Mini Vacation

Due to Louie's crazy schedule, he was scheduled to have only one weekend off during his 3 month rotation of trauma, we decided to take a mini vacation at the end of January. The sad thing was that the weekend off was scheduled by mistake and he actually was not supposed to have any weekends off. One is definitely better than none.

In honor of the occasion, I booked a room in St. Paul and we headed to The Cities for the night. This happened to be the same weekend that Winter Carnival 2009 was going on. Here is the scoop on Winter Carnival:

In 1886, Saint Paul was America’s fastest growing city. Growing from 39,000 residents in 1880 to 120,000 residents in 1886, Saint Paul had also become America’s third largest rail center. To celebrate their city’s success, Saint Paul business leaders produced the inaugural Saint Paul Winter Carnival, which was held during the first two weeks of February in 1886.
In addition to showcasing Saint Paul, the business leaders wanted to disprove a New York newspaper reporter who had described their beloved city as “another Siberia, unfit for human habitation in the winter.” Patterned after Montreal’s Winter Carnival, the first Saint Paul Winter Carnival included parades, skiing, snow shoeing, a blanket tossing contest, and push ball, a game played with giant balls. The most successful attractions were its ice castle and six large toboggan slides.

I love the part about being "another Siberia." A few weeks prior to our trip to St. Paul there were two "Cold Days," which meant it was too cold for school so they canceled. My friend Danielle discovered that it was actually warmer in Siberia those two days than in Rochester!!

Anyways, I put together a slide show of our trip. Enjoy!

PS The windchill was in the negative single digits that day. Fun!