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Minneapolis is home to this stone arched bridge, the only one on the entire Mississippi River.
private estate, studio and creative sanctuary for the late artist Prince, born Prince Rogers Nelson in 1958 in Minneapolis. Aviation museums in the area include the Minnesota Air Guard Museum and the Commemorative Air Force Minnesota Wing Museum.
Check the Minnesota Twins schedule for a game at Target Field or opt for a tour of the $545 million ballpark that opened in 2010 and has been rated a Top 10 Major League Baseball Stadium Experience by ESPN the Magazine. Or visit the St. Paul Saints, the Triple-A affiliate of the Twins.
Aviation enthusiasts shouldn’t miss staying at Rand Tower Hotel, which opened in late 2020 in one of Minneapolis’ oldest skyscrapers. The 262-room hotel is part of Marriott’s Tribute Portfolio of independent hotels and has an aviation theme honoring Rufus R. Rand Jr., who commissioned the building that was completed in 1929 and integrated his love of aviation into the building’s exterior and interior design. Rand’s obituary, published in The New York Times in October 1971, said he was the last surviving member of the Lafayette Escadrille, a group of volunteer American aviators who formed a separate fighting unit in France’s air force in 1916 before the U.S. entered the war.
Plan your trip: Minneapolis.org
Quad Cities, Iowa/Illinois
The Quad Cities region, a collection of communities straddling the Mississippi River and the Iowa/Illinois
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state border, has an interesting array of attractions that are easily drivable once on the ground. Catch minor league baseball at Modern Woodmen Park, home of the Quad Cities River Bandits; see impressive collections of Haitian, Colonial Mexican and Midwestern artworks at the Figge Art Museum; visit the Mississippi River Visitors Center, home to the largest roller dam in the world; and explore the Rock Island Arsenal Museum, the Army’s second oldest museum (the museum is on the 946-acre Rock Island Arsenal, an active U.S. Army facility, so plan ahead for access).
The main cities are considered Rock Island and Moline in Illinois and Davenport and Bettendorf in Iowa, though you’ll likely find yourself in some of the other 15 surrounding smaller towns. If you’re a fan of the History Channel’s “American Pickers,” don’t miss a detour to LeClaire, Iowa, to see Antique Archaeology, the store that Iowa native Mike Wolfe opened a decade before television viewers got to know him. LeClaire is considered the home base for the show, the 24th season of which aired this spring.
Also in LeClaire, history and aviation buffs will want to visit the Buffalo Bill Museum. Infamous frontiersman and showman William “Buffalo Bill” Cody was born in LeClaire in 1846 and despite its name, the museum covers wide-ranging local history. That includes an exhibit with original artifacts on James J. Ryan II, the man credited with patenting the first U.S. design for a flight data recorder, or black box.
JUNE 2023