Saturday was one of those beautiful October days when you just have to be outside. So after finishing up the required lawn work Lexi and I went on an adventure. We went to Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary, a former brownfield and railroad yard and now a swatch of park land just east of downtown St. Paul. The site itself has tons of history and interesting features, including the North Star Brewery Cave, an odd Imnizaska/sand castle restoration area (that’s what the sign says, I don’t know what that means), the bluffs, wildlife, planes, trains, great views of downtown, remnants of the train yard, remnants of the Lowertown Depot building (which I still can’t find any information on) and, of course, Carver’s Cave, perhaps better referred to as Wakan Tipi since the cave is sacred to the Dakota people (never mind that the railroad obliterated much of the cave’s grandeur).

It’s a great little park, especially now that it connects to Swede Hollow Park and Mounds Park and now that they’ve added some signage to explain the significance of the area. There’s also more work to be done as they try to connect Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary with the Mississippi River–no easy task since you have to get past a slew or railroad tracks and the four-lane Warner Road. There’s also a proposed interpretive center, though it’s hard to find specific updates on that (though using the abandoned Lowertown Depot building seems like a no-brainer).

Continue reading Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary →

Earlier this week Lexi and I returned to Lilydale Regional Park to check out the clay pits. We made a bit of an adventure out of it by biking over to Lilydale Regional Park (less than a mile) and then hiking down the trail. We brought along one of those backpack carrier things so when Lexi got tired of walking I loaded her up on my back and the hike continued. Which was a good thing, since by the end of it I was up to my ankles in mud (remember all that rain I talked about?). As usual, we took a few pics and even some video.

We found some pretty amazing cliffs (OK, seriously, who lives here?) that are apparently used for ice climbing in the winter. We also found some mangled metal and concrete, apparently leftover from the Twin Cities Brick Quarry days. It’s hard to believe all this is within sight of downtown St. Paul.

Oh, and some of the video is geeky enough to post right here:

Hiking with Lexi from kevinhendricks on Vimeo.

As I explored Lilydale Regional Park I learned there once was a community called Lilydale on the floodplain that’s now parkland. It’s completely gone now, and I’m not sure if it just moved up the bluff and became the modern Lilydale or if the two communities are completely separate. As you might imagine, the prospect of a ghost town or at least the faintest remnants of a town that as recently as 40 years still existed is intriguing.

Here’s what the Mississippi River Field Guide tells us:

The village of Lilydale was platted as Lilly Dale in 1886, in honor of the many Water Lillies that flourished in Pickerel Lake (Upham, Warren. p. 169). Between Water Street on the downstream end, and the hill to Highway 13 at the upstream end, was the village of Lillydale, bracketed by the river and Pickerel Lake. It was a village of several dozen homes on the flood plain, with a village hall in the former one-room schoolhouse (Hiebert, Gareth 1958. p. 68).

Continue reading The Former Village of Lilydale, Minnesota →

Good magazine has a feature on green schools that features the Interdistrict Downtown School in Minneapolis. I used to walk by the school every day on my way to work. Apparently the big glass window in the front is a supplemental solar heating system in the winter. Cool. Our old house had one of those. I called it the porch.

The article doesn’t mention it, but I believe they have a playground on the roof. Pretty sweet, though losing a ball over the fence would really suck.