Sisters, Berries and the St. Croix

My sister Chelsea had a change in plans for a vacation and convinced my other sister Brittany to come up with her to Minneapolis. 

They came up for 4 days and on their last night here we had a cookout at Minnehaha falls.

It seems that since I've been a part of the family for a long time they can pick on me. I guess I'm their brother after all.

Instead of grilling burgers or just brats we decided to have keilbasa kebabs. I even used some ichiban eggplant from our garden.

Since Chelsea doesn't like food, we brought a bunch of corn along for the cookout. 

We told her what would be on the kebabs and she didn't like anything that was on them.

Did you know that the Romeneskos could win a family corn eating contest?

My parents were pretty frugul growing up. Sometimes on our way up north we would buy a couple dozen corn cobs from a roadside stand on the way. It was a cheap way to feed us 4 kids, we would eat at least 4 cobs each. It wasn't until I met Scott that I realized eating corn as a meal is weird. 

Apparently the husk handle that's natually handy is too hot. The triplets had to use corn skewers.

Our grandma called us "darn city kids" when we asked for the corn holders while having dinner with them once. 

I roasted marshmallows on my minigrill before, during and after the kebabs were cooking.

I had a few too.

After dinner we went to the waterfall for a gander. This Somali man was pushing his kids and wife in a surrey. Poor man.

We took some cliche tourist photos.

After the girls posed by the falls we walked along Minnehaha Creek and then into it.

Eventually they got tired of walking in the woods and we checked out John Steven's house.

Everyone wanted ice cream. They started cheering so I said "Pumphouse Creamery?" 

Actually it was Brittany who recommended it after having been here before. 

Chelsea kept dropping her cone. Hey Scott your eyes are white.

On the way back I found out where they store the Pedal Pub. I'll let you figure out the location.

The next morning they had breakfast and left shortly after.

I slept in, so when I got up I skipped breakfast and ate three chocolate chip cookies that I baked a few days back.

With the rest of the day free I suggested we go berry picking. Since Blake and I went last year I suggested we go to the same place.

Brooke was born to pose with raspberries. Isn't she darling?

It was the end of the season so we each got a pint and picked what we could find. I was hoping to get a buckets worth.

I had reached into one of the plants to grab some nice looking berries when something pricked my hand. I thought I had poked a thorn or something, but then my whole hand starting hurting and a white circle formed around the spot that got poked. I kept asking Scott if it was a bee sting as I had never been stung. He didn't really know, but from the way other people describe it I think it was.

I'm not sure what stung her, but I didn't want to bother her. Poor babe.

After two pints of raspberries we picked a bucket full of blueberries.

I nibbled on a few dozen as I picked the bluest of the blueberries.

Another couple there had 3 buckets full. One bucket was enough for us.

Both of our hands were dyed blue.

After awhile the area started to swell.

To make Brooke feel better we drove to what I guess is called the General Scoop in our favorite little town, Marine on St. Croix. That's a single scoop yo! 

Between these two shots I fell into the creek and skinnned my knee. The day was turning into a minor injury marathon.

Somehow I didn't drop my ice cream and trekked on to the St. Croix. 

After the brief hike we needed to fill up our stomachs. We thought Stillwater would be a good choice.

Then we realized that everything is overpriced and underwhelming.

We made beeline to the Wisconsin side of the Croix and down the river to humble Hudson, WI.

We thought we'd try out a place called the Agave Kitchen. The restaurant has a loft style seating area. They put us upstairs where we could watch everything that was going on down below.

They had advertisements on everything and super pints of Spotted Cow. We got all the food above for about twenty bucks. Not great food, but a good deal.

We haven't really explored Hudson before this. Brooke and I only knew it in passing, usually a peripheral vision heading home from Wisconsin.

Unbeknownst to us between the smokestack to the north (which is a power plant) and 94 to south is this little oasis called Lake St. Croix.

Had we brought our swimsuits we'd jumped in all the way.

And swam to one of the islands. Next time.

Instead we took pictures of one another thigh deep in the lake on a river.

I came out of the water and reached down to grab my shoes. Out of no where this little puppy came over and sat down right next to me.

We decided to walk barefoot down the sandbar/walkway. By the time we were halfway my feet were on fire.

We decided to take University back towards home to see how the new light rail was coming along.

We were both exhausted after a fun day in the hazy sun.

And like clockwork the kiddos came over for more bike repair.

 What can one say? Despite the fact that they break their bikes every week, I just can't help, but help.

The end.