Travel Guide

Lake Calhoun, mid-summer, photographed by Me.

I stumbled across an entry in a travel blog touting "Minneapolis is The Largest City in Minnesota." While the headline left something to be desired, the entry skimmed all of the bases rather than covering.

A) Location: [Minneapolis] lies on both banks of the Mississippi River, just north of the rivers confluence with the Minnesota River and adjoins Saint Paul, the states capital.

B) Roots: "Minneapolis was born when two mills were built to cut lumber and grind flour for the men of a nearby fort." It fails to mention the huge numbers of Norwegians, Scandinavian and German immigrants that made their roots here.

C) Orpheum Theatre (Although they call it the Orpheus Theater): "When you walk into the huge theatre and get a glimpse of its gilded ceiling and huge chandeliers, you will feel like you are taking a step back into the old vaudeville days of 1930."

D) Shopping: No sales tax. What it does leave out is that most of the shopping is in Bloomington at the Mall of America and not Minneapolis. Let's give some credit where credit is due. Although I hate going to the MOA.

E) Health Conscious: [Minneapolis] has the "2nd highest percentage of people who bike to work." What it leaves out is the reason it's so easy to bike to work. The bicycle lanes throughout downtown, southeast and northeast and the green ways make all sections - minus, sadly, north Minneapolis, which is like the red headed step child of the Twin Cities - easily accessible via bike.

F) Sporting Events: It glosses over this aspect of Minneapolis. Twins, Vikings, Timberwolves, Lynx and all of the Gopher sporting events are available on a nightly basis to guests. Rarely do events sell out, so any tourist can go out to the old ball yard, if they so chose.

G) Arts: Minneapolis has "peerless museums," and a "music scene that has amazed listeners for decades," but they fail to mention that there are more theater seats per capita in the Twin Cities (mostly Minneapolis) than anywhere in the country. Any night of the week you can see top notch talent perform. I've been to old and new Guthrie and hope to see more plays this year. Where is the mention of the Walker Art Center or the Minneapolis Institute of Arts?

H) Parks: [Minneapolis] has "no less than 170 parks and recreational gardens..." I'm not so sure about this fact. Ah hah, according to the Minneapolis Parks.org, there are 150 parks in Minneapolis. While the parks are great, the entry makes no mention of the lakes. How can someone write an entry about Minneapolis and leave out the chain of lakes? Lake of the Isles, Lake Harriet, and Lake Calhoun are my favorite places to bicycle in the summer. What about in the winter? Taking the family tubing at Buck Hill in Burnesville promises good times even for the grouchiest of family members.

I'm sure the entry was written from a series of brochures or one poorly written and researched brochure. I really don't understand the need for such a blog. Why start something if you're going to half-ass it? We get it, "Dallas is a City in The United States" and so is Seattle, if you believe the blog. It seems like a waste of time to me. Although it was a funny to read Minneapolis described in 400 words by someone who had never been here.