St Paul - the top Twin

OK, so St Paul and Minneapolis are

called the Twin Cities.

But they are not identical twins.

They could not be more different.

Several Minnesotans mentioned a bit of a contrast between the two. But they did not quite prepare one for just how dramatic that difference is.

Minneapolis is the boy twin, clever, loud and untidy.

St Paul is the girl, gentle, quiet, cultured, sensitive.

St Paul is a city to fall in love with. She's magic.

Well, perhaps not the underground parking garage. That is weird. We get a lovely welcome from the parking attendants but they don’t tell us that we have to navigate down and down and down a claustophobic cement corkscrew driveway into the bowels of the riverside to find a parking space.

Then we have to walk up many ramps. And there is the St Paul Science Museum. It is right there on our to-do list. In we go.

Well, it is yet more proof how America is geared towards children. This museum is a kids’ playground of learning - and there are packs of kids spinning things and pulling things and poking things.

It features a tug boat and a giant astronaut as well as a big dinosaur skeleton facsiile. It has a display of Egyptian mummies but it charges extra to go there. It has some

interesting human body displays and a big section on genetics with the theme that racial difference is an idea rather than science.

Best of all, it has a rogue’s gallery of quackery.

Bob McCoys Museum of Quackery and Questionable Medical Devices.

I had written about this years ago in my Internet column. It was and is a terrific website. And here were all the wild devices.

And truths. Those vibrating belts they used to use in slimming

parlors will not help you lose weight. Coloured lights will not cure ailments. Radium drinking is a kill, not a cure. Phrenology-machine head mapping reveals nothing.

The collection of oddball machines are like weird torture chamber devices - but they were long used and believed in and a lot of quacks made a lot of money convincing trusting souls that they would do them good.

Walking through St Paul is really soothing. It is uncrowded. It is about lunchtime as we leave the museum. The sun is shining. it has turned into a delicious day. All around the city

people are strolling slowly or sitting on park benches eating slowly. No one hurries. Lots of people are sitting alone. I don’t think I have ever seen so many solos. A lot of women. Dotted around. Eating, reading, doing phone…

We pass a bronze statue in honour of a local hockey coach and stroll up, past a stunning theatre and arts complex, to a glorious open area. I would call it a square but it is a round. There’s a charming fountain with a statute of woman and child and, far distant from the fountain, a curve of iron benches upon which people sit and lunch, read, phone or just sit. And there,

standing in a corner of the park with his coat and hat over his arm, is none other than Scott Fitzgerald in magnificent life-sized bronze. He was a native of St Paul.

We wander off admiring the imposing old Landmark Hall which is backdrop to this lovely park. We seek food.

We find Peanuts, instead. A statue of Charlie Brown and Lucy in the park. Ah, yes, Charles Schultz is another son of St Paul.

More relaxed people sit on their own. A few people stroll. A food truck vendor selling soups calls out to us. We respond but have no intention in the world of souping from a truck.

A saxophonist is playing laid-back jazz,

exquisitely. The strains reach out across the park. Oh, lovely. Where is he?

Oh, standing in the shade on the corner. A passer-by pauses and then sits in a chair beside him to listen.

We go over and compliment his playing.

And then we discover the Meritage restaurant with oysters from just about every oyster ground in America

and an outstanding seafood menu. It is rather swanky. The perfume of garlic and goodies is irresistible.

We are shown a perfect table in the shade on the patio.

More gentle jazz in the air, this time from the restaurant’s sound system.

We watch the local city workers out at their lunchtimes, unhurried, convivial, quiet.

There is hardly any traffic. It is the quietest town in the world.

Iced tea is served and then the mussel amuse bouche - a vivid saffron creamy seafood soup with one delicate mussel. We eat it with a teaspoon.

It is rich, with an elegant, nay accomplished fish stock base. It is utterly exquisite.

So are our salads, a seared tuna Nicoise for B and a salmon and asparagus for me. Perfection. Delicate, perfect.

We purr off to visit the mighty Landmark building in the centre of town.

It smells musty and is drenched in faded grandeur.

There’s a setup for a wedding in the main hall.

It is deserted apart from a quiet women at an information desk.

I take a brochure and we check out the city walk and what we have yet to see.

The St Paul Hotel where Gene Autrey stayed WITH his horse. We enter its grand chandeliered foyer and weave our way to the skyway.

Tour guide Judy had told us how the St Paul skyways differed from Minneapolis insofar as they were uniform, all designed and supplied by the city itself. In Minneapolis, they were the responsibility of the various buildings and were diverse.

We walk a couple of skyways which give us good views of the city.

Then we potter back to the car and headed for the Fitzgerald Theatre - named in honour of Scott, of course.

