My month in Minnesota

My take on Minnesota

where I went this month

You can see I made a valiant effort to cover a lot of Minnesota, which wasn't easy with it being the 12th biggest state.  I missed the strip all along the west side, most of the far northeast corner and most of the far southeast corner.  But I still managed to see probably the majority of the state.

Minnesota's lands

MN has the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, where about 60% of the population lives, and several much small cities, such as Duluth and Rochester.  But most of what's land is farmland and forests.

Of course, what MN really has is water.  Lots and lots of water.  The state's nickname is "Land of 10,000 Lakes," though the folks up here are all quick to tell you that it's really more like 14,000, and books I read before my trip suggested 15,000 - 22,000 bodies of water big enough to be called lakes.  As far as I could figure, a lot of them are pothole lakes, left over from the glacier era.  Glaciers covered all but the far southeastern corner of MN, and the melting ice pack filled the low places with water.  That SE corner that I didn't get to see is said to have steep bluffs and high ridges; the rest of the state is rolling hills or somewhat flat.

MN is a beautiful state, though a lot of its beauty is low key.  It has lakes everywhere of course, rivers and huge forests.  But the farmlands are most of what I saw, which is why I said the beauty is low key.  There was certainly a lot of manufacturing, but aside from a few companies like 3-M, most of it is agriculture-related - such as fertilizer production.  My impression is that this state is almost entirely about agriculture.  And given the serious reduction in recent years in both rainfall and snowpack, agriculture is already in a real bind for water and it could get much worse.  But right now this state is really pretty.

Minnesota's people

Minnesotans liked where they lived - and the usual reason I was given was that it was quiet and they like their neighbors.  A few people said they like the beauty of where they live.

My first impression of the folks here wasn't quite accurate.  I know they have a bit of a reputation for being Canadian-style nice, and in general they are.  But they weren't reliably nice on the roads and they didn't go out of their way to be friendly or anything like that.  I guess I'd have to say they seemed as nice as the folks I've met in most other states.

The vast majority of residents are white, a hold-over from their heritage of Scandinavian/Germanic immigrants, I guess.

MN has a lot of professional sports teams, and I'm now not surprised that a state without a particularly large population base can support so many.  As far as I could tell, people are crazy about their teams - and I saw a lot of support for their college team as well.  The Minnesota Twins weren't having a great season while I was here, but I still heard the detailed reports on the radio.  Even in defeat, people were supporting them, so imagine if they were having a winning season.

Minnesotans love the outdoors and are probably delighted when tourist season is over and they can get back out again without the crowds.  Instead, the crowds I saw all came with MN license plates.  The campgrounds were often full, and almost all the vehicles were from MN.  Most parking areas for hiking trails held at least a few cars in them.  Of course I saw highway signs for snowmobile trails and parking areas for them. And I guess many of these multi-thousand lakes are used for ice skating and hockey.

Driving in Minnesota

Minnesota has, hands down, the best signage for highways of all the states I've visited.  Because of the rural nature of the state, most of the roads I traveled on were state or county roads, and some of my itineraries were convoluted.  Thanks to the signs by the MN Highway Dept. I could always find the road I wanted.  I was really impressed.

For all its size, MN has only 2 interstate highways: I-90 that runs from La Crosse, WI, to Sioux Falls, SD, across the extreme south of MN; and I-94 that runs diagonally from just east of the Twin Cities up to Fargo, ND.

In general, MN's roads are in pretty good shape.  They're often narrow without even an inch of shoulder space, but considering the weather they get up here, I was surprised to find the roads weren't particularly bumpy or pot-holey.

They've got a few specialty plates,
but most vehicles had this plate on them.

I'm happy to report that most drivers recognized when there was a safe opportunity for them to pass me - either one I created or one the roadway created.  It's very wearing to have to pay attention to someone following me - usually fairly closely - but who refuses to pass (and go away and leave me alone).  After a while it feels like a physical burden on my back, and I was glad not to have much of that here.

What I wanted to see that I missed

I actually managed to get around the state enough to be able to see most of what I'd hoped to.

