Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and A Pick-Up Pinball Tournament

 Minneapolis, MN

Heron Art Selfie!  Fun Fact, you can buy this heron statue for $25,000.  I'm just gonna go find a cash machine.

The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum

Today we drove out to Carver County MN to visit The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.  We used our Arboretum Reciprocal Pass to get in.  It's an amazing place and we will come here more because on the way out we became members.  We paid a bit extra for the membership here rather than just renewing our reciprocal pass at Descanso Gardens, but it will be worth it.  There is so much to do here.

We saved a tree.

The cactus area did not succ-ulent.

What up party people that like Botanic Gardens?

What up party people that like Botanic Gardens?

There were many tiny frogs or toads that we didn't step on.

Donna spotted this fungus we have yet to identify.

It's pretty easy being green!

We stopped by the cafe and split a sandwich and a salad and then went back for chocolate cake.  On the way out we bought our membership and then got to see some awesome art.  Adam Turman is a local artist that focuses on nature with a pop culture reference hidden in his paintings.  They are awesome!  

Some of the references aren't so hidden.

Some take a moment to notice.

Pick-up Pinball

Later that day we walked over to LITT Pinball to play in their Pick-Up Pinball "Tournament".  It isn't an IFPA sanctioned tournament, but it was really fun. The format is sort of a Master and Apprentice thing.  I think they call it Teacher and Learner.  You tell them if you are a teacher or a learner and then you are paired with another person.  Donna and I signed up to be Learners.  We aren't as new as some, but we don't know all of the rules to all of the machines at LITT.  We all met at 6:30 and Donna and I were paired with 2 Teacher players.  It was a really beautiful day today so only 8 people showed up.  This meant that there were two teams of 4 players.  Each team would play 5 games.  As we played the teachers taught us the rules, and at the end of each game we would add up all of our scores to create 1 giant score per game.  The other team did the same and at the end of the 5 rounds, the team that won the most rounds was the winner.  We were told they give out prizes for the top 3 teams and there were only 2 teams so the possibility of a prize was looking good.

We got to learn Jersey Jack's Pirates of the Caribbean Limited Edition.  It's a rare machine.

It was a really fun casual format that, I am sure, creates new players in the community.  We ended up winning the tournament and we got much bigger prizes than we thought.  We both got $25 gift certificates to a Venn Brewing and $25 gift certificates to Bryant-Lake Bowl.  That's $100 in gift certificates for entering and winning a free tournament that helped us become better players!  AMAZING!

Keep an eye out for 2 up coming posts using our gift certificates!

That's it for today.  If you missed, Getting Settled Ain't Easy, check it out.

A Calgary Park in a Mall

 Calgary, AB

Devonian Gardens

Today we walked to the CORE Shopping Centre (a mall) to visit The Devonian Gardens.  The gardens are actually in the mall on the top floor.  There are trees and 50 varieties of plants, mostly of the house plant variety, as well as a Koi Pond and a playground for the kids. It was pretty cool but I am sure it would be really cool er warm in the dead of winter.  The mall it is in is huge and connected by enclosed walkways that connect many of the buildings downtown so you can walk around without going outside.

Our walk to the downtown area took us down these steps that people use to exercise.

And we got to walk over two footbridges.

The Bow River passes right by Calgary on the east side.

Public art that reminded me of the Rockin' Rollercoaster queue.

These benches also hide a flood protection wall.  They can close this gate when the water in the river is expected to be high.

You can see part of the walkway system to the left and right of this building.

Light rail goes right by the entrance to the walkway near the mall.  There are a few stops that are fare free and subsidized by TD Ameritrade.  We will go back and ride at some point.

You have to have a ticket if you travel outside the small fare free zone.

We walked up some stairs and entered the walkway.

This is a map of all of the connected walkways. It's the most extensive pedestrian skywalk in the world with 10 miles of walkway through 130 buildings connected by 86 bridges.

Majestic Masks by Tom Ward.  He made these masks out of pine and spruce burls between the 1960s up until his death in 1984.

They are really cool.

A shop at the mall caught my attention.  If you are a pinball nerd you understand why it caught my eye.

There is a nice pedestrian mall outside as well.

Art in the outside pedestrian mall.

We saw Star Trek boots for sale.

The return portion of our walk took us through a bit of Chinatown.

After our 5ish mile walk we rewarded ourselves with some beer from a brewery about a half a block away from us.

The beers were just okay and Francis got a lot of attention, some of it was a little unwanted.

That's it for today.  If you missed, Deathsave Pinball Tournament, check it out.  I played in a pinball tournament here in Calgary.