It is where Garrison Keillor presented his Prairie Home Companion Show for so many glorious years. He has just called it a day. We heard his final program on the radio while were driving

a week ago. So sad. It was an institution, broadcast by Minnesota Public Radio which also is based here in St Paul.

The theatre looks great but it is closed for renovations.

Directly opposite, oh my, a giant round structure declaring itself the Church of Scientology.

Our eyebrows skip to the back of our heads.

Time to go.

Minneapolis and Minnehaha

Minneapolis.

The country road turns to urban sprawl, turns to multi-lane highways, turns to spaghetti junctions, and the city is there on the skyline. Another city I’ve always dreamt to visit. Suddenly, here I am.

Well, not exactly. We place ourselves in Roseville, which is handily close to both the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul.

We’re at another Country Inn & Suites by Carlson with a beaut big sky view out the window, good pool, beaut beds, spotless rooms, helpful staff and decent brekkies. Love this chain.

We have a few days here.

First up, well, it’s the Mall of America, of course.

It’s the biggest mall in the USA. Just try to keep me away.

Bruce understands that this is a de rigeur retail fix, a proper bragging rights retail fix... He loathes shopping but he is fascinated by the logistics of mega creations. He's already doing the sums when we swing past the No Guns signs. Phew. They're a comfort.

The reality of the place leaves one utterly stupefied. Add gob-smacked, rubber-necked, agog, awe-struck and incredulous.

There is an entire amusement park complete with roller coasters, zip-liners, dodgem cars, ferris wheel, spinning arm things….

Then there are the giant Lego and giant Crayola stores.

It is very kid-oriented - as is America generally as I keep observing.

We seek out some easy food court food, thanks to my old fav, Panda Express, and we go mall walking. Now this Mall is on four or five levels. It is up and up and down and down while it is also long and broad. So one can walk a long way. And we did. The pedometers on our phones showed a 10km mall walk.

Such good exercise sets us up well for dinner close to our digs. Joe’s Crab House. A huge pot of crab legs and a whole Maine lobster. Oh, now I know I am in America.

Of course, vital for a theatre person in Minneapolis is a drop in on the Guthrie Theatre, famously founded by Tyrone Guthrie to celebrate repertory theatre.

Ye Goddesses, I had no idea it was such a monumental great monolith of a black, shiny, ritzy multi-storey edifice. One would never take it for a theatre. But there’s a giant black and white photograph of Guthrie on the

front of the Guthrie, so it is unmistakable.

There is no theatre tour available until we have left town and the show I’d like to see, Disgraceful, does not open until we are gone. South Pacific is on, but I saw a version too recently. I am disinclined to ring the theatre and pull professional rank. I prefer just to go as an everyday tourist.

I am pleasantly received by the concierge and given lots of directions. Immediately, I am uncomfortable. That narrow escalator is so steep and so high. Too steep. Too high. I grit my teeth and get on. Upstairs are the auditorium entrances and assorted bars and cafe and lots of foyesr in various directions. We check them all out and then follow instructions and take the lift

to the 9th floor and view the river from the vertiginous lookout with its glass floor, upon which I will not tread. Whose dumb idea was this? I am really, really uncomfortable now. I hate heights.

I am pretty much a down-to-earth theatre stalls theatre person. The old critics’ seats, row G or H. That’s where I’ve spent much of my life. Not on lifts and escalators and glass-bottomed foyers in theatres.

I run into a young tech called P.J. who is working on Disgraced. They are having a tech run. He tries to smuggle me into the auditorium but finds he can’t get in himself. Oops. We chat. He raves about the production of South Pacific and is proud about how they have toned down the script’s racist undertones.

I am edgy. I want to be on the ground.

When I get there, the theatre gift

shop is closed. Goddammit.

We walk on through the historic flour mill district of Minneapolis and uptown. It is a long hike and the Nicolet Mall which we planned to stroll, is under massive renovation. It is a building site for a full mile. It is a noisy filthy, ugly shambles. We sidestep it and walk a couple of skywalks - upstairs bridges which connect the city buildings so the people can move around in the hard and nasty winters they get here. We come upon a Panera Bread and stop for salad, then return to the mall to find The News Room.

It is a restaurant famous for its newspaper theme. Oh, my. It is very theme. You never saw such big news pages as

they have on the walls or such immense and hefty rolled newspapers as they have hanging from the ceiling.

The bar is in the shape of a ship for no associated reason I could fathom. But newspapers rule from end to end. Most fascinatingly, in the path to the rest rooms. There is a corridor of giant news pages which branches into two feeding towards the women’s and the men’s rooms. The really odd thing is that the washrooms of the men’s and the women’s are separated by half-silvered mirrors so, while washing hands at the sink, one can see through the mirror to the ghostly form of a man washing

his hands in the men’s room.