But even though that southeast corner that I missed doesn't look very big, it holds several places I'd wanted to visit.  For instance, the town of Winona has a steamboat center and a mountain called Sugar Loaf.  Red Wing is the home of the famous Red Wing shoes and boots.  Wabasha is said to be a beautiful river town, and the Anderson House there is MN's oldest hotel still in use.  Those towns are all along the Mississippi River, which in that area serves as the boundary between MN and Wisconsin.

Slightly farther inland but still in that corner is the town of Harmony, of Amish heritage, where there's a 60' waterfall and Niagara Cave, one of the US's biggest caverns.  All of this is in addition to the steep bluffs and high ridges, so noticeably absent from the rest of the state, but are here because the glaciers didn't come and mash the ground flat.

But I did my best to cover the state and saw most of what I'd hoped to see.

My conclusion

Minnesota has been the birthplace of a surprising number of very well-known people: Bob Dylan and Prince; 2 Supreme Court justices, William O. Douglas and Warren Burger; Charles Schulz (of Peanuts fame) and F. Scott Fitzgerald; Jessica Lange, Jane Russell and E. G. Marshall; Richard Sears (as in Sears & Roebuck); Lindsey Vonn and Roger Maris; the Andrews sisters and the Coen brothers.  And I can't help but wonder how much the kind of life folks live up here had to do with shaping the character of these particular people.  I mean if there's anything they all have in common it's perseverance - the determination to live to the fullest of their talents.  I would think living in MN would teach them that.

And it's the sort of shaping that the land does that I liked best about this state.  These seem to be good, fairly down-to-earth people with a sense of humor (Paul Bunyan? Babe? really?) and a decent grip on reality.  And those are qualities I'm guessing they learned from the land here.

I liked it here and would enjoy coming back for some of the places I missed.  And I think I'd've liked living here when I was younger.  But I'm not sure I'm tough enough any longer for the life here now.  An odd thing to realize about myself.

Minnesota - Day 30 - back to Blue Mounds

Blue Mounds State Park, Luverne

Friday, 30 September 2022

today's route

This is actually the same route map I used a couple of days ago, but today I drove the same route back to Blue Mounds as I'd driven coming up to the Jordan campground.  I saw a lot of the same things, obviously, but I also saw some things I'd missed on the way up.

Soon after I left the campground this morning, I heard on the radio that because this has been the driest September on record in Minnesota, the Minnehaha Falls had become nonexistent.  There isn't any water coming over the falls these days.  Pretty sad, and pretty worrying.

On this day in 1960, The Flintstones debuted on TV.  For what it's worth.

I've seen the name "Cambria" in various places around the state - on a building, on a delivery truck - and I finally looked it up to see what it was.  It's an unincorporated town, but the reason I've been seeing it is that it's also a company that produces "engineered quartz surfaces" - meaning countertops, e.g.  They're headquartered in Le Seuer, MN, which in fact I was driving through when I saw a delivery truck that reminded me I hadn't looked it up.

The town of Le Seuer, pop. 4,213, lies in the Le Seuer Valley, which is where the Le Seuer brand of canned vegies began.  That brand is now owned by B&G Foods, which also owns the Green Giant Brand.  And I saw a large billboard of the Green Giant saying, "Welcome to the Valley."  You know - the valley of the jolly Green Giant.  B&G Foods, by the way, owns a whole lot of very well-known food brands.  I wonder why the town would be so small if big companies like those 2 vegie companies are around here.  Maybe it's mainly a farming town?

I heard on the radio the head of the Ft. Myers (FL) Chamber of Commerce say that Hurricane Ian "changed the face of our charming city - well, it's still very charming but . . ." and he went on to mention boats and docks and concrete scattered around where they don't belong.  I thought it was nice of him to quickly point out that Ft. Myers is still charming.

I saw several deer up to their bellies in grain in a field.

I came again to Mankato and North Mankato and this time managed to make it all the way through without incident.  This time I noticed an extremely large facility for CHS and learned online that they process soybeans here, producing oil.

At Mountain Lake, a sign told me there's a Mennonite Heritage Museum.

Passing through Windom, pop. 4,798, I noticed the county courthouse and was impressed enough to stop for a photo.

Cottonwood County Courthouse
built 1905

I saw a Mexico license plate on the highway.  I feel sure guest workers come to this part of the country from time to time - in fact, I've been driving through almost nothing but agricultural country for several months - so I'm surprised this is the first car from Mexico I've seen since I left the border states.

