You don’t have to like football to get a kick out of the pre-game festivities in the Twin Cities this week. A healthy appreciation of peanut butter will do. That’s right — peanut…
You don’t have to like football to get a kick out of the pre-game festivities in the Twin Cities this week. A healthy appreciation of peanut butter will do.
That’s right — peanut butter. Mr. Peanut is offering tours of the Planters NUTmobile on Thursday in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood. And that’s not even the nuttiest distraction in town. Whether you fancy kittens playing football, “recreational oxygen” or competitive gene matching through virtual reality, the Super Bowl is drawing enough offbeat activity to the metro to entertain even those who may be apathetic about the big game.
By now, you have likely heard of the giant zipline across the Mississippi River, the seven-story St. Paul ice castle with a frozen fish inside, and the super slide at CHS Field. Here’s a rundown of some additional alternatives to the touchdowns:
If you’re looking to warm up while visiting Super Bowl Live, the 10-day fan festival on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis, consider stepping into the “Be The Match Interactive Zone” near 10th street. Slip on a pair of virtual reality glasses and take an elevator into a strange new world. There, you’ll wand passersby until you find someone with the right genes and bone marrow to save a patient with blood cancer. The Minnesota Super Bowl Host Committee promotes Be The Match (Bethematch.org) — the national marrow donor program — as one of its featured partners. Tissue type is inherited, so patients are most likely to match a donor who shares their ethnic background. That makes increasing the ethnic diversity of the registry a priority.
Those with peanut allergies should avert their eyes, but the Planters NUTmobile rolls over to 1440 University Ave W. in St. Paul from 1 to 5 p.m. Thursday for an appearance outside Cub Foods. Tour the 26-foot-long peanut on wheels with Mr. Peanut, “a 102-year-old American icon,” according to the marketing materials. The NUTmobile rolls over to Cubs in Crystal on Friday, St. Louis Park on Saturday and Ramsey, Minn. on Super Bowl Sunday.
After a stuffy private plane ride to Minneapolis-St. Paul, why not breathe in a little class? Christine Warren runs Oxygen Plus, a Minnetonka-based company that sells canisters of “recreational oxygen” to athletes and everyday fans of fresh air. She’s teamed with Black Star Transportation, a town car and sport utility vehicle transportation company, to offer what she calls the most refreshing high-class ride on wheels: “Travel in the safety, luxury and warmth of a full-service town car or SUV while taking breaths from canisters of pure O+ oxygen. The partnership goes the extra mile through a citywide O+ oxygen courier service. A Black Star driver will deliver O+ oxygen to anyone who wants a boost of oxygen anywhere within the Greater Twin Cities metro area.”
In Minneapolis, the former Dayton’s/Macy’s building at Seventh and Nicollet has erected a broadcast studio for CNN, Sleep Number beds inside giant football helmets and a display of Prince’s costumes through the years. But the cat’s meow may be the Hallmark Channel’s Kitten Bowl V, which features teams of real live kittens competing on a miniature football field. The “players” hail from Minnesota shelters, including rescues from hurricane-ravaged Houston and South Florida who were brought to Minnesota to be adopted. Root for the Last Hope Lions, the Little Longtails, the Pouncy Panthers and the North Shore Bengals at hallmarkchannel.com, and look up profiles of each player, as well as traditional videos and virtual reality clips from Kitten Bowl IV.
