feet in the Mississippi- May 23rd

Liz(zie) here again. I first visited Minneapolis during the summer of 1997 to check out colleges with my dad. He spent a couple of hours driving around, fruitlessly trying to find a place where we could walk into the Mississippi River, being repeatedly thwarted by concrete walls, fenced-off embankments, and cliffs.

To some extent, the Twin Cities seems to have the same relationship with the Mississippi that Boston used to have with the Central Artery—it’s an impediment, an obstacle to build overpasses and underpasses around. It is not an attraction. Which is really too bad, because it’s the Mississippi River! Come on, Minneapolis! Show it some love!

When my dad visited a few years ago, we finally figured out a way to get down to the water, over at Minnehaha Park. There is some kind of connection between this park and Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha . Either the connection’s murky or I’m too lazy to figure it out. (Maybe someone can illuminate us in the comments section.) Bizarrely, the park apparently contains a 2/3 size replica of Longfellow’s house in Cambridge, MA. Huh?

Aside from the Longfellow kitsch, there’s an awesome area where Minnehaha Creek converges with the Mississippi, about a 10-15 minute walk through the woods from the falls. When we went out there the other day, it was full of people drinking Coors Light and fishing in the river. Dave got surprised by a “big wave.” We got our feet wet. It was lovely.