A Visit to The Four Most Popular Tourist Attractions in Minnesota

The Task

As most of you know, this past Thursday I left for Minneapolis, Minnesota to go see my doctor over at Mayo/Fairview.  He's been working on my knee, and after some x-rays revealed that the screws holding it together had shattered, he needed to take a look.  Since I've got a stack of free Northwest airline tickets, I ordered up a flight and got time off work.  Unfortunately, one of the limitations of the free ticket is that I can't arrive and leave the same day.  The first flight back with an open seat was on Saturday, so I loaded up Travelocity and got me a cheap hotel room and a rental car.  Enterprise allows drivers under 25 to rent with a small fee, and I managed to score a Ford focus for just $80 from Thu - Sat.  

My flight got in early, so instead of having to rush to the doctor's office, I was able to pick up my car and find some lunch.  As I got to the rental counter, the guys there just told me the terminal had been evacuated due to a fire.  If I'd not gotten in early, I'd have been unable to land and would have missed my appointment.  Talk about good timing.  So, I hopped into my nice new blue Ford, and headed for the Dr.'s office, looking for some lunch.  I found Davanni's, a pizza joint just a block away from the office.

Once I got into the office, I was told the doctor was two hours behind.  They wanted to take some X-Rays of their own, since they weren't happy with the ones I'd had FedEx'ed up from Mississippi.  I spent an hour being irradiated.

Afterward, they sent me back out to the lobby to wait on the doctor.  The office was very nice, but very busy.  There were about 50 patients still waiting for the different doctors in the clinic, and it seemed like they were going to see everyone else before they got to me.  I spent time watching the fish in the tank and flirting with a cute receptionist who refused to let me take a photograph of her once I told her I'd put it online for you dirty bastards.  

After an hour or so of being examined by the doctor and several interns, they decided that I'm just too far away for them to effectively care for.  Basically, they brushed me off, and told me to find another doctor.  They claim they'll be in touch next week to help me find someone nearby.  When I left, the office was closed, and nobody had the thingy to validate my parking with, so I wound up paying $20 to park, which was even more disappointing.  I now had an entire day with nothing to do, and after being rejected by the U of MN Law School, I had no reason to go there, which had originally been my plan.  

So, I went in search of my hotel.  I eventually found it, and discovered it wasn't a hotel, but a suite.  A nice suite at that.  At only $32.70 a night, I wasn't going to complain at all.  The only problem was that Travelocity didn't note the presence of a data port in the room.  I left my laptop at home, so I had high speed internet, and nothing to use it with.  I kicked myself for that.  But, I didn't want to deal with the "Laptop Nazi" at the airport.  

The Decision

Now, with an entire day and nothing to do, and unlimited miles within the state of Minnesota, I decided to visit the top four tourist attractions in the state.  The number one, attraction, The Mall of America, I quickly decided against, however, due to later events.  Besides, it's just a mall.  A big mall with a theme park inside, well yes, but it's just a bunch of stores.  A whole lot of stores.  If you're ever up that way, and have money you'd like to spend, go there.  And, try the new roller coaster.  And the club on the top floor.

Minnesota's 2nd Most Popular Tourist Attraction

As soon as I got out of bed (at a leisurely 10 am), I hopped in my ride and headed south from the city.  I was soon outside the sprawl, enjoying rolling hills filled with fields.  It seemed almost like my home in Mississippi, only that we don't put our farms on hills.  We have a nice flat Delta for that.

Soon, I started to see signs directing me to my first destination.  Cabela's, the largest sporting goods store you'll lever see.  This place is massive.

I checked out the two big exhibits, their monument to land animals and their tribute to underwater life.  The land animals have ceased to live, but the fish were all swimmy.  My digital likes things that are still, and with lots of light.  Needless to say it didn't appreciate fast-moving fish.  But, one of their handy salespeople gave me some tips on how to get the settings on my camera to work a little bit better in the dark.  He also almost convinced me to drop a grand on a Digital SLR.  He didn't have to try hard, since I'd love a real digital camera, but I knew to run when he started offering to finance it.  That's the last thing I need to do.

