Minneapolis - Wednesday

Well today was the last day of the conference, and my last day in town. It was a short day at the conference so I was able to go sight-seeing, but before I left the conference I had quite a thrill!

I was approached by a fellow technical writer who knew my name from one of the technical writers' listserv groups, but she approached me to ask me if I was the same Hilda who had a Blog! She told me that she reads my Blog regularly and really enjoys it! OMG - I met a fan! How exciting! I know it's not the same as Curmudgeon who's nominated for a Blog award, but it was cool.

It was a great day for walking around, so when I left the conference, I made a bee-line for the Mary Tyler Moore statue and I saw it! Not only did I see it, but I threw a pretend hat up in the air and twirled around. Apparently this happens often because no one looked at me like I was insane - but I amused myself, so there.

Then I took a cab to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts . The museum is absolutely beautiful and it offers free admission every day! How amazingly and thrillingly civilized.

I was there for hours! The first thing I did was have lunch at the lovely restaurant. Then I walked around the permanent collection which has some fabulous stuff. But the highlight was definitely two of the special exhibits: "San Francisco Psychedelic Posters" which displayed a phenomenal collection of the posters that used to be plastered all over the city advertising the now legendary performances that took place at The Avalon and The Fillmore. The posters are incredible examples of psychedelic art and some even have elements of belle-epoque art and art nouveau.

The second exhibit "San Francisco Psychedelic" which is a collection of photographs of musicians from San Francisco's psychadelic hey-day was incredible. There were awesome pictures of Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, etc. But the most fun was that they had listening stations where you could listen to songs by all of the musicians represented in the exhibit. They had three stations and at one point there were three of us sitting there, completely rocking out with our head sets on. I listened to some favorites like Big Brother and the Holding Company's (with Janis Joplin) "Piece of My Heart", Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love", The Grateful Dead's "Truckin'" and Country Joe and The Fish's "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die-Rag" - so appropriate these days. I was sitting in this big, comfortable leather arm chair listening to Janis Joplin and I looked over and there was a heart-breakingly beautiful picture of her.

Afterwards I walked back to the hotel and stopped at a middle-eastern restaurant for some Turkish coffee - yummy! Then I went back to the hotel, changed and went to the theater to get my ticket for that evening's performance of Triple Espresso. I then went across the street for some delicious barbecue before the show.

The show was great - if it ever tours to your home-town, check it out.

So, my stay in Minneapolis is over, but I definitely want to come back, it is a wonderful vacation destination. There are 72,000 things I still want to see...