We went out walking.
Less than a few miles from here lies one of those places that makes me love Saint Minneapolis and expresses my favorite quality of all real Cities; their layers. I love the way cities can hold history hidden in plain sight, be built around a wilderness that somehow hasn't disappeared, and be developed with an unevenness that leaves pieces of centuries in the shadow of skyscrapers.
We weren't in the shadow of skyscrapers today (although I can turn and with an almost squealing delight, see them from where I am now), but like I said we were not at all far from here. But because two fabled rivers lie in the way, it takes an oddly intricate array of roads, freeways, bridges, on ramps, off ramps, and lonely roads to get there. I've been close by in the past, but never quite there.
And where is there?
Just some woods, along the Minnesota River, more unused than everywhere around it, with a decent, but a little bit muddy, path. A place somehow near but far away from everything. In the first snow of the year. At the edge of a State Park in between four or five cities and three counties. Along a stretch of wild river that, while wild and rambling, is merely the front yard of the oldest stone house in all of Minnesota, built by its first Governor.
A place that looked like you could live there in a children's book full of talking animals.
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