Month: July 2015

It’s actually called Minnesota’s Largest Candy Store, but I think my name is better. Interestingly, they have no web site.  And only take cash.  And, if this blog post is to be believed, they have no phone number.   But do they need these things, when they are the world’s largest candy store in Minnesota?  I guess not.  Because how can you drive by this and not stop?

Huge parking lot indicates that it probably gets a little crazy on weekends.

What’s a tourist stop without homemade fudge?

We were initially amused by the reference to the Big Lebowski.

Sara wondered if someone changes the date every day.

They have the largest collection of soda.  Just look at all of these varieties! (They also had good varieties too. I was just intrigued by the gross factor.)

Candy as far as the eye can see.  They also had a ton of jigsaw puzzles.

Sara tried the TARDIS.

“I’m sure they don’t make candy cigarettes anymore,” said I, right before we found the candy cigarettes.

Rebranded as “candy sticks” for Marvel Heroes, but we know what they are.

We were happy to discover the Idaho Spud bars.  And that people had been buying them.

You can also have house-made apple pies and strudel.  These hand-made signs killed me.

As did this gentleman, who, if that blog post above is to be believed, is the father of the owner.

On your way out you could open your soda with this great period bottle opener.

Having taken in some Mankato sites, we headed north to Minneapolis.  However, we were sidetracked by this lovely specimen in Minnesota Square Park and pulled off of the highway to take a closer look.  The park’s website refers to this as a Pavilion.

Fabulous ceiling.

Really good vistas.

Multi-levels.

Great structure explored, we detoured through the playground on the way back to the car.

After a lackluster lunch at a mostly-empty restaurant where a patron constantly eavesdropped on our conversation (which we texted back and forth about so she couldn’t hear us discussing her) Sara and I headed to Minneopa State Park.  The waterfall was mentioned in Carney’s House Party, one of the Deep Valley novels and it sounded pretty, so I put it on the list.

After paying our fee (the poor park ranger in the visitor’s station was frustrated at the people who kept driving in and not paying their fee.  He was waiting for his compatriot to return from town so he could go down and write tickets for all the shirkers) we parked and headed toward the falls. Unfortunately, a woman with a camera was a bit in front of us and staked out the best place to take pictures of the upper falls.  She then took 4000 pictures.  We waited.  Not very patiently.

Multiple self-portraits ensued.

We took pictures not exactly from the angle we wanted.

We took timer photos.

We took pictures of the lower falls from above.  And still she was clicking away.  We gave up and moved on.

This talks about the water quality of the falls depending on what’s going on.  Because of the big rain two nights before, we had a bit of mud happening.

Lower falls and bridge.

We walked down to the lower level and then back up.  This kind of rock is easily to scratch into.  This means that the falls are always moving as the rock are worn away by the water.

Back for another look at the upper falls.

The lady had finally finished her in-depth photo session.  Here’s the shot!

Creek running into falls.

Tib’s house!  Isn’t it pretty?  Those who have seen the illustrations in the book might be wondering where the tower is.  But there was never any tower.  Lois Lenski “borrowed” a tower from other houses in the neighborhood.

Sara and I especially loved the glass porch doors.  We thought of opening a B&B with a tea house.  Wouldn’t it be lovely?

Just across from Tib’s house is the site of the school Betsy & Tacy attended.  This is not the school building they attended, though.

Here’s an example of a fabulous tower like the one Lois Lenski borrowed.

I adored this mid-century.

This poor house is undergoing some hard times.

We stopped at Lincoln Park, which looks nothing like it did in Maud’s day,

I’m noticing that Minnesota loves a historical sign.  Most are quite long.

Here is a new fountain, to replace the previous one, blown over in a storm.  It now makes the sign (which says, “no traces of the soldiers’ memorial remains) incorrect.

The rest of the park.

A few parting shots:

The Betsy and Tacy signs.

Sara and I take simultaneous pictures standing on the hitching blocks.

The road up the big hill.  Which ends now, instead of continuing up the big hill.

Sara waiting for me to set up the timer shot on the bench.

Alas, this is the best of the timer-shot bunch.  “Up” is not a good angle.

The view from the bench. The white house on the corner is Tacy’s house.

One last look at Tacy’s house.

Tacy’s house is used as a museum, gift shop, and work space for the Betsy-Tacy Society.  I was impressed with the quality of artifacts on display.

It turns out that had Sara and I arrived last summer, we would not have been able to take those pictures on the hitching blocks.

Pictures of real-life people that Betsy’s “Crowd” was based on.

The real-life alter egos of Tacy, Betsy and Tib, back in Mankato (Deep Valley) in 1961.

