saintpaulitan
life in the other twin city

Last night, Patty and I took a walk from our house down to Harriet Island Regional Park (and oddly enough, ran into our state representative along the way). Despite living less than a mile away from the park, I’d never actually bothered to check it out. (Come to think of it, I didn’t really bother to leave my house much at all until after I got married.) Anyway, it’s absolutely beautiful.

The park sits on the riverfront and claims a fairly spectacular view of downtown St. Paul — even more impressive in the twilight. I made the panorama below using some photos I took down by the river. (You can click on the image to navigate to the larger photo on my Flickr photostream.)

The boat on the left is a bed and breakfast called the Covington Inn. Across the docks from that boat is another whose name I forgot that has a full restaurant and bar. Patty and I decided we’ll have to come check it out in the summer.

Here’s another view of the Covington Inn:

And another:

It’s amazing what you can find when you’re not looking for anything. We came across a couple of musicians rehearsing in the park, on this really cool stage that I had no idea was right near my house:

Also docked at the park is the U of M’s Centennial Showboat:

Finally, there’s this place — a reception hall called the Clarence W. Wigington Pavilion, which you can apparently rent out for weddings, parties et cetera:

All in all, a pretty cool place to just happen upon randomly on a walk. I know there are several more parks within walking distance of our house, including at least one big one. It’s astonishing how ignorant I’ve been of my surroundings after more than a year and a half on the West Side. I’m looking forward to finding more.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 4:17 pm and is filed under Cool Places, Saint Paul. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.