I noticed they'd conveniently located the aisles of ammo near the deer side of the mountainous exhibit.  

The fish were great.  There was a "tunnel of tanks" and then some exterior tanks that opened out into the store.  The place was packed, and all the kids were captivated by the fish.

With my manly hunting instincts now rekindled, I went in search of some food.  Luckily, they had a nice steakhouse in the store.  I had a nice venison stew and a huge slab of bass for lunch.  Dr. Atkins would love this place.

Minnesota's 3rd Most Popular Tourist Attraction

Oddly enough, the next most popular attraction is nearly an hour and a half away from Minneapolis in the city of Austin.  Located in this small community, there is a meat packing plant that helped us win the war.  Today, they're best known for that lovable canned product of miracles, SPAM!  The diverse history and mystique of this product has led literally tens of people to make this drive every single day and see the entire story behind the Hormel Foods product.  From the embezzlement that would make Enron and WorldCom's problems pale to the impact this product paid in feeding our troops overseas, the SPAM museum is truly a gem.

The people here truly love their product.  Even that architects who designed the building threw in little subtle tributes to the product and its sources.

The trip started with a historical adventure.  They had reenactments of all sorts of history, and even the original switchboard from the factory's offices retooled to let you listen in on simulated conversations about the historical goings on.  I decided to monitor some calls.  Now, I finally understand the operator's place in the community back in those days.  They could listen in to anything!

There was then a small play, congratulating the meat product for saving the company during their hard times.  They also then had a monument for the factory workers who'd gone to fight and given the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.  They also had examples of their marketing through time.

Of course, I had to find out about the history of that lovable package of SPAM.

The museum was interactive, and one exhibit that really had people having a good time was the Hands-on SPAM factory, where you can compete to create the fastest can of SPAM.  These girls tried to beat me.  They both did.

But what the girls didn't know is that there was an exhibit of uniforms, both past and present.  I stole a helmet, in hopes that it would help boost my canning speed.  Once again, the girls beat me.

This product is truly worldwide, and truly good.  One problem with the museum, however, is that they don't try and actually get you to have some of the delicious spiced ham (where SPAM gets it's name, for SPiced HAm).  They do have a gift store, though, with SPAM available for sale and also lots of great merchandise.

Minnesota's 4th Most Popular Tourist Attraction

I then rushed back to the city to make it to the Ellingson Car Museum.  There, I got to see lots of vehicles that made me drool. 

Lots of the cars were for sale.  But several weren't.  I think you'll realize why: they belong to Batman, Marty McFly, Seve Urkle, and George Jetson!

They even had a cool Amphicar, ready for a trip to the beach!

And, they had the car I wanted to take home, a 1940 Cadillac 7 passenger formal sedan, at the take-it-home-today price of $32,950.

They also were building a new land racer, attempting to beat the land speed record.  They need sponsors and workers if anyone would like to help out!

Tucked in a corner, they had some old test equipment.  They also had one of the greatest gaming consoles ever made, the Magnavox Odyssey 300.

Terrorists, Alert!

On my way back to the hotel, I drive past two buildings on I-494, that I feel I must alert the terrorists to.  If, for instance, a terrorist was to find some nuclear material and decide to take out part of middle America, please place your bomb equidistant between these two buildings.  That's right.  Best Buy and PeopleSoft are just a couple of miles apart.

Dinner With An Arsian

I then got a phone call from HydraShok (formerly Counterstrike) who wanted to know if I'd had dinner.  I hadn't so after a bit of driving found his house and went with him and his brother to have dinner, some BBQ at a pretty nice place not far from their house.  We had a great time talking shop and trying to get his bother up to speed on exactly what Ars is all about.  Once we got done, we went back to his place for a few minutes and managed to snap a couple of photos.  For those of you not aware of this fact, he and his brother are quite tall.  I'm not a midget, I promise!

The Result

Saturday morning, I made my way back to the airport and dropped off the car. When I picked it up, the trip odometer read 0.  The rental-car guys demanded to see the photos.