Can Can Wonderland
Todd Swank's Diary Entry for April 3, 2022
The ice on Prior Lake is finally starting to melt. Blue decided it was time to go swimming even though the water is only about 40 degrees. Dogs are lucky they don't have to worry about shrinkage.
We saw this mound on the ice off in the distance and swore it was a rock. It wasn't until a couple of days later when I reviewed the photos to discover it was a beast of some sort. I'm pretty sure it's a muskrat, but he looks kind of big so it may also be a beaver. I'm just not sure.
We didn't have any plans for the weekend so we called up Karl & Tina to see if they were available. They're always up for going on an adventure with us.
Our evening started with a stop at The Market at Malcom Yards.
It's a Gourmet Food Court with a wide variety of interesting dining options. I had Gnocchi at Joey Meatballs and a Dynamite Roll at Bagu Sushi. Good stuff!
After dinner we drove over to an eclectic place called Can Can Wonderland.
It's a bar, arcade, and mini-golf course all rolled into one. Their website says Can Can Wonderland isn’t just a fun name to say. It’s also an homage to the origins of this great place. Dating back to 1889, the building was home to the American Can Company, can manufacturer for many notable brands as Carnation, Campbell’s Soup, Del Monte, American National Can and others. In 1999, American Can Company won “Can of the Year” honors for another home state hero — the two-piece Spam can.
Our goal was to play mini-golf, but apparently we arrived too late. The wait list was 3 hours and we didn't think we'd be there that long. We were wrong. We stayed past midnight, but never signed up to play unfortunately.
Their holes are very unique. Their website calls it Artist-Designed Mini Golf. They asked mini golf enthusiasts throughout the world one question: “What mini golf hole have you always wanted to play?” Over 200 people submitted their proposals, then they began building the award winning 18 hole course they have today. Local artists, engineers, architects, fabricators, welders and other creatives made this all come to life.
They also have one of the coolest arcades I've ever seen. There's pinball machines, video games, as well as a variety of games from decades ago that I've never even seen before. We had fun for hours.
We played Centipede and other classics. Miss Sheri even had a high score and entered her initials into the digital record book. She rubbed that in our faces for the rest of the night.
Several of the games were kind of hard to describe. I'm not sure if I'd describe them as fun, but they sure were interesting.
We all really enjoyed the golf ball cannon. You could shoot the balls into a variety of targets, but my favorite was making them ricochet back at us so they'd hit the plexiglass like a bullet. It made a really loud bang that made us all jump. Now that's just good fun.
There's some other stuff there that I probably shouldn't talk about.
Both the Market at Malcom Yards and Can Can Wonderland had a new system for buying beer. It features a credit card type card from a company called Pour. You take the card and a glass and select from a wide variety of beer choices and then pay by the ounce. It was a really cool way to be able to test a new flavor before committing to a whole glass. I'm pretty certain that this is a trend that will soon be appearing everywhere.
I'm so glad Karl & Tina are willing to go exploring with us. We find some pretty fun places together!
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