Cia comes to visit

And now for installation 2 of trying to catch up on my blogging.

Also in August, Cia came to visit for a weekend before going to Ireland for the semester. It was really nice to just hang out with her for a couple of days. The first day, we went to the zoo with the family, (extended family where also visiting from Michigan). It has been a long time since I've been to a zoo, so it was fun to visit one again. I realized that I'm still a little kid at heart, because I thought it was great fun to see the animals, especially the monkeys and the sea otter.

On Sunday, after going to church in the morning, we decided to go adventuring in the afternoon. It was super fun and slightly sketchy as we went to a weird park. It is straight East of downtown Saint Paul but still before you get to the bluffs. It used to be a railroad yard but they are trying to turn it into a park. In the process of exploring the park, we found...

A fun rock wall to try to climb on. With no crash pads, I didn't go very high.

A sketchy abandon building. We thought about trying to get in, but the door was locked and we didn't want to crawl through a broken window. Notice, there is both graffiti and broken glass in the picture.

An old beer cave. This was cut into the base of the bluffs. The bars where quite sturdy, so we didn't try to break in.

For how close the park was to downtown, there are some parts of it that are remarkably beautiful. Notice, you can see a silhouette of the capital towards the right side of the skyline.

Overall, it was a wonderful weekend and I was sad to see Cia go on Monday. But, she needed to head off to Ireland.