Minnesota and Iowa Trip

In late April we flew to Minnesota to visit family.
I had been working on Sayre and Horsley genealogy and photos and had hoped to get more info from my Aunt Linda.  But after talking to my cousin, Sarah, I realized that Linda probably couldn't help me.  However I still wanted to visit them anyway.

The weather for the flight was clear so I had a view of the ground the whole way.  I loved seeing the changing geology.  As we flew over Minnesota I was amazed to see all the lakes!  The ground looked like Swiss cheese there were so many.  They are not kidding when they say the Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes!   We landed in Minneapolis, signed up for our sapphire blue rental car and set the GPS to guide us through the tangle of Minneapolis freeway interchanges.  I was SO excited to be in Minnesota.  I had never been this far east before, and really never expected to be there.

It was early spring, so most of the trees did not have their leaves yet, but it was still beautiful.  We finally reached Duluth.  The town was perched at the very tip of Lake Superior and the city rose up steeply, reminding me of the streets of San Franscisco.  The building were all 100 years old.  The main street downtown was made of brick, which oddly was a new construction.

We drove up the hill to my cousin, Allen Sparhawk's house.  I recognized it from seeing in on streetview on Google maps.  This brick house is Allen's.  He is in a band called, "Low," and was at a gig, but his wife Mimi came right out to welcome us.  They had agreed to let us stay in their other house next door.  They had bought the house for Allen's mother to live in.  However she had recently moved to a care facility.

Both houses are over 100 years old, but in great condition.   We had a very comfortable guest room, and it was fun to have the whole house almost to ourselves, and be able to cook in the kitchen.  

Allen loves to garden, and had some seeds started in an upstairs room.  When we looked out the window we saw a wonderful view of Lake Superior.  We could see ice piled high on the shore where the wind pushed it up into 5 foot high piles.







Now that his mother does not live there anymore, Allen uses the downstairs sitting room as a rehearsal room for his band.

Allen told me that his grandfather Horsley had built this cabinet.

We called up Sarah and her husband, John Paul, and made plans to meet.  It was great getting to know her awesome family.  All the kids were so welcoming and friendly.  The girls showed us their Scottish Dance.  We played pictionary, and I showed them how to cut a reindeer into a paper snowflake.

We went downtown to a meat market and Sarah bought some yummy smoked salmon.  She made a wonderful, very healthy dinner with the salmon.  We enjoyed it so much!    It is wonderful to get to know family.  I loved Sarah, and everyone in this sweet family.  I missed meeting her oldest daughter who was on a mission.  She returned just a few weeks after our visit.

Before dinner,  we all got in the car to go down to the lake.  The family had a prayer in the car before leaving. That impressed me.   Sarah took me on a walk along the lake boardwalk.  I was so excited to be walking along the lake!  John and Greg and the kids went on ahead to the Museum.    The museum taught me that this area was very important for iron ore shipping.  Huge ships called, "lakers." haul iron ore through the lakes. 

The harbor is protected by a  very narrow, 6 mile long spit of land. This is important because the weather is so intense in the winter, and the spit of land protects the harbor from wind blown ice damage from the lake.  At the top of this spit of land a very narrow channel has been dug to allow ships passage to the harbor.  A bridge across the canal allows cars to pass.  Then several time a day, as a huge ship approaches, the bridge lifts the road straight up, allowing ships to pass through.

 

We watched as a huge ship approached and sounded its extremely loud horn.  I had to cover my ears!  The traffic stopped and the deck of the bridge began to go straight up.  It took several minutes to go all the way to the top.    Then the ship passed through, and the bridge came slowly down again.

 

On Sunday my cousins brought my Aunt Linda to church.  I saw her sitting on the bench and rushed over to hug her.  It was SO good to see her!  Linda is my mother's youngest sister, and she used to babysit me when I was a baby.   Later we visited her at her home at the care center.  She showed us all around and introduced us to some of her friends.  She showed us a balcony where a pigeon had built a nest.  We talked about her family, and her parents and grandparents.  She said her Horsley grandparents eventually moved to California and had an orange grove.  They also grew boysenberries.  She said he parents visited them almost every weekend.

We went over to Allen's house and visited with him and his family.  His children are very talented and showed us their musical skills.  Mimi made us another wonderful, tasty, healthy meal.    I forgot to get a picture of their children, so the next morning I came over.  They were just getting back from early morning seminary.  They came home for breakfast and family prayer.   What a wonderful family!  It was great to get to know Allen a little and talk to him.  What a nice person he is!  

