1. Lake Minnewashta Regional Park
City: Chanhassen, MN
Category: Parks & Recreation
Telephone: (952) 474-0180
Address: 6900 Ches Mar Dr.
Description: Lake Minnewashta Park contains remnants of the Big Woods that once covered this area. Some of the oak trees here are so old that they’re more than 12 feet in circumference. An ambitious reforestation project that included the planting of 25,000 new hardwoods was completed a few years ago but will realistically take many years to re-create the leafy canopy that once covered the park.This park is tucked away and is visited mostly by locals, and at times you probably have a better chance of seeing deer than people while visiting. Lake Minnewashta is a popular fishing lake, allowing powerboats, canoes, and sailboats in summer and ice fishing in winter. The park also has a fishing pier and 5 miles of hiking/skiing trails.
2. Chanhassen Dinner Theatres
City: Chanhassen, MN
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (952) 934-1524 or (800) 362-35
Address: 501 West 78th St.
Description: It says something about the quality of the local theater scene that not only do the Twin Cities have the pioneering Guthrie Theater, the country’s largest nonjuried fringe festival, and the nation’s top company producing work for children, the area’s also home to arguably the top dinner theater in the country: the Chanhassen, which has been called “the Cadillac of dinner theaters.” If you like to sit at a table and eat steak while you watch shows, you’re not going to do much better than the Chanhassen’s mainstage musicals. The smaller productions at the venue’s other stages are a little more variable in quality, but the Chanhassen is a pillar of the local theater scene and a spot that’s spelled pure class for generations of suburbanites. (Unfortunately, in this economic climate there are no sure things, and the Chanhassen has recently changed ownership as it struggles to stay alive. Visit while you can, in case your chances to do so suddenly disappear.)