Minneapolis, Part II
Starring Marc Bateman, Ryan Mastrian, and Nick Shvetzoff
The second week of Urban Exploration brought two new members to the gang. The inimitable Marc brought some sick-nasty photography equipment with him, and Nick brought a skateboard. Once I get Marc's pics from the night, I'll be posting them in a separate entry. The difference in quality is stark, and the fish-eye lens led to some awesome perspectives of the city.
We arrived in Minneapolis proper at 6:35 PM. Being a Monday night with no major sporting or music events, dowtown itself was a bit barren of people. Sundown was a couple hours out yet, and we had no specific agenda to adhere to. Our loosest version of a plan involved hitting the Foshay Tower, featuring the highest observation deck open to the public. However, we were lacking an address and had no bearing toward the place from our parking spot. Rather than fret, we simply hit the street and marched intrepidly toward the heart of the city.
I got buildings on BUILDINGS in this here, motherfucker.
We were slightly skeptical of the $8 admission fee to the observation deck, but obliged the desk worker and obtained a keycard. He also offered up some valuable advice, in the form of directions to the location of the bar on the 27th floor of the tower. This would prove to come in handy later. First, we headed up to the observation deck to check it out while we still had sunlight.
The US Bancorp Tower, much closer than I've ever seen it before.
The top half of the AT&T Building, a favorite from the first voyage.
Target Center and Target Field.
Love the colors and lines in this one.
Angles on angles. It's a long way down from here.
Security personnel from the hotel arrived on the observation deck arrived shortly after we did. It was actually the clerk from the desk. We had a sneaking suspicion that he might have seen Nick skateboarding across the tower and become suddenly interested in our activities. Still, he passed with no incident.
Having walked around the entirety of the observation deck, we made our way down to the bar three floors below. We were greeted by two bartenders who looked incredibly bored. It was a Monday night, as previously mentioned, and the hotel bar wasn't generating a ton of business.
Our decision to patronize the bar was rewarded. We ordered our first round and began to kill some time before the sun started to set, and a miracle happened before we had been sitting for more than five minutes. A round of cherry bombs was laid upon us, courtesy of our bored bartender. We didn't ask for them, and yet there they were. Certainly, our bartender knows that her generosity will soon become profit. Still, a drink is a drink.
We checked out the rest of the 27th floor to find a remarkable lounge area. I'll spare those photos because I'm sure there will be more from the location in the future.
As if one round of generosity wasn't enough, our bartender soon grew bored of our meandering conversation and made us another round of drinks, on the house. This concoction was called 'Truth and Consequences', and it featured a house-made jalapeno tequila. The rest of the members of our expedition were not the biggest fans, but I thought it was fantastic. It was unique and had the bite you would expect out of a homemade tequila infused with jalapeno peppers.
Truth and Consequences
Since no night can ever be perfect, the cloudy-ish conditions led to an unremarkable sunset. Still, it was made more interesting by our elevation. The process of sunset was short and I recall looking away for about 30 seconds, then turning to find that it had vanished for the evening.
The onset of dusk led to new photo ops, and we started circling the observation deck and snapping away again... except we were buzzing a bit off all the tequila and what-not.
Long way down.
One of the few buildings that still towered above us at our location.
Nothing in particular. I thought this one was well framed.
The US Bancorp building, behind the cage.
Distant viewing. This picture looks excellent in full size.
Colorful win.
While the expedition produced widely better material than our first foray of the year, we made some rookie mistakes. Namely, we didn't have sufficient battery and memory between us to continue documenting the adventure. I'll definitely be getting a spare battery within the next couple of expeditions because I feel like I missed out on a lot of the night. Live and learn, they say.
Marc is in the process of compressing and sending his pics from the evening over in this direction. Those will certainly be worthy of their own post. He has incredible equipment for the task and, based on what I've seen from the pics as we took them, they will be a great reason to stop back here soon.
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