Sarah came over and we all took a walk through the trees to a small lake.  It was quiet and beautiful.  We spent a little time watching the birds on the lake.  Several large geese were very territorial and chased away other birds who came near.  They must have had a nest nearby.  The little duck on the lake just tried to say out of their way.

 

Later, Allen brought out photos and genealogy for me to see.  There were so many!  But I looked through them  and took pictures with my camera of the ones I didn't have.  We even found a photo of my Grandfather Virgil Sayre in his High School Football uniform!  I didn't know he played football!    

The day we left, Allen was walking though his garden.  I noticed a few early crocuses, the first flowers in the garden.  They were so pretty.  When we got ready to leave, Allen had picked them and placed them on our car for us.  That was so sweet.  I loved him for it . 

We drove to Gooseberry Falls, north along Lake Superior.  There were lots of different waterfalls to see there, and many many stairs to go up and down!  A sign said that the river had two colors, depending on the season:  coffee, and chocolate milk.  Decomposing leaves cause the coffee color, and churned up mud causes the chocolate color. 

We saw a statue honoring Hiawatha and his princess. 

Then we continued north to Split Rock lighthouse.  Years ago, the builders had to haul the building supplies up the cliff from ships below.  Then they built  stairs and hauled the supplies up the stairs.  Eventually they built a rail line with small trolley cars and hauled the supplies up that way.  It must have been very hard work!  I walked all the way down the stairs to touch the lake and bring back one small rock as a souvenir.

Next we drove to Iowa to visit my brother, Mark.   We got confused at first and told our GPS to go to Madison, so we were headed to Madison, Wisconsin for a while.  I wondered why we were going so far east, until I realized the mistake and we turned south again.   Mark met us at the Music Man Museum in Mason City.  The museum contains the entire Music man town inside a large building.  Which is good, because the winters in Iowa are very cold, and the summers are very hot, so being inside is great.  It was raining the day we visited.

 

After enjoying the museum, we drove to Hampton, Iowa where Mark lives.  A couple of years ago he bought a beautiful, but very damaged old house that had been neglected for many years, plus its attached small jail.  He is almost finished with the restoration of the house and has made it very beautiful.  

The jail is fully restored to its 1960 appearance and is now an odd sort of bed and breakfast for those who want to see what jail life is like.  Some people come to gain empathy for incarcerated family members. At least one couple came to get away from the kids for the weekend, but most come for a role play adventure where they can pretend to be inmates.   They put on 1960 jail jumpsuits and are locked into cells.   They eat meals (delicious meals) from a tray and have to clean the jail, just like real inmates would.   When the local sheriff drives by, he just shakes his head.  But Iowa just named Mark's jail as the top tourist destination in the state.  Needless to say, there isn't a lot to do in Iowa.

We spent a nice day with Mark, seeing his house and jail, eating at the local restaurant, and taking a walk though town.  Mark checks the weather often.  Hamilton is in "Tornado Alley," an area with high frequency of tornados.  Storms move in extremely quickly and can be very intense.   We witnessed a strong storm while were were there and saw just how intense the rain, wind and hail can be!

Mark drove us to a pretty reservoir and its small waterfall, (the highest waterfall in the state.)   Since we had just been to the  Music Man Museum, we decided to watch the movie.  We also enjoyed relaxing and playing scrabble.  It was great to see Mark and to see how happy he is now.

Finally, we drove back to Minneapolis and visited the Mall of America. We discovered there was a Rainforest Cafe in the mall.  But we didn't know where it was in the mall and we were very hungry.  We found a place to park and decided to just enter the mall and eat at the first restaurant we came too.  The first one we saw was the rainforest cafe!  We felt very lucky!

Every designer you ever heard of must have a store in the Mall of America.  We walked through the crayola store.  Along the back wall is a display with crayons stacked up the the ceiling in every color they have.  You can fill a little metal box with your choice of colors.   A beautiful little six yr-old girl was just finishing her box.

There was a lego store with displays of every set you could buy.  Some were huge.  There was also a 3 story high lego transformer, plus a lego helicopter with a dangling ninja.

I especially loved looking at all the dolls and accessories in the American Girl doll store.  Greg took a picture of me near the "Julie" display, the little doll from the 1970s.  I also liked the 1950s era doll.   I could remember wearing dresses like her.  There was a future doll, and Hawaiian doll, and so many more fun ones.  I was there a long time, and Greg was very patient.
There is a whole amusement park inside the mall.  We went on the Fly Over the USA ride and loved it.

The next day we flew home.  What an adventure!  We will always treasure this fun trip where we got to see new places and connect with family far away.