We stopped for a break at Worthington, pop. 13,947, where I was looking for a laundromat, and we stumbled on an interesting park.

Those signs say "Sailboard Beach" and then
"Home of the 2014 United States
Windsurfing National Championships."
Well, the wind was certainly blowing when we were there.

Public art that was just across the street.

At the laundromat, I found the smallest washer cost $4, and for less than half an hour in the dryer it'd cost me $1.75.  These prices were definitely on the high side of what I've encountered elsewhere and I'd've gone somewhere else if I'd had the time and knowledge of where else to go.  But my clothes got clean and they got almost dry.

On the highway a sign told me that Wall Drug (SD) was only 355 miles away.  They are absolutely relentless in their self-promotion.

Back at Blue Mounds State Park, I ran into the "temporary pass" situation again.  This started back when I visited Lake Louise State Park early this month and bought a day pass from a kiosk, except I wrote the check for an annual pass, because I planned to spend enough nights in state parks that it made the most economic sense.  Since then, when I've checked into each state park, the 4 women working at 4 reception desks accepted my temporary pass and my story about paying for the annual pass with no problem.  But the 2 men working at 2 reception desks made a big problem about it, and one was right on the edge of insisting I buy another pass, which would have created a problem (given my stubbornness) so it's just as well he gave in.  Actually, David and Anna mailed me my permanent pass part way through the month, but by then I was getting curious about this male/female reaction and wanted to see if it held all month.  It did.  Weird.

Dext and I were glad to be back in a familiar and comfortable place, I got my shower with no problem, and we got ready to head to a new state tomorrow.

Minnesota - Day 29 - in the campground

Minneapolis Southwest KOA, Jordan

Thursday, 29 September 2022

Once I got here, I was glad I'd decided to stay just 1 day/2 nights.  There's nothing actually wrong with this campground, it just seemed a little weird.  Plus, I wasn't nearly as close to the office as I'd thought I would be.  According to their campground map, I'd just have to cross a grassy area and I'd be able to access the showers and laundry.  In reality, that "grassy area" turned out to be a heavily wooded slope that I'd have to walk around, rather than across, and I wasn't at all interested in schlepping my laundry all that way.  I decided instead to stop at a laundromat somewhere along the way back to the state campground and take my shower once I got back there.

Here I cooked a crock pot chicken, cleaned all the windows (instead of just the front and back) and did a few chores like that.

While I was cleaning the windows, a woman who was staying in an RV near mine came over to ask about traveling with a cat.  She'd seen Lily in the window and traveled with a cat of her own, and her first question was where did I put the litter box.  They put theirs in the shower stall too.  But she told me they dry camp and only fill their water tank once a year or so.  I didn't have the nerve to ask why they'd made that choice - it seems really inconvenient to me - having but not using running water.

The woman told me that the section of the campground I was in was known this time of year as "Renie Row" because most or all of the people who stay along there work at the Renaissance Festival.  I looked it up and learned they hold this fair each weekend for 7 weeks from the middle of August until the end of September.  Good thing I planned to leave before more folks showed up tomorrow for this shindig.  She said they practically take over the campground for the weekends.

This was a big campground with lots of trees and lots of places for Dext and me to walk, but I just never felt comfortable here for some reason.

Minnesota - Day 28 - northeast to Jordan, near the Twin Cities

Minneapolis Southwest KOA, Jordan

Wednesday, 28 September 2022

It was so cold this morning on our first walk (at Blue Mounds State Park) that I wished I had gloves on.  They're packed in the basement with my winter clothes and this is the first time since last spring that I've wanted them.  Later this morning I heard on the radio that there was frost last night over much of MN; it wasn't frosty here, but it sure was chilly.

I found out by accident yesterday that this state campground has a complimentary wifi service that's really good.  Better than my hotspot can provide, in fact.  I'm scheduled to go spend the rest of the month up near the Twin Cities beginning today, and I wanted to do that for the internet connection, mainly, and the laundry and shower facilities.  

But I've been worried about all the extra miles I'll have to cover in MN just to reach the Iowa border on my way to Nebraska on October 1st, whereas Blue Mounds is very close to the Iowa border already.  According to Google, it's 5½ hours of driving from tonight's campsite to my Nebraska campground, versus 3½ hours from Blue Mounds.  Since I drive so much slower than Google assumes, that 2 Google hours is a big difference.

