A residence at the corner of Lexington and Randolph in St. Paul.

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s the hassle of dealing with airlines and airport security; if there’s another, it’s the rage-inducing mishaps that occur when you ride on Amtrak. And although I’ve never ridden a Greyhound bus before, I’m pretty sure I’d hate that too. Consequently, I was genuinely interested — albeit skeptical — when my wife proposed an altogether different means of transportation for our trip to Chicago last weekend: The Megabus.

The Megabus is a double-decker bus service that shuttles people to and from various cities throughout the United States, Canada and Britain. It’s incredibly cheap: round-trip tickets for two adult passengers from Minneapolis to Chicago cost us a paltry $65.50. That’s even less than we would have spent on gas money if we had driven the same route in my 40 mpg Toyota Echo. And since driving in Chicago is a nightmare and parking there is financially ruinous, it wasn’t much of a choice.

Still, I had doubts. The thrifty price tag raised a red flag with me; why were tickets for this thing so cheap? Is their clientele so unsavory that they have to offer discounted tickets? I wondered. The image of my fair wife and I being accosted by lonely, desperate and/or unwashed lunatics for eight hours flashed grimly in my mind. On second thought, however, this potentiality seemed pretty manageable when taken in the context of my prior experiences with Amtrak in particular. I decided to chance it.

As it turns out, the Megabus is pretty awesome. The seats were more comfortable than your average 767, and there were no metal detectors or TSA employees to make me throw away my shaving cream and shampoo bottle. There were no lonely weirdos or gibbering sociopaths — or, if there were, they managed to stay quiet for the entire trip. I sat back and listened to an audiobook on my iPod for almost the entire ride, taking naps whenever I got bored. Patty did pretty much the same. There’s a small-but-functional bathroom on board the bus, and we had a half-hour lunch break at a truck stop just outside Madison. If I have a complaint, it’s that we arrived at Union Station more than an hour late; however, this appeared to have more to do with Chicago’s horrific construction-related traffic congestion than anything else. Also, getting our luggage on and off the bus took a long time because the driver, a friendly and competent guy, had to handle all of it by himself.

I’m trying hard to think of something I didn’t like about the Megabus, and I’m failing to come up with anything significant. Of course, it might be that after several years’ worth of miserable and harrowing travel experiences, nothing short of being knifed by a disgruntled passenger would faze me at this point. Regardless, I have only good things to say about the Megabus, and I would definitely ride it again.

Oh, and by the way, Chicago rules.

Way back in May, at the Living Green Expo, Patty and I ran across a map of all the geodesic dome houses in Minnesota, and we noticed that one of them appeared to be in our own neighborhood, just a few blocks from our apartment. We literally spent two months looking for it — on walks, on bike rides, in our cars and on Google Maps. What started as a passing curiosity quickly became a kind of ludicrous obsession, as we simply could not find the thing.

Finally, via the “Neighborhoods” application available on Facebook, Patty was able to find somebody who knew where it was. Much to our chagrin, it was even closer than we had thought. It’s wedged into a corner at a six-way intersection, which is apparently what had made it so difficult to find.

Tonight, while out on a walk, we finally decided to see it up close and in person. The place is tiny. The owner happened to be out in his (equally tiny) yard doing some gardening, and since he noticed us gawking rather bizarrely at his place of residence we decided we might as well introduce ourselves. I forgot to ask his name, unfortunately, but he was a nice guy. He said he’s been living in the house since 2000; prior to his moving in, the house had been built on what was apparently an old parking lot. He said his lawn and his gardens literally sit on dirt planted over asphalt. His bedroom sits in the top part of the dome, apparently, in a loft.

Well, there you have it. Mystery solved.

This morning, Patty and I got up early and walked down the road to watch the controlled demolition of the smokestack at Xcel’s High Bridge Plant. Thousands of people turned out to watch, either because they wanted to witness a little piece of St. Paul history in the making or because they just wanted to see something blow up. For the record, I came for both.

There’s been some interesting discussion in the local blogosphere (much of it here and here) over the last few days about whether the smokestack should be preserved as a kind of historical landmark, and also whether it adds some aesthetic charm to the St. Paul skyline. As someone who drives past the power plant at least twice a day, I can honestly see both sides of the argument — which, I realize, is now moot since they already blew it up anyway. But my hunch is that now that it’s gone, people really will miss it less than they think.