Why they chose to do this, heaven knows.

It is fun. It is weird.

I send Bruce in and try to take a photo of us both - but, while you can see the tap through the mirror, the camera can’t pick up the face on the other side of the mirror.

We order coffee and dessert at the News Room. Dessert is root beer cookies with vanilla bean ice cream. There is quite a wait for this confection and we wonder what the…

And then it comes, hot and fresh from the oven. Root beer has a sarsaparilla flavour. This combination of ice cream and cookie is like a hot and cold root beer float. It is orgasmic. I sit there swooning, just swooning… I don’t know when in my life I have ever tasted anything so exquisite.

I meander out into Minneapolis in some sort of a reverie. It takes hours to recover. Maybe I am still high. Oh, wow.

Next day we are booked for a tour.

Seeing a MetroConnections brochure

in our hotel lobby had prompted us to the idea of getting informative commentary and covering a whole lot of territory without the car. We are picked up at the Mall of America. Just 15 of us with driver, Tom, and guide Judy.

Oddly, we don’t go where we think we are going. Our tour has been amended because of the construction shambles in Minneapolis. So first up we go to a peace park and contemplate roses and origami. It is a pleasant park. Among our number is a solo traveller, a Chilean woman called Lorena. Clearly, she needs companions. I chum up with her. Language is an issue but instinctively we seem to like each other.

Judy gives her commentary standing at the front

of the bus facing us with a mike in one hand and the other free to grab the luggage rack if we corner or stop suddenly. Travelling backwards and talking and coping with bus movement is quite a skill. Then she reveals she’s been at it for 23 years. She’s even done tours to Australia. Not by bus, of course. She explains the origins of the names of Minnesota and Minneapolis and a broad brush of history and culture.

We drive around a lot of suburbs. It is fascinating. She points out houses of the Minneapolis rich and famous. Not that they mean much to us. But the houses are outrageous and we love it.

The bus bumps its way into the city proper with Judy berating the detours and construction which frustrates tours.

We are dropped in Nicolet Mall to find lunch. We go to Macy’s basement and have lousy Chinese before rejoining the bus.

Bloody hell. Now we’re going to the Guthrie. Been there, done that. Oh well, the gift shop surely will be open. It’s not.

We go for a walk and look at the river while the rest of the tour does the Guthrie. I tweet about the closed

gift shop. It replies that it will be open at 4pm. Madness. The place is swarming with internationals who all want to take something home from it. What’s its problem? Doesn’t it want to make money?

We drive around the staggeringly huge new sports arena which Judy explains is so controversial in the city.

Next stop, the Mississippi. We are going for a paddle boat ride.

It starts to rain. Judy says its not really rain. It is imaginary, or should be. The forecast gave a 20 per cent chance of showers. We’re snug in the bus. We care little.

The rain stops in perfect time for us to board the river boat. The paddle wheel is just for decoration, Bruce discovers. By now, we are a comfortable trio with Lorena who turns out to be a special-ed teacher and the widow of a distinguished educator and academic. She is visiting her daughter who has just produced Lorena’s first grandchild, Maya. Lorena is in love.

The Mississippi is a tough, working river. She’s running very fast and high after big rains up north. The banks are very high and steep, covered in a density of trees and creepers.

There are barges and floating cranes. There’s a tug boat. There are bridges and buoys. There's some ingenious graffiti, especially that decorating those buoys. I amused myself imagining how crazy it must have been for the artists to paint them - dead of night, wobbly boat...

The captain gives us some commentary and there is a sound track on the history of the river. We end up leaving our nice upstairs

indoor table and standing on the deck, close and personal with the brown water. We are about 90 minutes on the water and it is very relaxing, albeit the weather remains a bit dreary.

Next stop, Minnehaha Falls where there is a lovely park, a sweet statue of Hiawatha wth Minnihaha and the fabulous waterfall.

Lovely.

Back on the bus, Judy regales us with stories and amusing Minnesota trivia.

Spam, for heaven’s sake. It is a Minneapolis invention and an ever-growing market in all manner of different international flavours. Gawd.

The traffic is bad. We hit some jams.

We don’t care. Judy is in full flight.

Mars Bars are from here, too.

Judy Garland was a Minnesota girl. Judy was named after her.

Bob Dylan is a Minnesota boy. The late, lamented Prince. Peanuts cartoonist Charles Shultz. Garrison Keeler, of course.

She tells Jesse Ventura stories. He was a governor here.

Driver Tom might not be enjoying the traffic delays, but we passengers, none with a flight connection to stress the clock, are well entertained and perhaps a little sad when we reach the tour’s end back at Mall of America.

Corn bowl Minnesota

Roadside sign:

“Eat Steak. Wear Furs. Keep Guns. The American Way.”

