Bridge at the New York City Marathon! In the background is a neon sign, meant to resemble a beer bottle cap, that says "Grain Belt Brewery." The brewery closed in the mid 70s, and the building has been repurposed into various business suites. It's a cool place. My hairdresser used to have his salon in the former keg house.

OK, I had to get some running in! I headed north along the river, hunkering down into the wind, then crossed the bridge at Plymouth Ave. Back on the East side now, I ran south through Boom Island park. This area was formerly a holding place for logs being floated downriver to the sawmills. Now it houses picnic tables and a river cruise ship. Running along the trail past Boom Island, I came upon this flower garden. Who can resist flowers! Not me, even though this picture looks like something Monet would have painted in his later years (when he was going blind.)

I crossed a little wooden bridge, which led to Nicollet Island. This area houses a small hotel, high school, and some homes. It's not very big (48 acres), but it's wonderful! As I was running around it, I thought if I were staying in Minneapolis, this is where I'd try to live. Also here is the "Bell of Two Friends" a gift in July 2001 from the sister city of Osaka, Japan, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of Minneapolis and Osaka becoming sister cities. Since I've been to Osaka, I thought it was pretty cool to stumble upon this. The plaque that explains this invites you to pass through the arch and ring the bell in solidarity of world peace, so naturally I did.


Since Nicollet Island is in the middle of the river, I needed to cross another bridge to run down the east bank. This small bridge was made in 1887 and always reminded me of an Erector set. It's a pin-connected Pratt through-truss bridge for you budding civil engineers. It actually was part of a larger bridge a mile upstream at Broadway Ave. and was moved here in 1987 when that bridge was replaced.

Facing east from the bridge, is this sweet church, Our Lady of Lourdes. It's the oldest continuously used church in the city and was founded by French Canadians. Back when I ate meat I used to go there to buy lamb pies, which they sell frozen as a way to raise money. Six years ago, the day before I had to put my cat to sleep, I brought him there to be blessed by the priest.

We're getting close to the end of the run. Only a mile left! Here's a closeup of the Pillsbury sign, near the A Mill. It says "Pillsbury's Best Flour." It's directly across the river from the Gold Medal Sign.

When I got back to the start, I was still short of 7 miles. What's a girl to do? I ran across the Stone Arch Bridge again! As I was crossing, I saw the paddlewheeler Minneapolis Queen go into the lock and dam. She was heading upstream to Boom Island, so I ran north and caught her as she came out the other side. Here she is under the Third Ave. bridge and the St. Anthony Falls are on the left. Now my run was over and I headed to the nearest coffee shop to get some carbs and protein. I hope you enjoyed the tour. There were a lot of pictures, but I tried to keep the size small. Let me know if the pictures took too long to download.