At 8:00 am sharp our bus departed the campground for a full day mostly in St Paul, the capital of Minnesota. First stop was Minnehaha Falls, a park in Minneapolis. The park was inspired by the poem Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This poem created interest in the American frontier in general and in Minnesota in particular. This park was created to honor the poem and the poet.

Alas, the falls that gave the park its name were not falling today. They were a victim of the drought that hit much of the country this summer. Still, the park offered a pretty walk along paths that follow the creek upstream and downstream of the falls. The path led to the Mississippi River, according to the trail map, but it was closed off for repairs.

The park also features a bronze statue of Hiawatha and Minnehaha. The statue was added in the early 1900’s. It amplifies the romantic flavor of Longworth’s tale.

The park includes a two-thirds replica of Longworth’s house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the Longworth Botanical Garden. The garden was in lovely fall color the day of our visit.

Next stop on today’s itinerary was St Paul’s Cathedral. This impressive building is modeled after St Peter’s basilica in the Vatican, at about half scale. It was constructed in 1906 and opened as a shell of what it is today. Successive generations added the embellishments to the interior and exterior. It is now filled with stonework, statuary, mosaics, and stained glass. It is a fine example of ecclesiastical art and architecture.

The views outside the cathedral were impressive too. The cathedral sits on a high hill overlooking the Minnesota state capitol building and the downtown area of St Paul.

After our cathedral visit we went to a spot with a choice of restaurants for lunch. We joined our co-travelers Sheila and Michelle at a fabulous little Kurdish restaurant where we all thoroughly enjoyed our meals.

And then we moved on to an exploration of St Paul’s colorful history of gangsters, rum runners and speakeasies during the Prohibition era. This was set in a maze of caves carved into the sandstone banks of the Mississippi to extract silica to make glass. The caves were later used to grow mushrooms, to age blue cheese, and finally as a place for gangsters like John Dillinger, the Barker gang, and Baby Face Nelson to hide out in the speakeasies that were opened in the caves. A Dillinger impersonator led this tour and filled us in on all the details.

By the time we returned to our campsite, our Gracie had spent quite a few hours on her own in the trailer. She was rewarded for her good behavior with a bath! She was delighted!