I think we’re in Minnesota.

If there was a “Welcome to Minnesota” sign, I missed it. There was a sign reminding motorists to use seat belts. I think that designates that we are no longer in South Dakota where, like New Hampshire, motorcycle helmets are not compulsory and nor are seat belts by the look of it.

It is more corn country. "Corn as high as an elephant’s knee", says Bruce. That’s his hybrid corn joke. These days they have bred corn low and stocky instead of tall and wavy.

And, gee, there is a lot of it.

Monoculture almost.

We pass through nice, neat, prosperous towns.

Davison, population 1500, with railways and silos.

Montevideo, pop 5383, more silos, more corn. It is a lush little town.

The landscape begins to undulate. Trees are appearing. Getting bigger and bigger.

Here is the Minnesota River.

And the trees go river huge. They are tall walls on either side of the road. No big sky.

Rain.

A town called Sacred Heart. It is verdant and pretty, quite a contrast to the voices on PBS radio saying that “PTSD is being black”. There is a lot of black rage being expressed following the massacre of five Texas cops. “To be black is to be stigmatised.” “We need the Governor’s mansion as a location for healing workshops.”

My Australian mindset keeps thinking that guns are a big issue with all these black deaths and white

deaths. Why does no one want to talk about the guns?

We drive through Renville, population 1,287. A proud little town. It has a self-serve produce stand at the roadside. We don’t stop since we don’t have a kitchen.

And we’re back in the open lands of corn fields.

Danube, population 505. Lawns and silos, Soy crops. Corn fields, Vast,

smooth acreages, green corn and golden wheat.

And then Olivia hoves into view.

Olivia is a big town. It is a renowned town. It is THE CORN CAPITAL of the USA, possibly the world.

Yep.

It has ears of corn exquisitely depicted in lacy metal adorning all the light poles through the town.

It has corn banners hanging from light poles. Corn rampant.

But….We have read that Olivia has a giant ear of corn.

We drive from one end of the main road to the other and don’t spot it. We check out a couple of broad side streets.

No big corn.

Hmm.

Lunch, then.

There seems to be only one possibility, a wee cafe adjacent to the Christian Drop-in Centre and opposite a massive array of

immense, towering, huge, giant concrete silos. No big corn, but bloody huge silos.

The cafe is utterly darling and welcoming.

We saw no-one on the streets of Olivia and realise now that they are all in the drop-in cafe. Nice ladies are grouped around lots of tables. We take a high stool table amid some religious iconography in the shopfront, away from the ladies but with a good view of the silos.

We order the daily special. Reuben sandwiches all round. I ask if there is any chance of a cup of tea. “Yes, of course!” declares the affable proprietor, proffering a pot of boiling water and a bowl of teabags. After much rummaging among decaf green, yellow, red, gold and herbal teas, I find one ancient Lipton’s teabag and, after begging some real milk instead of the American creamer stuff, I have me a proper cuppa. It is the first cup of tea I have had in over a month. It is the best cup of tea ever.

The Reubens aren’t bad, either.

Nor is their little unisex rest room. One can't help but pause and admire its unusual reading matter.

“So where’s the big ear of corn?” we ask, as we leave.

It seems we drove right past it. We retrace our steps to the end of town, do a U-turn and drive very slowly. How can something so big be so hard to spot?

It turns out that the surrounding trees have quite eclipsed, the Corn Capital of America’s giant ear of corn.

It also turns out that the Corn Capital of the USA and possibly the world is such because it was founded by the farmer who pioneered Trojan seeds. Olivia is proud of its reputation for aggressive farming practises by the local corn farmers and and it has attracted all the GM companies there are. Inside the pavilion beneath the giant corn are photographs and acknowledgements. Needless to say, Monsanto stars.

Bruce and I disagree on the issue of genetic engineering. We keep the peace by saying very little as we drive out of Olivia, past the vast corn crops with their experimental code flags identifying whatever the high-tech newness of them is.

Oh, and here’s a sign for Bird Island. Population 1000.

I look it up to brighten the atmosphere in the car.

It seems it was named for its bird sanctuary - but the local farmers installed ditches to irrigate the farms and drained the reason for the town’s title. Oh, well.

We listen to more of Minnesota’s Public Radio. They’re talking about racial hatred.

“Families and colleague of the slain police are feeling pain but it is nothing to the pain the black community overall has had to feel,” says a Dallas community leader.

“Yes, they did carry guns to their peaceful protest. They own them legally!”

A town called Cosmos passes. Lovely name. It has a sunflower crop.

Buffalo, population 732. Silos.

Flags at half mast in all the towns.

Stewart passes. Power poles and silos.

Oh, look, this must be Minneapolis.