WESTERN MIDWEST BASEBALL

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Dad and I travel southeast to Minneapolis for a great lunch and a long visit to the outstanding (and free!) Minneapolis Institute of Art.

I woke up in our Fargo hotel with a plan to make things right.

In 2024, I lost my Tilley hat in the team store at an Akron RubberDucks game. As I’ve noted before, I love this hat — lightweight, looks good, shades my face, and regains its shape after being flattened in a suitcase. And it’s been with me everywhere for much of the last decade. After losing the hat in Akron, I contemplated buying another Tilley at an REI store on our way to Dayton. But I gained my senses and tried to live without it for the rest of the trip.

I hated it. I felt like a turtle without its shell. But I lived without the hat until I returned home, where the team store manager in Akron had mailed the Tilley after finding it in the store.

But this time, I was so mad at myself for losing the hat a third time — and, incredibly, for a second time in eight days — that I ordered a new Tilley from an REI in Maple Grove, Minnesota, just before we set out for Minneapolis. They had my style, size, and color. Perfect. Send to cart and check out. Make it right.

Three hours later, as I pulled into the REI parking lot, I got a call from the team store in Fargo. They had found my original Tilley! I arranged to have the hat shipped back home and marched into the REI to pick up my new, backup Tilley. I’ll carry both on future road trips, and with luck, you won’t ever have to hear about this again.

Lunch at The Lowry

Since we would be passing through Minneapolis on the way to St. Paul, we decided to spend some time in the bigger of the Twin Cities and leave our tour of St. Paul for the next morning.

We stopped for lunch at The Lowry, a stylish spot with a restaurant and a large bar area — both pretty quiet at noon on a Wednesday. We settled into our booth, checked our phones, and unwound. Dad ordered the Farmer’s Breakfast — hashed browns, scrambled eggs, and cheddar cheese — which looked fantastic. I had the Short Rib Dip with a local Surly Furious IPA and left plenty happy.

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A quick drive away, I dropped Dad off in front of the Minneapolis Institute of Art and, incredibly, found a parking space just across the street. I needed every minute of our schedule to explore the excellent museum, which displays 5,000 years of fine and decorative arts, all of it free to the public.

The museum’s galleries are filled with high-quality works ranging from ancient mosaics to European paintings, sculpture, medieval armor, modern art, and fully furnished rooms from around the world. I took more photos than usual in an attempt to capture and appreciate it all. Wander along.

By the time Dad and I met up in the lobby, we had done plenty. We drove off to our hotel in St. Paul, excited for a night of Triple-A baseball.

> St. Paul Saints