Half price tickets, you say?

And then there was the Home and Garden Show at the Minneapolis Convention Center. I think I have the Groupon bug. I hope it is short term. We could end up spending quite a bit of money if we don’t watch out. 

It was actually a nice little Fri-Sat getaway. I noticed 1//2 price tickets on Groupon and mentioned it to Joyce. Right away she said she would be interested. We don’t really have any home improvement plans coming up, but we did remember the last time we were there. We had enjoyed all the garden suggestions we saw. It turns out that it was a bit of a let down. There was a ratio of 90 to 1 home to garden information. We were expecting more of a practical live view of what something might look like if it was put together to look like a custom landscape. 

On the plus side, because we agreed to walk every aisle and look at every display, we clocked 4 miles on our walk log app on the iPhone. 

The picture represents our trail from the Hilton Hotel to the convention center and back again. 

The highlight of the day actually turned out to be the cooking competition at the kitchen stage. We started relatively early and finished our walking by 4PM. We (I) decided that it would be okay to just sit and listen to all the cooking demonstrations for the balance of the day. It turned out that if a person were to sit around there all day they probably would not have to visit any concession stands for food. The first show was about “rocky mountain caviar.” Which turned out to be a black bean corn salsa. 

The second show was given by a relatively well known chef in the Twin Cities area. It was a jerusalem artichoke soup that was really quite good. I have the recipe and am going to try to replicate it. The fun part about the demonstration was that if the chef caught you clapping or laughing at one of his jokes he would throw a tin of his special Tagine spice. 

It has a bold smokey aroma.

Then, the actual reason we stayed was to see the food contest among three of the WCCO personalities. It was a chili cooking competition. They offered three very distinct flavors. We actually got to have seconds of the finished products if we wanted. 

When we first arrived at the show, we asked if the tickets were good for the weekend. They were not. So, we decided that since we were “relatively” close to the Ikea store, that is where we decided to do breakfast the next day. Oh, by the way, did I mention that we were able to get a great rate at the downtown Hilton in Minneapolis. The room was very comfortable, but we kind of felt out of our element in the swanky digs.

At Ikea, we were able to find a few of the items that Cole had requested and, of course, we managed to find a few things for ourselves. Breakfast was eggs, sausage and crepes and lingonberry for Gary and eggs, sausage and french toast for Joyce.

And, of course, if one is at Ikea, one is also next to the Mall of America. Yes, we decided to head over there. We thought we could get a few more miles in walking the loops. We did manage to get 3+ miles in for the day.

Joyce also suggested we stop and listen to Dr. Oz. He was there to give a health pep talk to the people in the rotunda. It was a great suggestion. It was very informational and entertaining. 

We did take the opportunity to purchase our first new scrabble board in about 36 years. It is in anticipation of our 1000th head to head match. That will be a future post.

Joyce was very very close to completing our Twin Cities adventure by agreeing to take the zip line at the lego land amusement center. 

We almost made it. The crowds got bigger and the lines got longer by the time we made our way there.

So, we decided that we would have a DQ cone instead.

We have decided that the zip line will have to wait for an early morning middle of the week adventure. But, then again, being (R)etired has that advantage.

Now, where did I put the Groupon app…………