My mom was in town last week and we took a road trip on Wednesday. It’s been a while since I’ve acted like a tourist.

Our first stop was Ruth’s German Haus for no real reason other than we like gawking at castles and chocolate. There was a lot of Christmas stuff, too.

Then we went to the Pottery Place, which is where Red Wing stoneware used to be manufactured. I think. This place was sort of dead, but the antique store was fun to look through.

We managed to take in the Mississippi River and surrounding scenery at Bay Point Park right before the torrential downpour of rain set in.

Then we went to Treasure Island—because there is no place better to take shelter during a rainstorm than at a casino.

(I took this photo of the casino entrance as we were leaving. The rain had stopped and the sun was shining again.)