Matt Meiser
07-28-2006, 10:38 PM
We just got back from an 8 day vacation to the Minneapolis area. Spent the entire day today making the 14 hour drive, 3 of which were at about 10MPH in Illinois (took us three hours to get from Wisconsin to Indiana. :mad: :mad: We left last Thursday evening and took the Lake Express ferry across Lake Michigan from Muskegon to Milwaukee, spent the night between Milwaukee and Madison, then drove the rest of the way the next morning. Next time, we'll take the ferry both ways. It doesn't save time and costs a little more, but eliminates about 5 hours of time behind the wheel. Next time I'll also plan more drive time to maybe stop and see a few creekers along the way as we passed signs for a few places in Wisconsin that I recognized from here.
Minneapolis is a great city even though we were there for what is traditionally the hottest part of the summer and stayed in my brother and SIL's non-AC apartment. We visited some museums, Mall of America :rolleyes:, Ikea, toured the city and generally hung out with them. We also tried a different south Minneapolis ice cream shop almost every evening.
On to the WW related content:
We didn't run into much in the way of construction traffic on the way to Muskegon last Thursday, so we had an extra hour to kill after dinner, which to me meant a trip to the new Woodcraft in Grand Rapids. The store and owners were very nice and they were very helpful. Once again I wish Woodcraft and the local franchisee would "fix" the Canton, MI store. My wife actually spent more than I did on pen parts (for me to make her and her friends pens)
While in Minneapolis, I got to visit 7 Corners Hardware where I picked up some buffing supplies and an extra Festool Systainer. 7 Corners is a larege old-fashioned hardware store on the first floor with an incredible tool store on the second floor. We also went to Rockler's "outlet store" which was disappointing in that it was basically like every other Rockler I've been to other than a corner with a few clearance items, though I did take the opportunity to pick up some finishing supplies since I was there. Finally we stopped at a Northern Tool store where I picked up an air hose and a cheap HVLP touchup gun for spraying dies and hopefully WB laquer on small projects if it works well. While at Ikea I picked up 4-six packs of wire drawer pulls for $1.99 each--24 pulls for under $8 :eek: --for use on shop and utilitarian projects.
I hoped to meet up with Tyler but our schedules didn't meet up since he was at the 5 Barns picnic last weekend. Hopefully next visit. My last WW related item was helping my brother pick up a free mid-late 80's Craftsman contractor saw from a co-worker of his. While its certainly not a Unisaw, it will make a very serviceable tablesaw for him, assuming he takes my advice and throws out the stamped steel fence and buys some good blades. He actually has a small shop in the basement of his apartment building where he has some room to use it until they buy a house.
Minneapolis is a great city even though we were there for what is traditionally the hottest part of the summer and stayed in my brother and SIL's non-AC apartment. We visited some museums, Mall of America :rolleyes:, Ikea, toured the city and generally hung out with them. We also tried a different south Minneapolis ice cream shop almost every evening.
On to the WW related content:
We didn't run into much in the way of construction traffic on the way to Muskegon last Thursday, so we had an extra hour to kill after dinner, which to me meant a trip to the new Woodcraft in Grand Rapids. The store and owners were very nice and they were very helpful. Once again I wish Woodcraft and the local franchisee would "fix" the Canton, MI store. My wife actually spent more than I did on pen parts (for me to make her and her friends pens)
While in Minneapolis, I got to visit 7 Corners Hardware where I picked up some buffing supplies and an extra Festool Systainer. 7 Corners is a larege old-fashioned hardware store on the first floor with an incredible tool store on the second floor. We also went to Rockler's "outlet store" which was disappointing in that it was basically like every other Rockler I've been to other than a corner with a few clearance items, though I did take the opportunity to pick up some finishing supplies since I was there. Finally we stopped at a Northern Tool store where I picked up an air hose and a cheap HVLP touchup gun for spraying dies and hopefully WB laquer on small projects if it works well. While at Ikea I picked up 4-six packs of wire drawer pulls for $1.99 each--24 pulls for under $8 :eek: --for use on shop and utilitarian projects.
I hoped to meet up with Tyler but our schedules didn't meet up since he was at the 5 Barns picnic last weekend. Hopefully next visit. My last WW related item was helping my brother pick up a free mid-late 80's Craftsman contractor saw from a co-worker of his. While its certainly not a Unisaw, it will make a very serviceable tablesaw for him, assuming he takes my advice and throws out the stamped steel fence and buys some good blades. He actually has a small shop in the basement of his apartment building where he has some room to use it until they buy a house.