Three peaceful days in the Cedar Valley Resort. Sunny but not overly hot days, few bugs but lots of lovely birds and a resident chipmunk, good food, a large field for outdoor games, a nearby river for tubing or canoeing (John and I did not indulge but we did visit the river).

We learned a new outdoor game, Kubb, an old Viking game where you throw sticks (batons) at wooden blocks (kubbs). And we played a new indoor game, Telestrations. It’s like the telephone game with pictures.  One person does a drawing, the second one guesses what it is, the third person draws the guess, the fourth guesses the drawing, etc. Eight people playing at once, and lots of hilarity as drawings and guesses go crazily off track.

Next destination was Chanhassen, our home base for the wedding of John’s niece in nearby Burnsville. But first was a stop in Niagara Cave. John indulged me by napping out in the car while I took the tour.  It was pretty great … a running water carved cave of tall narrow winding channels rather than one dissolved slowly over time into large chambers.  Water still flows through it, and it includes a 60 foot waterfall in a domed room about 120 feet tall. My photos were not good, but here’s one of a formation that shows just how wet and active the cave still is:

Our pre- and post-wedding stop is the lovely Chanhassen Inn near Minneapolis. An older place, cinder block walls and real keys, not cards, but nicely and comfortably done up. Great bathroom, including the shower (the yellow coloring around the sink is an iPhone pano artifact):

One big strike was that there was one and only one handicapped spot, by the lobby. The Inn shares its lot with a small row of stores, so it’s hard to tell who most of the spaces belong to. I got adequately wide spots near another door closer to our room, until the last night that is.  Another minus, shared too widely, is the lack of helpful doors.  Like the rooms themselves mostly everywhere, it’s hold the door with one hand, try pushing or pulling with the other, trying it different ways with left and right, in and out doors, hoping the auto-close is not as strong as you are, but it’s always awkward without someone to hold the door open. Here the lobby had the fun of two such doors because of an airlock configuration. But we always make it through with a little bit of grace I hope!