So this morning I decided to cut my stay short in the Twin Cities campground and come back here for my last night in Nebraska.  That makes today's drive a lot of unneeded effort when I could spend the time here catching up on my way-overdue blog posts, but I'll be driving to a part of the state I haven't seen so far, so it's not a waste.

So on the road we went.  Our route is that diagonal line heading northeast.

today's route

Just after I left the park, I saw that herd of bison much closer to the road than before, although they were actually across the road from the park on what looked like private land.  I wondered how they got there, because there were fences in the way.

We passed through Luverne, pop. 4,946, and then Brewster, pop. 506, where I saw a large facility for Minnesota Soybean Processors.  Their sign also said "Biodiesel - An American Fuel."

I also passed facilities for New Vision Cooperative (at Heron Lake, pop. 602) and Crystal Valley Cooperative (at unincorporated Madelia).  Madelia, by the way, calls itself "Pheasant Capital of Minnesota."

I've been fretting about that extra 6 miles difference between the distance Google said to expect on my drive to New Ulm the other day and the distance I actually had to drive.  I've noticed before that my speedometer registers a higher speed than I'm apparently actually going, and it's seemed that my odometer has been a shade faster between the distance it shows and the distance on the highway markers.  But 6 miles is a lot on what should have been only a 20+ mile drive.

Anyway, today I checked my odometer again against the highway markers and found it registers an extra .2 mile for every 5 miles I drive.  That can add up over a long distance but in no way explains that 6-mile discrepancy.  Odd.

I tried to pass peacefully through Mankato, which the highway sign says has a population of 52,703, but the sign also lists North Mankato and apparently includes it in that population figure.  Anyway, by then we'd been driving for several hours and all needed a break, and I couldn't find any place at all to stop.  The only rest area had been many miles back and was on the opposite side of the road - and I hate to cross a busy highway just to go to and from a rest area.  And here it was obvious there were lots of people and fast food places, but nothing told me how to get to them and I saw the signs only after passing the exits to get to them.

In frustration I took an exit that I thought would take me back to the previous exit where I'd seen a Burger King or something, only the exit took me on an entirely separate road in a different direction.  After some driving around, I ended up in the parking lot of an LDS church in North Mankato.  At least it was out of traffic and in a quiet neighborhood where Dext and I could walk and we could have a little lunch.

I couldn't figure out from the map where we were, but I got lucky and managed to find the same roads back to the highway that we'd taken away, so we got back on the road without getting lost.

I saw a dead coyote in the road - the 2nd one in 2 days.

There was a huge hillside covered with trees changing colors - lots of green still, but also lots of orange and yellow and red.  Really pretty.

We passed through the town of St. Peter, pop. 12,066, which reminded me that I'd heard Minneapolis was originally named for another saint.  It was.  Its first name was St. Anthony, next door to St. Paul, remember.  The Europeans who settled this area were obviously God-fearing folks.

Just past Belle Plaine, pop. 7,395, I passed Minnesota's Largest Candy Store.  As far as I can tell, that's actually the name of it.  Online comments suggest it's earned the name and has every candy anyone can think of.

And then I came to Jordan, pop. 6,802.  I stopped at a grocery store there and then went down the road another 10 miles to our next campground.

Minnesota - Day 27 - to Pipestone and Blue Mounds

Blue Mounds State Park, Luverne

Tuesday, 27 September 2022

today's route

As you can see, the first 2 hours of today's drive were pretty much straight west toward South Dakota.

I passed a body of water where I saw one adult and 4 half-grown swans.  Very pretty.

I heard on the radio that the State of Minnesota, with the help of the home-grown 3M Company, has been developing road markers that are still visible even when wet.  They call them "wet reflection" markers.  I hadn't even thought about it until I heard this, but it's true that the lines in the road are really hard to see when it's raining.

In the town of Sleepy Eye, pop. 3,452, I passed a facility labeled Balchem, which I hadn't heard of.  But it seems to be a Nebraska-based company that develops nutrition related products.  The town's name, by the way, came from the nearby Lake Sleepy Eye, which was named for Chief Sleepy Eye who was one of 4 Sioux Natives who met with Pres. James Monroe when negotiating yet another treaty.  The chief was known as a compassionate man who had a droopy eyelid, hence the name.

