Fort Snelling Sightseeing

This morning, I spent a gorgeous 3-4 hours at Fort Snelling. I didn't really have a plan in mind when I departed the hostel this morning — I offered one of the other guests a ride to the airport, and we left about 7:45. On the way there, we drove past the exit for Fort Snelling just a few miles from the airport... And since it was on my list of "possible destinations", I decided to pull over.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I can't read my analog watch, and looked at it thinking it was really closer to 9:30, not 8:30, so I started in, and got stopped by one of the employees who pointed out just how early I was. Mortifying!

And then I thought about how beautiful the weather was, and the fact that I had breakfast food in the car, and made my way over to a picnic area with yoghurt, dried fruit and a new book I brought with me. So I passed a really nice, quiet hour reading and then headed inside when they were really open.

Fort Snelling was in itself very interesting, since it has a weird layout compared to other forts I've visited — the buildings are set inside the fort at a 45 degree angle to the walls, and in a roughly diamond shaped pattern. Like I said, very strange. Oh, and aside from its role in early Minnesota history, I also learned that this was the place where Dred Scott met and married his wife, and that their time there was a major part of their basis for suing for freedom. Very interesting!

In the afternoon, I headed back to the hostel, changed rooms again, and then set off on a walk to the corner grocery two blocks away. I decided to venture further, and discovered a fun coffee shop called The Spyhouse. I had my book in hand, so I had a really tasty chai and sat there to ready for a while before picking up the milk and eggs and bread at the grocery store on my way back to the hostel.