First of all, Xcel plans to tear down the rest of the facility and basically turn the whole area into a grass field. If it looks anything like the artist’s rendition, I think it will actually be quite pretty, and it will also give people traveling across the bridge the ability to enjoy the city’s southern and western skyline. Secondly, although the smokestack itself was interesting to look at, the rest of the facility is frankly a blight on the landscape. (Just take a look for yourself now that the smokestack is gone.)

Moreover — and I’m not trying to generate controversy here — but let’s not forget what that smokestack was there for. I’m pretty sure people had a less nostalgic view of that tower back when it was spewing several thousand tons of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, lead, mercury and all kinds of other toxic crap for St. Paul kids to suck into their lungs every year (not to mention several million tons of annual carbon emissions). As a resident of the West Side, I’m pretty happy that I don’t have that stuff wafting into my windows every day. So, there.

But anyway, enough preaching. As to the demolition itself, I’ve also got a longer version of the video (below), and a few Flickr photos, here. Mine aren’t as good as Tony Webster’s or the ones on MPR’s News Cut blog though.

Here’s the longer version:

Iggy has the right idea.

Sorry, folks, no commentary here. I’m tired and I just got back from a vacation. You can sort this all out for yourselves.

The amount of cool places that I continually discover within just a few miles my house never ceases to amaze me. Tonight Patty and I took a walk through some trails at the Dodge Nature Center in West St. Paul. It’s an environmental education center for school-aged children, but it also offers free hiking trails for the general public. Apparently, it’s a bit under-used; as with most places we go to in St. Paul, Patty and I were literally the only people there tonight.

I didn’t really know what the place was before we went (I’d never even heard of it before), and I was pretty amazed to walk up to the map board, look to my left and see a hawk, an owl and a Bald Eagle sitting in a series of raptor mews. (Man, that eagle! I’d never actually seen one up close before. They are beautiful — and huge.) Apparently, the birds are all injured or imprinted. We also ran across a functioning apiary (bee colonies), animal barns, ponds and a variety of wildlife. We only walked through about a fourth of the trails there; we’ll have to come back for the rest.

Any place you can walk around and run into a Bald Eagle is pretty cool, so you outdoor enthusiasts out there should check it out for yourselves. One word of caution: I did pick up a wood tick. MPR says there is an abundance of them this year because of the cool, wet weather. Yay for Minnesota.

More pictures here.

Generally speaking, St. Paul is a bit of a lonely city. If you visit downtown at 9:00 on a Friday night, chances are you’ll find it utterly, inexplicably dead. That’s why it’s nice that at least once a year St. Paul gets completely overrun by people during Grand Old Day.

This year was my second time at Grand Old Day, and for those who’ve never been, the only thing I can compare it with is State Street in Madison on Halloween. The entire street is filled with people as far as you can see. From Fairview Avenue to Dale Street, the whole of Grand Avenue is completely blocked off to traffic (a major inconvenience for the neighbors, by the way) and inundated by a sea of remarkably well behaved revelers. It’s really a unique event.

We didn’t really see any of the shows there, because: (1) the people-watching is more interesting anyway; (2) you actually don’t need one of the $6 wristbands to drink beer unless you absolutely must do it in one of the beer gardens; and (3) frankly, it didn’t seem like there were any bands or groups there that justified the price of a wristband (Heiruspecs excepted, perhaps). Anyway, it was a beautiful day, and we were happy to just walk around… although we did take the time to stop at Stogies on Grand for a good cigar.

On Saturday, Patty and I took a tour of the Wabasha Street Caves. We got the idea last weekend when we went on a long walk around our neighborhood and came across a group of people standing outside the entrance, waiting for the tour to start. I had heard of the caves before, and without knowing much about them, I thought it might be interesting to see them. What I found, however, was totally unexpected.

When I heard “caves,” I was thinking something along the lines of cold, dank, dimly lit corridors filled with bat droppings and some weird rock formations. I didn’t realize that the caves are actually home to a full nightclub that once served as the hangout for the likes of John Dillinger and practically every other gangster who ever crossed through St. Paul (and there were apparently a lot of them).

Bullet holes, famous criminals, ghost stories, a full-service bar — who could ask for more? My pictures, frankly, didn’t turn out so great (who would’ve thought that the lighting in a cave would be so difficult?), but it’s just as well you go see it for yourself anyway. It’s only $5 per person, lasts about an hour, and runs Thursdays at 5 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays at 11 a.m. No reservations are required; you can just show up.

A quick word of praise for our tour guide, Dawn, who was terrific. She obviously knew her stuff, and did a good job of keeping our attention. Make sure you tip her!

More pictures here.