Week 29 - 60.88

A new top week at 60.88 miles.  This week puts me in the middle of farm country again, half way between St. Paul and the Minnesota State line.  This week, we visit 50States.com again for highlights from Minnesota.

• Minnesotan baseball commentator Halsey Hal was the first to say 'Holy Cow' during a baseball broadcast. 
• Minnesota Inventions: Masking and Scotch tape, Wheaties cereal, Bisquick, HMOs, the bundt pan, Aveda beauty products, and Green Giant vegetables  
• Minneapolis is home to the oldest continuously running theater (Old Log Theater) and the largest dinner theater (Chanhassan Dinner Theater) in the country. 
• The original name of the settlement that became St. Paul was Pig's Eye. Named for the French-Canadian whiskey trader, Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant, who had led squatters to the settlement.  
• Minneapolis’ famed skyway system connecting 52 blocks (nearly five miles) of downtown makes it possible to live, eat, work and shop without going outside. 
• Minnesota has 90,000 miles of shoreline, more than California, Florida and Hawaii combined.  
• Rollerblades were the first commercially successful in-line Roller Skates. Minnesota students Scott and Brennan Olson invented them in 1980, when they were looking for a way to practice Hockey during the off-season. Their design was an ice hockey boot with 3 inline wheels instead of a blade. 
• Candy maker Frank C. Mars of Minnesota introduced the Milky Way candy bar in 1923. Mars marketed the Snickers bar in 1930 and introduced the 5 cent Three Musketeers bar in 1937. The original 3 Musketeers bar contained 3 bars in one wrapper. Each with different flavor nougat.  
• Author Laura Ingalls Wilder lived on Plum Creek near Walnut Grove.