Five days of Minnesota beers

/ Greg / 2 Comments

My solo trips in recent years have had a focus on baseball and craft beer. Minneapolis this year was no different and provided a great setting for both. Five days and nights spent in beautiful Target Field watching baseball bookended part of each day, and some exploration of Minnesota state craft beers took up a part of the remainder of those days. In the city, there was no shortage of beer options, even for someone who stuck to breweries and bars near the downtown or on one of the light rail lines. There were even a couple of great taprooms conveniently located next door to the ballpark I was heading to every day.

Modist Brewing’s taproom had a very stripped down, almost Scandinavian, feel. On a humid afternoon of city exploring, I pulled up a chair and tried four of their creations. My favourite (the picture on the left below) was their “First Call”. A light lager infused with espresso, this was deliciously weird and wonderful. If ever there was a morning beer, this was it.

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Five days of ballpark food

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I wasn’t intending to almost exclusively eat ballpark food while in Minneapolis, but when you plan a five day trip around seeing five baseball games, you’re not exactly leaving yourself a lot of spare time for dining out on the town. Lucky for me, the choices at Target Field were pretty solid, and quite diverse compared to the traditional hotdogs and Cracker Jacks.

Just beyond the centre field bleachers was one of my favourite concession stands – an outpost of the downtown Minneapolis restaurant, Butcher and the Boar. They served up these outstanding pork rib tips. Delicious!

Rib tips at Target Field

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Planes, no trains and an automobile

/ Greg / 1 Comment

Clearly in the realm of #FirstWorldProblems, while traveling to Halifax to spend a couple of days with my parents, I added another “travel woes” story to my life’s list. I was traveling alone, and there was no one around to hear my sarcastic comments, so as I went along I jotted down my thoughts and feelings on a timeline. My plan was an evening Saskatoon-Calgary flight connecting to a red-eye onto Halifax. That didn’t work out. If you’re a fan of WestJet, I recommend you skip this…

November 23, 9:02pm I just heard the dreaded words “maintenance issue”. There’s a plane at the gate that landed about a half hour ago and it looked like we’d be off to Calgary no problems to make my connection to Halifax. Not sweating yet, but the agent’s faces are not as cheery as they were ten minutes ago.

9:25pm Just got the “we have no update to update you with” update. There’s a clock ticking in my head. Lots of maintenance guys getting on and off the plane and there’s two dudes looking up at the right engine. Didn’t this plane just land from Toronto? What kind of life and death experience did all those folks barely avoid?

9:45pm Original take-off time and I’m still sitting at the gate. The WestJet gate agent apologizes approximately 37 times before letting us know that she’ll have more information in 3-5 minutes.

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A downtown different with art

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Having traveled a significant amount south of the border, I’m fairly confident in saying there’s a definite similarity to the look of larger American cities. It’s even more striking as you move away from the east coast. Yes, all cities have their distinguishing features, but subtract obvious landmarks (like the Space Needle in Seattle) or geographical markers (a mountain off in the distance in Denver), and there’s a lot of sameness. Of course, I’m not speaking of New Orleans… that doesn’t look like anything else. But you get the point.

Minneapolis, especially in its downtown area, is a bit of an American cookie cutter environment of high rises in the usual architectural styles. Although that remained my impression through five days in the city, the longer I was there, public art kept catching my eye and added a lot of character to what I was seeing in my walks. Like these statues outside of Target Field paying homage to two Minnesota Twins legends: Harmon Killebrew on the left and Kirby Puckett on the right:

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Back from Seattle

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I was not ready for post-election America.

Arriving in the USA two days after the recent election, I had no idea what to expect. What I found was a blue state in mourning. The wounds were fresh. People were hurt. Deeply hurt. I was in Seattle for a medical education conference and every keynote speech had been torn up and rewritten in the aftermath of November 8. Every workshop and panel discussion had a tie to the election. At every table I sat, I was asked what Canada thought of what had just happened. In my head, I had a chuckle at the irony of an element of the Canadian psyche in seeking validation from Americans now emerging from my colleagues to the south.

This was a predominantly work-related trip, but even my limited social and tourist activities around the edges kept bumping into post-election America – demonstrations in downtown Seattle, overheard conversations and newspapers filled with election coverage. Even with all of that as a backdrop, I’ve taken away some great memories unrelated to politics. I ate close to my weight in seafood (oh, how I miss fresh seafood in Saskatoon), did a tour of Seattle’s baseball stadium, sampled a good number of Pacific Northwest craft beers, and had a memorable night at a big college football game. I’ve got a backlog of writing to do, but will write more about my Seattle experiences in the coming weeks and months.

Moose Jaw

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There are a ton of really cool places in Saskatchewan. Through a spring, summer and fall of living in this super easy to draw province, I’m happy to have seen a bit of this place and am excited of everything else to explore in the years ahead.

My in-laws visited back in late August and September. Nearing the end of their trip and with a desire to see something else in their first visit to Saskatchewan, we decided on a day trip down to Moose Jaw. The easy drive from Saskatoon gave my mother and father in-law the experience of being out on the prairies. I was agreeable to this trip because I have always have wanted to visit Moose Jaw. First, it was a must see for me for the uniquely Canadian name alone. But I also have a fascination with oversized roadside attractions and wanted to see this guy up close – the town’s mascot – Mac the Moose.

Mac the Moose

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An annual baseball trip

/ Greg / 4 Comments

A direct flight from my new hometown of Saskatoon made Minneapolis an easy choice for my summer baseball trip this year – five games in five days, including being able to squeeze a Sunday afternoon game in ahead of my flight back home. I picked up an assortment of tickets and figured the subpar Twins might allow me to upgrade a few cheap upper deck seats into some better seats over the course of my visit. That strategy worked out quite well, but for game one, I sprung for a legit good seat. Beer in my hand, I settled in for the first of what would be a lot of pitches over the five days.

Twins-Astros game

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Night in row 8

/ Greg / 2 Comments

My last night in Minneapolis got off to a less than stellar start. As I left my hotel to walk to Target Field for my fourth baseball game in four days, a man walking toward me punched me. In fairness, he was suffering from something and staggering as he walked toward me and likely in his mind thought I was trying to block his walking path. His punch connected with my arm and I was more stunned than hurt. When I got to the ballpark about fifteen minutes later, I had mostly forgotten about that incident because it was a beautiful night for baseball. I grabbed a Minnesota craft beer and took up a seat for batting practice right down by the field. Little did I know what else I was in for this night.

Minnesota Twins game

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