Monday, August 27, 2007
Minnehaha Falls
Go away for a day and you come back to find that I've gone away for a day. The whole family, including cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, went to Minnehaha Falls yesterday. We were celebrating the grandparents' wedding anniversary. Seems they used to do some courtin' around about these falls. You know, back in the day. (Back in the day when a body could walk behind the falls, according to Grandpa.)
We brought a picnic lunch and had a fabulous day. Perfect weather and all that. I was smart (for once) and brought the camera. Between the children and I, we took over 100 pictures. What you see above is three of them. The top one, taken by moi, is of the falls from a nice three-quarters angle. The bottom two, taken by Daughter, is of the statue of Hiawatha (he's the guy) and Minnehaha. I knew nothing of the story of these two, other than there was a poem called "The Song of Hiawatha." My sister-in-law told me that they had to memorize this Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem in school. Hubby and I missed out, but the whole thing is online. One portion of it talks about Hiawatha wooing Minnehaha. The statue is an illustration of this section:
- Pleasant was the journey homeward,
- Through interminable forests,
- Over meadow, over mountain,
- Over river, hill, and hollow.
- Short it seemed to Hiawatha,
- Though they journeyed very slowly,
- Though his pace he checked and slackened
- To the steps of Laughing Water.
- Over wide and rushing rivers
- In his arms he bore the maiden;
- Light he thought her as a feather,
- As the plume upon his head-gear;
- Cleared the tangled pathway for her,
- Bent aside the swaying branches,
- Made at night a lodge of branches,
- And a bed with boughs of hemlock,
- And a fire before the doorway
- With the dry cones of the pine-tree.
Labels: children, dauther, family, henry wadsworth longfellow, husband, minnehaha falls, minnesota, picnic, poem, song of hiawatha, statue, weather