This was perhaps my favorite period item on display.  I kind of want to read Lady Audley’s Secret.  Oh wait, we have the internet.  I totally can.

That was one nice-looking house.  Too bad it’s gone.

Lovelace’s typewriter.  Such a pretty blue thing.

Betsy and Tacy went to Spain in 1968.  (This is amusing if you know that Betsy, Tacy and Tib wrote a letter to the King of Spain, who they were in love with.)

In one of the high school books, the girls in the crowd form a sorority they call the Octo-Deltas.  Here is Lovelace’s Octo-Delta pin.

Tib, Betsy and Tacy (they so rarely sit in the proper order of their names) in high school.

Pictures of Tacy’s family.

Pictures of Tib’s family.

The gift shop offered a variety of wondrous things, and I spent a goodly bit of money.  My favorite acquisition was the Betsy-Tacy songbook, which collects the songs mentioned in the Betsy-Tacy books and includes a write-up and sheet music for all of them.

We began in the kitchen, which has been taken back to the period when Lovelace lived here.  There are some items in the house that were owned by Betsy and her family, but most are period-appropriate reproductions.

One of the fun things about this house/museum is that they took illustrations from the first four Betsy-Tacy books and used them to inform their renovations.  Then they posted said illustrations in the room. You can see one on the shelf.

Wood stove, cupboard and table.

Cabinets.

After a certain point in the books, Betsy wrote using her Uncle Keith’s trunk as a desk.  She did this upstairs, but the upstairs is just now being renovated, so for now the trunk sits in the dining room.

Blurry picture of dining room.

I complimented our docent on their excellent matching of the lamp to the photo.

Telephone and sideboard.

Really good corner bookshelf.

Sitting area and piano.

Piano with photographs of the Hart family.

In Betsy’s Wedding, Betsy and her husband Joe scrounge furniture from family attics and cellars.  There is more than one mention of the drop-leaf table and this is the actual drop leaf table that Maud and her husband Delos used in their first apartment!

See!  Quotes from the book were hither and yon also.

Though we know these people as Mr. & Mrs Ray, Julia, Betsy and Margaret Ray, you can see that they are actually the Hart family.

Stove in the parlor area.

Sitting area.  This room probably originally had the stairs to the second floor.

In Betsy-Tacy, the Ray family adds on a room “just in case there’s a Robert Ray, Jr.,” as Betsy’s father says.  Indeed, a room was added on to the house to make room for a new baby.  But in real life, as in the book, it was Stella Hart (Margaret Ray) who was born instead of Robert Ray, Jr.

The birth of Margaret takes place in the closing chapters of the book and it was fun that we had just finished reading that part in the car, while waiting for the tour.

A peek at the upstairs renovation.  I will have to visit again to see the finished product.

It was a grand tour of Betsy’s House.  The Betsy-Tacy Society has done very good work.

We arrived in Mankato, ready to visit the Betsy-Tacy houses.  Betsy and Tacy are fictional characters in Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy series.  The books are set in Deep Valley Minnesota, which is the more romantic name of Mankato, where Maude Hart Lovelace grew up.  Maude based the Betsy character on herself and her family and the Tacy character was based on her life-long friend Frances “Bick” Kenney, who lived across the street.  The Betsy Tacy Society bought both houses, restored them and gives tours.  I re-read all the Betsy-Tacy books in anticipation of my visit and I was quite excited to see the houses.  (Houses & Homes!)

We arrived early for our tour, so we hung about.  Me on the hitching block in front of Tacy’s house.

Sara on the same hitching block.

Betsy’s house.

Tacy’s house.

An ALTAFF approved site!

Lois Lenski’s drawings from the end papers of the early Betsy-Tacy books.  You can see Betsy’s house, Tacy’s house, the bench at the end of the street where Betsy and Tacy would eat their dinner and the road up the big hill.

Info about Maud Hart Lovelace.

Here you can read about Turner Hall.  I never took a picture of the entire building.  The website isn’t too interested in showing the whole building either.

But with this really great sign, you can see why I got distracted.

Being tourists, we headed to the Rathskeller. I’d read they serve “heavy German food” which was music to my ears.

We went for Herman Balls.  In case you aren’t aware, that’s German potato salad deep fried with 1000 Island Dressing to dip.  Herman Balls were delicious.

Sara chose the Brat Sliders and I had the best grilled cheese sandwich ever:  Bacon Almond Grilled Cheese with chunks of green onion.  

The Rathskeller had this great poster, which I photographed just so Matt could read me everything.

It also has amazing murals and a great fireplace.

The bathroom featured wonderful historic photos.  Guys in the bar:

Turner gymnasts back in the day. I’m guessing the vast majority of Turner gymnasts today are female.