Author: bbpeck

Today’s adventure consisted of visits to the St. Paul Cathedral and the Minnesota State Capitol. We began at the cathedral, which was an easy ten minute drive from the house. It is very impressive inside and out and is on par to many older ones we’ve seen overseas with an impressive organ, chapels, and beautiful stained glass windows.

The St. Paul Cathedral, a Roman Catholic cathedral, was completed in 1915. It is the sixth-largest church in the United States and can hold up to 3,000 parishioners. Today, it had only a few guests while we were there. In fact, we didn’t see many other people at the Capitol or out and about on our walk between the two sites.

It was an easy walk to the capitol from the cathedral and both seem to be on one edge of downtown St. Paul.

The Minnesota State Capitol was completed in 1905, so it predates the cathedral by 10 years. Wikipedia says that it is built in the Italian Renaissance, Beaux Arts style. We wouldn’t have known, but we were both impressed with the marble used (Georgia white marble) and the gold statue on the front facade. Fun fact: the dome is the 2nd largest self-supported marble dome in the world behind St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

There were a number of statues on the grounds as well.

Occasionally, we land in a place for a housesit where we have friends or relatives. This is the case with this housesit in St. Paul, Minnesota. Bob had coffee yesterday with a friend from high school, who gave him some ideas of places to see while we’re here. Tonight, we’re having dinner at the home of a friend from college and his wife. It’s always great to have the opportunity to reconnect in person.

This morning Bob and I went to visit one of the greater St. Paul area’s many parks — Harriet Island Park, which actually didn’t seem to be a real island, but we also walked across to Raspberry Island, which did seem to be a very small island in the middle of the Mississippi River.

After leaving the park, we drove out along the road that runs along the river. We found a good spot for another photo of the Mississippi River and downtown St. Paul.

After seven weeks in Australia, five of which were at our house sit in Melbourne, we had a quick turnaround for our current sit. Landing late on Tuesday (7/11), we picked up our car in Janesville (thankfully, it started) on Wednesday, and traveled to St. Paul, Minnesota, for our walk through on Thursday at noon for a two-week sit with Becca the cat while her people are on safari in Tanzania.

The pet part of the housesit should be relatively easy as Becca has an auto-feed system for food and water (though water needs to be manually filled). Keeping the house clean and secure, plant care, and scooping the kitty litter are the main responsibilities. With that in mind, today we ventured to Como Regional Park. This 450 acre public space consists of a lake, 2.6 miles of walking/biking paths, zoo, amusement park, conservatory, Japanese garden, carousel, athletic fields, golf course, and swimming pool. It is quite the lovely resource for locals and visitors.

We parked near the lake and started our exploration of the park by circling the lake on the 1.6 mile trail around it.

After the lake loop, it was a short hike to the Japanese garden and conservatory.

Once we exited the conservatory, we were in the the zoo where we saw a few animals.

The final stop was the carousel. This carousel was built in 1914 by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company (apparently they made more than toboggans). It spent 75 years 1 mile away from its current location at the Minnesota State Fair. It was rescued at auction in 1988. We didn’t ride this one.

Today we are celebrating my first winter birthday, and it comes as Bob and I are wrapping up our lovely Melbourne (Burwood) housesit. Our homeowners return Monday afternoon.

Today began with strong winds and rain. The rest of the day has been mixed. It’s rainy crazy again at the moment, but Bob and I had purchased tickets to an exhibit at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, ACMI, in the city, and we had good weather for getting there and back.

The Goddess: Power, Glamour, Rebellion exhibit provided a multi-media look at some of the film stars who defined and disrupted the feminist ideal. It was attractively presented, and I especially enjoyed the costumes.

Tonight my favorite chef (and husband) is making dinner, and there might be some sparkling wine. Here’s to love, life, and seeing the world!

Bob found us a nice, quiet walk to an Italian market/deli that we had noticed from our tram rides into Melbourne. Today was to be one of the few non-rainy days this week, so we headed off for an 80 minute walk to Monaco’s market in Camberwell. The walk took us through a bit of Deakin University as well as a number of nice neighborhoods via sidewalks and trails.

Coming off the path, we walked through a bit of Deakin University. This is a relatively new public university, founded in 1974. It is named after Alfred Deakin, the 2nd Prime Minister of Australia. It has a total enrollment of about 61,000 with both undergraduates and postgraduates. Wikipedia states that as of 2021, it is one of the top 26 young universities in the world. It’s highest ranking programs are sport science, nursing, and education.

After we finished at Monaco’s, we headed further into Camberwell to the library to peek inside and get a better photo of the typewriter keys statue out front. On the way, I took a photo of the Pompey Elliott Memorial Hall, which we also pass on the tram, to prompt me to learn more about this individual.

This is a short bit of what I have learned. Harold “Pompey“ Elliott was born in Victoria in 1878. He interrupted his studies to become a lawyer to serve in the Boer War. He became a lawyer and started his own firm but continued his military career by commanding a battalion for the compulsory military training established by Prime Minister Deakin (same as mentioned above).

