A Temple Trip

For several weeks we had it on the calendar to go to the temple in Minneapolis.  Then, the first time it came up Brombeere wasn't feeling very well so we decided to move it back. To yesterday, which at the time was the next open weekend.  So yesterday came, we got up bright and early and headed for Minneapolis, a drive of several hours. Alas, when we got there we found it was closed.  Victims of our own poor planning again.  With this temple you're supposed to call ahead and get your name on the list for the session you want to attend.  We forgot to do that but were hoping we'd still be able to get it.  However, if we had called ahead like you're supposed to we would have discovered that the whole building was closed for cleaning.  We just didn't check.  

So we looked at the grounds and flowers, which are always nice.

Then we decided that since we were in town we might as well find something to do rather than just turn around and go home.  A few minutes on the cell phone app and we came up with something.

We decided to go down town and see the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Located almost right in the city center, its a green space that includes a number of sculptures along with some seasonal gardens.  We saw the nautilus.

The Cross and Rectangles.

The molecule.

And the arbor walk.  That was nice.  It had a whole bunch of plants and flowering bushes for the whole length of it

If you look close you can see bees all over these flowers.  Big ones.

We saw the spoon bridge and cherry.  Water runs out of the top of the cherry and  flows over the sides, down onto the spoon.

I missed the name of this one.  Everything is suspended from the tripod and gently swings.

I don't remember what this one was called either but it was sure weird lookng.

I'm not sure this was a sculpture as much as just a walking bridge into the gardens.  Downtown Minneapolis has a network of walking bridges that run from building to building at the second floor level.  You can actually go quite a ways without ever going outside into the weather.

They also had a little conservatory with plants growing inside of it.  Different plants, depending on the time of the year.

There was also a big fish sculpture inside the conservatory.

The park is eleven acres and the sculptures are widely scattered so it didn't take a real long time to see most of it. Then we decided it was time to leave the downtown area and head out.

There was also a snowman we saw. Oh, wait.  This wasn't part of the sculpture garden. This was up in Maplewood, on highway 36 as we were heading back to the area of the temple to find a place to eat.

And we found a place.  We had eaten at the Machine Shed in Oakpark several years ago, when it was brand new.  At the time it was pretty much the only thing in the neighborhood but now there's all kinds of development around it.  

So we enjoyed a quiet, very yummy meal and then headed back home.

Not the day in the temple we had hoped for but still a very restful, peaceful afternoon in the city.  A good time together, even if not doing what we had originally planned.  And, yes, we are going to get batter about checking before we go.