Icing the excrement, Capitol & cathedral, and More mall madness - AKA: St Paul, MN - Capitol #14

Icing the excrement

RV tips with Tara... we have been unable to get our black water tank gauge to read "empty". Consulting Google, we found that one fix involves filling your black tank with ice and driving around, causing the ice to rub up against the sides as it melts and clean off them. And as of this evening, I can say that it works! 

Capitol

This was the best view of the Capitol  that we got today. A couple days ago, when trying to find out what hours the Minnesota State Capitol was open, we found out it wasn't. At all. The Capitol is under construction and both the grounds and the building are completely inaccessible. But we are only doing this once, so we went anyway.

This is the state building where members of the House of Representatives have their offices. This building was the next closest thing to visiting the Capitol, so we stopped by. The house is not in session, so hardly anybody was in the building and there was not much to see. Thankfully, while we were in the lobby trying to find clues to learn anything we could, a homeschool dad walking by somehow understood that we were trying to learn about the Capitol and pointed us in the direction of the legislative library upstairs where he works. He asked the librarian to pull out whatever information she had about the Capitol and that happened to include self-guided tour brochures. So we looked at pictures of the Capitol on their computer and watched a video they had and looked at a couple books about the Capitol and the architect and that was our tour of the Minnesota Capitol. 

This is the building that houses the senators. It is newer but does not have a friendly homeschool dad or much to see. We did find a gentleman in the lobby who was willing to show us a senate hearing room. And here I realized, after 13 Capitols, my children did not know what a hearing was. So we spent a little time talking about that and did learn more about the legislative process at the Minnesota Capitol despite it being closed.

Cathedral

Directly down the street from the Capitol, is the Cathedral of St. Paul. It was beautiful, built in the same time period as the Capitol, and had a dome. So, in lieu of beautiful pictures of the Capitol, we have beautiful pictures of the cathedral.

There was a tour going on, but it was too hard to hear the guide, so I set out on my own.

These ladies were very friendly and, after learning that I was not Catholic,shared with me some of the history of this building and the various practices and beliefs associated with different parts. One of the ladies had gone to elementary school here. All three of them were visiting because Pope Francis has declared this a year of Jubilee and this cathedral has been designated a pilgrimage site.

More Mall Madness

We finished our time in Minneapolis with a second trip to the Mall of America. We were able to complete our walk around, and have officially seen ALL of the mall.

This store was a fun find because a couple years ago I started getting their catalog (not sure how) and they have all sorts of great boy activities. 

Overall, it was a very fun day.