He commanded a number of units during World War I. While he was known as an inspirational leader, his outspokenness often caused issues with superiors. He felt others had been promoted ahead of him unjustly. He was elected to the Senate where he continued to try to address wartime grievances. He ultimately took his own life.

Happy July! Bob and I are still in winter, though quite mild by Midwest US standards. Mostly highs in the low 50s and lows in the low to mid 40s, Fahrenheit, of course. Today, we had a true Australian adventure. We took in an Australian Rules Football game, or at least part of one.

This gave us an opportunity to see this unique (to us) sport as well as check out the Melbourne Cricket Grounds stadium where the game was played. The game itself is as active and fast-paced as soccer but has its own rules for advancing the ball and scoring. It’s played between 2 teams of 18 on an oval field, usually a modified cricket ground. There is some serious field to cover. It started in Melbourne in 1858 and has the highest spectator attendance and TV viewership of all sports in Australia. It is often referred to simply as footy.

We walked to the tram stop and had about a 50 minute ride to the Jolimont tram stop (stop #11), which left us very close to the Melbourne Cricket Grounds (MCG). As it was misting heavily all the way to the stadium, we were happy to see that our seats were covered. We explored the stadium a bit before we settled in for the game.

The game was between the Hawthorn Hawks, who play all but 4 of their home games at MCG and the remaining 4 in Launceston, Tasmania, and the Carlton Blues, from a Melbourne suburb. Almost half of the AFL teams are from the Melbourne area. We were cheering for the Hawks as the home team (and closely sharing the mascot name and colors of the University of Iowa), but the Blues were much better today. They won 112-52.

A week or so ago, Bob and I walked up to the Blackburn Lake Sanctuary to walk around the small lake there. Today, we visited a different part of the same ecosystem, a bushland corridor that runs east to west along Gardiners Creek in the Blackburn community of the city of Whitehorse. We walked the Blackburn Creeklands pathway that runs through two parks between the very busy Middleborough and Blackburn Roads.

It was a lovely short walk which allows you to feel you’ve escaped the traffic and gotten back into nature.

After we reached Blackburn Road, we headed back towards the house. On the way, we stumbled on a civic guide map showing us where we are situated in the larger community as well as a point of interest.

The Yarra River (once, per Wikipedia, the Yarra Yarra River) is a tidal river that flows through the heart of Melbourne. It is 150 miles long, flowing from the Yarra Ranges to Hobsons Bay. It continues to be used for container shipping, and the Port of Melbourne is the busiest on the continent.

Bob and I spent a non-active hour on the Yarra, cruising past much of the CBD to the port before returning. We used Melbourne River Cruises and were aboard the Yarra Queen, where we got to watch a captain in training. He did very well, although struggled a bit with the first docking.

The company offers a number of tours. We went down river past Southgate shopping/retail complex, Melbourne convention center, Crown Casino, World Trade Center, waterfront residences, and the port. We also went under a number of bridges (auto and pedestrian), some of which were quite low.

Below are photos of our excursion. First things first though as Bob found a big head statue!

Okay, now for the cruise photos.

Bob and I ventured into Melbourne proper today to visit the Botanic Gardens and the Shrine of Remembrance. It was a good day to get out with temps in the lower 50s F but wind and rain predicted for mid afternoon.

We again took the tram in, as we knew that it runs every 10 minutes. We got to the stop just as it was pulling in. We had an hour ride in — from stop 66 to stop 5. It is slow but reliable.

We got off near Flinders Station and crossed the Yarra River to head towards the Botanic Gardens and Shrine of Remembrance.

Before we made it to the Botanic Gardens, we walked through the lovely Alexandra Gardens, Victoria Gardens, and Kings Domain.

We saw signage for the Shrine of Remembrance, so we headed there next. It brought back memories of having stopped there in 2003 during a trip for our 10-year wedding anniversary. At the time, we visited Melbourne and Sydney and were on a city bus to St. Kilda when we saw the Shrine and decided to get off the bus to visit. It still impresses.

Next, we were off to check out some of the Botanic Gardens. The Botanic Gardens were established in 1846 and contain over 8,500 plant species, representing 98% of the world’s sovereign nations. It was being enjoyed by many humans and pets on this Saturday, and amazingly, both the gardens and the shrine are free to visit.

We opted for the train/bus combo on the way back. The train was in the station when we got there and we caught the 735 bus (new one for us) when we got to Box Hill. All of that meant we were back in the house for about 20 minutes or so before the skies opened up. Good times and good timing!

On the two occasions when Bob and I have taken the tram to or from Burwood, we noticed an area closer to the city center that we thought looked like it might be interesting to explore a bit. Today, we used our recently topped-off Myki cards to catch the #75 tram to go from Stop #66, Burwood, to Stop #37, Tooronga Road in Camberwell.

Camberwell lies about 6 miles east of Melbourne’s CBD within the city of Boroondora local government area. It is apparently considered as one of Melbourne’s most prestigious and exclusive suburbs based on its grand, historic homes. We may have to go back to see those. We just checked out a local park and the Burke Road shopping strip as well as some municipal buildings.