In Cobden, pop. 36, I passed a large facility for Farmward, which I learned is a major co-op in MN.

I started seeing fields of unharvested corn - dying plants that still obviously had ears of corn on the stalks.  In fact, that's almost all I saw today were corn fields like this.  Is this how they harvest the corn used for ethanol?  Or are these just plants that died too soon because of the ongoing drought?

Later I saw chicken farms, flocks of sheep and fields of dead soybeans.

Then I came to the town of Walnut Grove, pop. 871, which calls itself the Childhood Home of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  On the water tower is the slogan "On the Banks of Plum Creek," the title of Ms. Wilder's autobiography - and the town does actually sit near Plum Creek.  I crossed it.

The town of Tracy, pop. 2,163, says it's "A Great Place To Live."

By this point we were ready for a break, and we stopped at the town of Balaton, pop. 643, at the Lake Yankton City Park.  Dext and I walked around the park and I saw a sign that surprised me.

This is a small slice of Lake Yankton.

And here's the sign.

Okay - I'm here when it's still summer moving into fall, and I'd completely forgotten all these bodies of water I've been seeing all month would likely freeze during the winter and people might want to go ice skating on them.  This sign brought it all home to me.

I saw a sign in the town of Tyler, pop. 1,143, advertising their Æbelskiver Days that celebrate their Danish heritage.  I'd forgotten what that is until I saw a picture of it online.  It seems to me I once had one of these pans and tried to make these pastries.  This Wikipedia article has several good photos of them.   https://en.wikipedia.org/aebleskiver

I saw a wind farm being built.  The pillars were in place and the blades were lying on the ground next to each pillar, with cranes dotted here and there starting to assemble them.

The town of Lake Benton, pop. 683, is in an area with a lot of chicken farms, and more corn and more cows.

Then we arrived at the Pipestone National Monument.

I took this photo mainly because of the grass you can see
in the photo and is discussed below.

I've been seeing bits and pieces of the tall grass and
short grass prairies all over in my travels, and this is a
bit more of the tall grass prairie, apparently.

There was an exhibit about these grasses in the visitor center, and I'll include that here as well.

This is the whole sign.
Enlargements below.

examples of grasses

This national monument was established to protect both the specific type of stone that's here as well as the area itself, which has been a sacred area for a number of tribes for thousands of years.  Land ownership here is yet another example of the unethical dealings the US government had with the Native Americans.  And despite the US Supreme Court agreeing they did indeed have a treaty right to the land, it took many years more before at least the access to it was guaranteed.

Pipestone is a sandstone with an unusual red color that's specific to this area of the country. 

The vein lies beneath a heavy layer of quartzite that must be removed before the pipestone is exposed.

These are the old tools that were used historically.
That axe head looks like a hamburger bun to me, but it's a rock.

And here's what the finished product looks like:

Caption enlarged below.

There were also exhibits about how the pipestone deposits formed and the effects of glaciers on the land.  Most importantly, there were several Native craftspeople who were working with the pipestone there.  I talked with one man who told me he was the latest in a very long line in his family of pipestone carvers.  But he said he was afraid he'd be the last because none of his children was interested in learning.  He said they were all too attached to their electronic devices to care about this tradition - that they were creative but their creativity showed in other fields than carving.

I guess that happens in all kinds of crafts and not always because of electronics.  My grandmother was a prolific quilt maker, but it never occurred to me to ask her about it and she died when I was still young.  I wish now that I knew what she'd known about the skill.  And of course it seems even more of a shame when the craft involves a way of life that's had to fight to stay alive, as the Native American crafts have done.

The park service had a handout about how to show respect for Native identity.  For instance, it says, "Avoid the term "Indian."  Use "Indigenous," "Native American," or "American Indian" instead.  So I asked the young woman at the reception desk about the information I'd gotten at a tribal museum in Oklahoma (she said she herself was from Oklahoma), where the worker there had told me that "Indian" was a perfectly acceptable term.  I'd asked because in Alaska, "Indian" is a completely wrong word to use, and "Native" is the correct term, but displays at the OK museum used "Indian."  When I told this story to the woman here at Pipestone, she said she didn't know why the woman told me that in OK and I'd be safest if I just stuck to "Native" since I'm used to that.

