HVT Flashback: Minneapolis

When I woke up in Des Moines this past Sunday, I had a sore throat and some stuffiness. I thought it was just because we slept in a 2 cat house, but the sore throat never went away. A day or two later, it morphed into a full-blown cold. I've been pretty miserable all week long. I'm not sure where or how I picked up this sickness, but it's partly my fault. See, when I'm really stressed out, I don't eat well. Stress + poor diet = shot immune system. That's what I get for not chilling the heck out.

I've been in a stuffy fog all week, wishing I felt well enough to go outside into the world and romp around. Being stuck in the house makes me think of trips I've been on, many of which I took before I created this blog. I was a hungry vegan traveler long before I started this blog, so let me backtrack a little for you and share some good eats and good sights in MINNEAPOLIS. We spent Memorial Day weekend of 2009 up there.


On the way up, we stopped at Fresh Cafe in West Des Moines for lunch. Above is the sweet potato spinach salad. It was too heavy on the rosemary for my taste, but still pretty good.



After we checked in at the hotel and dropped our belongings, we set out on foot for awhile to see the nearby sights. I fell in love with this fountain:

I think it would look lovely in my yard full of bottle trees, don't you?


We strolled through the sculpture garden.


Then wandered around downtown.



The next day we went to the science museum, which I'm pretty sure was more interesting for the Boyf than for me. I was more excited about finding the Peanuts sculptures, which are scattered around St. Paul.



We had a vague idea of the general vicinity of the sculptures, so it was really exciting to spot one. Many of them blended in so well!


Hunting down Peanuts statues worked up an appetite, and we ate lunch at Galactic Pizza. We started with the "cheesy garlic toast," made with Follow Your Heart mozzarella.


Then I ordered a vegan pizza with bell peppers, black olives, and mushrooms.

The coolest thing about Galactic Pizza (next to their vegan options, of course) is that their delivery people dress as superheroes: spandex and capes and all. I tried to get a picture of one as he was walking out the "Superheroes Only" door, but he was gone in a flash.

Full of pizza, we moved on to the Mall of America, which was, in a word, BORING. We just went to see the spectacle of the place, but it really wasn't anything special. They had multiples of most of the stores, many of which were shops you can find anywhere. The Lego Land area was the only slightly interesting section.


After our brief stop here, we moved on to visit Minnehaha Falls, which was unfortunately crowded due to the holiday weekend, but was still a nice park area.


We did some more driving and walking around the downtowny area. The weather was perfect.

Old Mill Ruins





We ate dinner at Namaste, a very vegan-friendly Indian place. It didn't taste like traditional Indian food, and while it wasn't the best Indian restaurant I've been to, it was certainly the cutest.



By the time we got our meals, it was dark outside (we ate on the patio). I wish I could remember what we ordered (I should have started this blog a long time ago!).

Here are some of the views from our hotel room:




And some friendly neighborhood newscasters!


Stay tuned for my flashback on Duluth!

Iowa - Part Two

Bright and early the next morning, after about 4 hours of sleep for each of us, we dragged our arses out of bed and got ready for a day of cramming in a few more sights before heading home.

Our first stop was the sculpture garden downtown. There was an intense storm earlier that morning (like, 3 or 4AM), and the sky was still cloudy and the temperatures were cool. This alone made it worth it to wake up so early.






This was my favorite sculpture. I liked that it was open for people to walk inside of it.




Salt n' Pepa shakers.



From here, we just roamed around Des Moines, which was very quiet. The Des Moines Public Library was closed, and the capitol building was closed to the public, but we could roam around the gardens outside. I don't have many pictures from that because it was so bright outside. Eventually, we ready for lunch, and we hit up another Thai restaurant. (The one restaurant that is marketed as having vegetarian, vegan, and raw options was closed the entire time we were in the area. This meant lots of Asian food instead!)

We went to King & I Thai & Sushi. We started with fried spring rolls.


I ordered the Rama Gardens, which is similar to Panang in that it involves peanut sauce. I loved the assortment of veggies in this dish, especially that oh-so-tender spinach.

Those veggies won me over and makes me say that this dish was better than the Panang at Thai Flavors. The only negative to this meal is that rice costs extra: $1.50 for jasmine white; $2.50 for basmati brown.


Still, those veggies... there was tofu, spinach, cabbage, string beans, baby corn, peppers? I can't even remember. It was all delicious, though.

After stuffing ourselves silly, we waddled back to the car and digested our way to Ames, about 40 minutes away. We went to Reiman Gardens on the Iowa State University campus. It was blazing hot by then, so we didn't make it through the entire garden area, but we did see three lovely things.

1. Butterfly House (watch where you step!)






2. The Conservatory, which displayed several bottle trees.








I really want to make a bottle tree now. Who wants to help me drink some wine?!





3. THE WORLD'S LARGEST CONCRETE GARDEN GNOME


Having had enough sun and sweat for the day, we left shortly after visiting the giant gnome. On the way home, we stopped to see a covered bridge in Madison County; one was enough for us. I was surprised at how much of a crowd it drew for a Sunday afternoon.



And that's our trip to Iowa in a blog-sized nutshell. It would have helped to have some local friends in the area to show us the good places we missed, but going completely off of the internet and one big brochure at the welcome center, I think we planned a decent 24-hour Iowa blitz.

Welcome to the Jungle/Iowa (Part One)

The Boyf, a friend, and I went on a mini road trip to Iowa this past weekend, just for fun. We decided to "see the sights" in Des Moines and jog up to Ames. Our 24 hours in Iowa was pretty fun, you know, for Iowa.

When we crossed the border, we stopped at a welcome center that sold lots of Amish goods. I found these unintentionally-vegan snacks, that were quite delicious:


After we made it to our crash site, dropped our bags, and quickly outlined a plan for our evening, we picked up dinner at Thai Flavors.


I ordered the Panang curry with tofu with "0" on the hot pepper scale.


Panang curry is my favorite. I'm a sucker for a good peanut sauce.

The only thing that could have made it better would have been more vegetables. This only came with bell peppers. Some broccoli would have been lovely.

Straight from dinner, we headed to Veteran's Auditorium for...

ROLLER DERBY!

This was the first time for all of us to attend a roller derby bout. Once it got started, it was quite fun! I wish I had the guts and toughness to be a roller derby girl. It looks like a terrific way to stay in shape and release stress. At halftime, we moved down to the "suicide seats," which is on the floor, just a couple of feet away from the track.



Mid-Iowa Rollergirls, ready for action.


All of my action-shots are blurry.


MIR WON! WOO HOO!

Another fun part of roller derby: the bad ass stage names.





After roller derby, we wandered around Des Moines, hoping to get a taste of their nightlife. We couldn't find much. Eventually, we found a karaoke lounge, and all was right in the world again. Billy Joe's had a PHENOMENAL song book, but because we arrived so late in the evening, we were at the bottom of a very long list to sing. Still, it was a good time, especially for people-watching.