Last week I decided to take a look at the Mississippi River from Minneapolis and from St. Paul. I had my Kia Optima to test drive and thought it would be a fun thing to do, so I headed down to the river. #DriveKia
Because I’m more of a Minneapolis girl, I started out my trip by driving to the Mill Ruins Park. I’ve been down there before and Bailie was just down there last summer.
One of the most popular attractions in the area is the Stone Arch Bridge. It was built across the Mississippi River at St. Anthony Falls back in 1883. It is the only arched bridge made of stone on the entire Mississippi River! Every dog has to pose with this bridge for sure!
The back side of the bridge is the lock and dam at St. Anthony Falls. The lock and dam have now been closed, but they are still there and could be opened again in the future.
You might be familiar with Gold Medal Flour? Minneapolis is known for it’s flour mills. Behind me is the famous Gold Medal Flour sign. To the right is the Mill City Museum built around a mill that had first exploded, was rebuilt and was then destroyed by fire. The partial shell of the building, the ruins are still standing. On the left is the Guthrie Theater.
Down below, along the river are all sort of ruins, thus the Mill City Ruins Park name. The ruins really make for some fun photos.
More ruins to pose on. The colors of the stones and ruins look good with me and my furs I think.
As we headed out of the park area, I decided to take a quick trip down the West River Parkway to the famous Grain Belt Beer sign. I parked and had the car pose for a photo with the sign in the background. After prohibition, around 1940, a large billboard was erected on Nicollet Island next to the Hennepin Avenue Bridge. For years, it flashed the letters “Grain Belt Beer” in sequence. Everyone knows this landmark around here.
I continued my journey and came to a stop at Harriet Island Regional Park along the Mississippi River in St. Paul. If you read my post yesterday about the Pet Paw-Looza (don’t forget to RSVP), the product photos were taken in this park. There are paddle boats all along this portion of the river which is fun to see and made for some fun photo backgrounds.
Harriet Island is a nice park, but is also has a lot of concrete in the form of big walkways. The city of St. Paul is behind me on the other side of theMississippi River.
We decided to drive a bit further down the road to the Lilydale Regional Park where they have some real nice trails along the river. As you can see there are lots of trees too!
The neatest thing I found on the St. Paul side of the Mississippi River was this huge old tree. It was actually a bit creepy, but still pretty cool looking.
That my friends is the end of my tour for today. I hope you enjoyed getting to know the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities a bit better!
Great posing. Every landmark, park, river, and dead tree looks better with a doggie in front of it! Thanks for the tour. Mom would never let me get that close to a hollow tree. If I tried to investigate, she would tell me it’s all fun and games till a skunk comes out of the hole! Ugh.
Love and licks,
Cupcake
Oh my, we never thought of a stinky kitty in there! It was creepy and I didn’t want to go in and investigate.
You definitely found some great places to pose, Emma, and we enjoyed seeing all of those cool sights. You would make a great tour guide!
There are so many cool places, I could spend days posing I think.
Serious FABULOUS pictures!! Your dogs are SO good at posing!! This is award winning material!! Love it…
Thank you. I love to pose and be in front of the camera.
Thanks for the cities tour, Emma. So much history. You are a stunningly beautiful tour guide! XOXO Sparkle
There is a lot of history, especially on the Minneapolis side.
Thanks for the tour, I’ve never been to that part of the country, it looks very interesting indeed.
You were so close being in SD. I bet you could smell it from there…or at least the dogs could! You should visit some day, it’s a city, but not that huge.
Cool place. You should have picked us up
Lily & Edward
I would have, but it was a bit out of my way I think…like a few days of driving to the west and back!
What a fun excursion!
I did have fun seeing and sniffing around.
3 bum swings! 3 more! Looks like a pawsome good time Emma! Thanks for the tour.
<3 nose nudges <3
Olivia
It was a lot of fun. Lots of new places and new smells to sniff too!
we love that last photo – so artsy looking 🙂
Thank you…that would be me, artsy!
You are an excellent tour guide. I’d love to visit your fair city and go exploring together Could we borrow the cool car? BOL!
I would have to see when I’m getting a car and then you could come up and we could cruise the cities!
The stones in that bridge/arch do match your furs! And they look pretty good for being so out and out in the elements.
That bridge is older than old and still in great shape. Not far down the river is the 35W bridge that was much newer and collapsed back in 2007 killing several people and injuring many others. They just don’t build with the quality they used to I guess.
Our favorite photo is the first one! Do you like to sing while you drive? Looks like it!!
I love to sing, and singing is even better if my sisters join in. Mom doesn’t like my singing so much, so I have to sing when I get the chance, like while driving. Normally, if Mom is driving, we have a no singing rule.
That looks like such a fun time! Thanks for bringing us along! 😀
It was a lot of fun. We don’t go to the cities much which makes it a nice adventure.
That was a very cool tour and a nice ride too!
Thank you. We had a fun time.
OMD that was a SUPER tour… We loved it…. Our Mom uses Gold Medal Flour. It makes super PIES… Just sayin.
THANKS fur taking us on this FINE TOUR…. We REALLY enjoyed it.
Thanks boys! I think your mom is a good pie baker. My mom isn’t real good at pie, better at cookies.
What a cool trip! My momma’s seen da Mississippi River – much further south though!
It starts north of us, and one day we want to go see that spot. Mom has been there but we want to check it out too.
Thanks for the great tour, Emma!!
Smileys!
Dory, Jakey, Arty & Bilbo
Emma the tour guide at the service of Blogville, LOL!
Don’t you just LOVE the Optima? Fun car for fun traveling. 🙂
It was a bit small for our family, but it was a nice car.
Looks like a fun trip – thanks for sharing your adventures with us!
It was fun and nice weather for it too.
Thanks for the tour Emma! Mom has been wanting to visit Minneapolis forever but probably won’t get to. Remember my friend Layla that just moved there? Her mom posted a picture of that bridge on her IG account. Maybe you should follow her and let her know that you’re a friend of mine and live there (@allisonpalmstein). Love Dolly
Thanks, I’ll look her up on ig. I think your mom would like it here, it’s not that far away. She could come up for a couple days sometime.
Looks like it was a great day for a drive. How’s that Kia Emma?
It was a lovely day. The KIA drove pretty nice.
Thanks for the fun tour.
There are so many fun places along the river…this was just a couple of them.
You saw some really cool spots