Framed

Hotel checkout time was not until noon, so I had another longish walk around St. Paul after breakfast. Sky was grey, wind was fresh, and it was trying not to snow. Winter cities suffer at this time of year - the melted snow leaves the streets coated in a layer of salt and dirt. Little parks that would be busy with life in the summertime, are empty and forlorn. Everything is dead, even the grass. Suffice it to say, I was not seeing St. Paul at its best.

I had to see the Mississippi of course - wondered if it was still frozen. It wasn't, so I spent a pleasant ten minutes watching chunks of ice flow under the bridge. Even took a time lapse movie of it. Then I wandered back towards the State House, giving a wave to the MPR building as I happened upon it, and taking pictures of anything that took my eye. No one was about, it felt like a Sunday. Thought about blipping St. Peter's as yesterday's blip was St. Paul's (especially as a large flock of geese flew over the twin steeples), but in the end I settled for this walkway, as I liked the interlocking frames and internal reflections. (It leads into the Children's Museum from a multistory car park, in case anyone is interested.)

Mr. L. wanted to visit F. Scott Fitzgerald's house at 599 Summit Avenue and so we did. Turns out not to have been the house where he was born, but one where he lived with his parents and wrote This Side Paradise. Looks suitably grand to me (you can see it here), but according to Mr. L., Fitzgerald felt it was not good enough and pined to belong to the class of people who lived at the other end of Summit Avenue i.e in a mansion. I suppose I should read The Great Gatsby one of these days.