We made one stop between Wichita and Minneapolis, at am Iowa Casino RV Park. Not the best park we've stayed in but the price was right...$20 a night plus they threw in a couple of decks of cards as a bonus. With Jokers!
Lakeside Casino in Osceola, IA (south of Des Moines).
Welcome to Minnesota, eh.
This display was near a small airport in Minnesota before Minneapolis.
A view of Minneapolis.
The main reason for the trip to Minnesota was to do more genealogy research. My Mom's Bryant & Trott families left Maine, stopped briefly in Pennsylvania, and again in Anoka Co, MN before heading on to California. They both were granted land patents and Joseph Trott set aside an acre for a burial ground on his property where one of his daughters is buried.
My first stop was the history center in the town of Anoka to see what they had on the Trott family. There wasn't much there and the person helping me was not a genealogist so didn't know where that type of information would be. I was able to find record of the cemetery and where to find it so we set out to do just that. The cemetery is actually in the town of Ramsey a few miles north of Anoka and using the GPS on my phone we were able to find the general area. We took a small dirt road off the main highway and ended up in the yard of an old guy who knew of the land's history and was able to direct us right to the cemetery. I'm not sure we would have found it without his help. The records at the history center stated that the cemetery was 'neglected' back in 2001, but we found it in pretty good shape. The city of Ramsey now owns and maintains it and there are recent graves there.
The Anoka County History Center and Library
Trott Brook runs through Joseph Trotts property.
The Trott Brook Cemetery
Zilpha Tennison was the daughter of Joseph Trott.
Along with Zilpha was the grave of another wife of William Tennison, Sarah Tennison. They both died quite young. William died in California.
Proof I was there :-)
The KOA in Maple Grove, MN outside Minneapolias was the closest to Anoka.
Of course we had to visit the Mall of America, the largest mall in North America. It has 4 levels, 520 stores, 50 restaurants, a theater,, miniature golf, an aquarium and a themed amusement park.
The miniature golf course on the 3rd floor of the mall.
A full-sized roller coaster.
Ninja Turtles ride.
It's really just like any other mall aside from the attractions which are in the middle. One nice thing about Minnesota shopping is that there is no sales tax on clothes and shoes. We took advantage of that at one of their shoe stores. The mall was equivalent in appearance to Virginia's Pentagon City and Tyson's Galleria plus a couple more floors. It's very nice.
The Vikings new stadium. Pretty huge!
We decided to head for home on Monday. Won't be in a hurry, but we've visited all we planned to on this trip. We're thinking of going through the Black Hills since it's been a few years since we visited Mt. Rushmore. No plans beyond there yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment