Spring Break 2014 - The Museum

Ethan and I knocked one of our meager goals for this vacation off this morning, we had breakfast at Taco Bell! Yeah, we have lofty goals. We piled down a couple of waffle tacos and breakfast burritos each and headed into St. Paul to take in the Minnesota Museum of Science.

The MMS is one of the better science museums I’ve been to, quite honestly. We easily spent 3.5 hours there without even doing a movie! This included the dinosaur exhibit, which was very cool. I learned some interesting new things, in fact. I had no idea what a rennaissance of dinosaur discoveries we were in lately! I don’t think I recognized a single dino in the exhibit, they were all new discoveries in the last 10 years or so. My favorite was an entire new class of dinosaurs, the “titanosaurs.” Very cool name.

We spent the better part of the day there. Around 1:00 or so we decided we should eat something. Since it was nice outside (well, sunny at least), we walked around downtown St. Paul in desparate search of something to eat. I suggested we take on one of the hotdog vendors in the square, but Jenny insisted we find something else. After strikingo out at Paluzza (or something named similarly), we finally ended up at The American Burger Bar. After a quick round of drinks, a vacation necessity, conversation switched to more esoteric topics. One such topic was that of ninjas (of course). Quin stated that he was, in fact, a ninja. Ethan said that ninjas don’t talk, so there was no way he could be one. I stated that there could be some such thing as a “verbose ninja.” Ethan asked what that was, and without hesitation Quin told him, “A ninja that talks but just doesn’t tell his secrets.” I wrote that one down because, dang, what a great and accurate description!

Our original plan was to go to the zoo after lunch, but after eating, we decided we’d rather drive around a bit and hopefully get Quin to take a quick nap - he had gone to sleep at midnight the night before! So we tooled around Minneapolis for a bit, looked at all of the new sports arenas, saw the hole in the ground where the Metrodome used to be, and generally just farted around.

After an hour or so of that, we finally headed back south and checked into our hotel. Well, we first went to the wrong hotel, then checked into the proper hotel. Dinner plans were with the Johnson’s, one of the girls we grew up with and her family, at a Brew Pub like place in Apple Valley. Though the service was slow, the beer and the food were good.

We transitioned back to our hotel for an hour or swimming, which brings us up to the present. Now, Ethan, Jenny and I are watching TV in one room while Quin finally sleeps in the other half of the suite (yeah, we went all out). Tomorrow promises rain and cold, so our plans have us inside most of the day at the mall. Hopefully Ethan and I fulfill the remainder of our meager goals, to see Captain America. Then it’s off to see Grandpa and Grandma Grady for the first time since November as they stop off on their migration back to Neillsville for the summer.