The Minnesota Twin Cities--Minneapolis and St. Paul--hold the honor of being the United States' coldest major population area. With winter temperatures often dipping below zero degrees Fahrenheit, some people find it surprising that many citizens and visitors in Minneapolis have such a wide range of activities to occupy them during the winter months.
Choose the sport that excites you most and join local fans in rooting for the home team at any number of professional sporting events. The Minnesota Timberwolves have regularly scheduled NBA basketball games at Target Center in the Warehouse District of Minneapolis. The Minnesota Vikings play their home NFL football games at the Mall of America Field, close to the Minneapolis City Hall and Elliot Park. Minnesota's hockey team, the Wild, play home games throughout the winter at the St. Paul Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota's twin city, St. Paul, 15 minutes from Minneapolis.
Bring your kite and go to Lake Harriet for the annual Lake Harriet Winter Kite Festival, held each January. Lake Harriet, near St. Louis Park in Minneapolis, freezes solid each winter, allowing kite-fanciers to fly their kites over the lake. People bring kites of all sizes and shapes to the lake, and members of the Minnesota Kite Society demonstrate their skills as well as help amateurs learn to fly kites. In addition, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources uses the event to teach interested observers how to ice-fish, along with ice-fishing safety skills. Other attractions at the Winter Kite Festival include snowshoeing, horse-drawn wagon rides, a medallion hunt and a marshmallow roast.
Join the Loppet ski club for the City of Lakes Loppet cross-country ski festival. Cross-country skiers can enjoy skiing the trails of Minneapolis and St. Paul on the first weekend of February and participate in other winter activities such as competing in the Loppet Sculpture Contest, bike racing on ice and tandem skiing with a dog around the Lake of the Isles. Pasta feeds, the Minnesota Youth Ski League SuperCarnival, races, ski tours and much more make up the weekend. The festival occurs at various locations around uptown Minneapolis.
