Quote of the Day:  Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This is a fitting quote as I describe further adventures with Krista Rolfzen Soukup and her boys on our Spring Break, daylong, excursion into the Mini-Apple (Minneapolis). I would also like to remind all you readers that I am a country girl. I learned how to drive on gravel roads where you drive down the center unless you meet a combine or large tractor, then you both hug the side of the ditches.

After our lovely lunch and visit to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, we headed out onto the streets.

I barely had time to stop and take a picture of an interesting looking house and a few letters for my AtoZ Challenge posts. I had to run to catch up as Krista yelled behind her, “Let’s take the bus!”  The next thing I know, I’m crowding in behind her and the boys, trying to make room for the other riders, and Krista hands me a twenty dollar bill. I look at the bus driver, and she says, “I can’t make change.” I look back at Krista, rather bewildered. I am a country girl and have no idea how much it costs to ride the bus. If I’d known I was going to hop on a bus today, I would have found out how much it was and had the exact amount of money ready to go. The very kind bus driver added up our total, an even $5, which luckily I had in my wallet, as we were already on our way to downtown Minneapolis.
The bemused (I hope) regular riders explained how to open the side seat once the man in the wheelchair exited. The bus driver gave us a message about needing the whole village to raise up a child and shut all the windows so she could turn on the air conditioning since it was an unusually hot day for mid-March in Minnesota. Normally, we’d be needing our winter coats, not extra deodorant. When Krista got up to shut our window, the riders told her to give it a harder shove. (Thanks, folks. We’re from the country.)
Once downtown, we noticed that the buildings were way taller than the Brainerd water tower.

The boys thought it would be fun to go up to the observation deck of the Foshay Tower. I was against it, being a very grounded acrophobe from the country. I barely climbed past the second overhanging branch of a tree when I lived on the farm.

The boys said that they could stay up there all day. (That made me glad that I’d faced my fears and stepped out of my comfort zone.)

The view from above.
The residents’ private patio.
Krista and her boys enjoying a little more breathing room on our bus ride back towards the theatre. We had a momentary pause at one stop, so the bus driver sang to us an Irish song that her grandmother had taught her.
City bus drivers are cool.
Now that I’m an official bus-riding city girl, I’m ready to…
Go. Create. Inspire!
(Honestly, I’d enjoy the city much more if it wasn’t so noisy and there weren’t so many people.)
Journaling Prompt:  Have you ever jumped into adventure?