This handout, by the way, also says, "Do not ask about blood quantum or DNA percentage."  I'm assuming people actually do ask that, because otherwise they wouldn't have included it on the list.  But the idea seems appalling to me - have we really lost all sense of personal boundaries these days?

From Pipestone, I drove another 20 miles down the road to Blue Mounds State Park.  As far as I can tell, this park was created to protect a bison herd that grazes here on one of the state's largest prairie remnants.  I saw the bison from a little distance and didn't feel any need to try to get closer (if you've seen one bison . . .).  The park's name came from a 100' tall cliff of quartzite that looks pink but apparently looked blue in the distance to early settlers, who gave them the "blue mounds" name.  It also protects a long line of rocks that early tribes aligned with the spring and fall equinoxes.  I didn't see any of those rocks, being pretty tired by then and just wanting to get to our campsite.

Minnesota - Day 26 - south to New Ulm

Flandrau State Park, New Ulm

Monday, 26 September 2022

I didn't haul us out of the campground this morning until 9:00 because I was reading newspapers I bought yesterday when I stopped for gas.

today's route

I headed south on the Glacial Ridge Trail Scenic Byway, per a sign.

A church I passed noted they'll have a "Polka Service" at 9 AM - either yesterday or next Sunday, I guess.

We came to Alexandria, pop. 13,182 - the big city of the area.  I stopped at a red light, and when the light changed both I and the guy next to me paused for just a moment before moving forward - and that may have saved a life.  A guy in a pickup towing a long metal trailer ran his very red light and both I and the guy next to me missed hitting him only because we'd paused.  It was very scary to me, and I'm sure to the guy next to me.

We passed by Sauk Center, and I noticed it has a Sinclair Lewis Avenue.  I looked it up and learned that Sinclair Lewis was indeed born in Sauk Center and lived there until he graduated high school.  He was the first American writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature and is best known for his novels Main Street, Babbitt, and It Can't Happen Here.

As we went down the highway, I saw a whole lot of corn.  It's actually not possible for me to describe how much corn I saw - and MN only ranked 4th among the states in 2021 for corn production.

Sometimes it seemed like I was seeing an anti-abortion billboard for every corn field I passed.  There are a lot of them in MN, which seems odd since this is a state where abortion is allowed as a constitutional right up to viability.

Then we came to Belgrade, pop. 738, which has a large solar field nearby.  I'd accidentally noticed that Google said I'd find the world's largest statue of a crow in the middle of the road here, so I was looking for it.  And though it wasn't in the middle of the road, it would have been nearly impossible to miss.

There seemed to be some activity buildings by a parking lot on the other side of this display, so we stopped there and Dext and I went out for a little walk.

It really is big.
Dimensions and explanation of the flags below.

This says it's 25' up to the branch (which is 30' long) under the crow
(which weighs 3,000 pounds) and another 18' from there to the top.

Seems like an awful big display for such a small town.

We stopped at Olivia, pop. 2,484, which calls itself "The Corn Capital" and has a statue to go along with their title.

Actually, this fiberglass statue was put up in 1973, long before the Minnesota Senate designated Olivia as the "Corn Capital of the World" in 2005.

The statue sits near a small city park, where Dext and I walked around for a bit after having some lunch.

A little farther along the road, the town of Morton, pop. 411, also had a large solar field.

In the town of Franklin, pop. 510, I saw a business called McGowan Lawn and Snow - which is sure one way to cover all the bases.

In the area of Fairfax, 1,250, I saw a lot of sugar beets.  Originally most farmers in Minnesota produced wheat.  But they had some very high yield years and the price dropped too low for them to make a living.  So they began to diversify and learned they could actually improve their yields by also planting corn and soybeans.  Later they added in sugar beets to the mix.

From Fairfax I turned on progressively smaller roads, ending up on one that was barely 2 lanes wide and had been designated the Mississippi River Valley Scenic Byway.  After almost 17 miles of that, I found myself absolutely nowhere that Google had told me I'd be.  But having almost no choice (not really enough room to turn around), I kept going and discovered Google was more than 6 miles off on its mileage.  That's a lot of miles to be off.

I crossed the Mississippi, which I'd been driving somewhat parallel to, and came to New Ulm, pop. 14,120.  I went first to find the glockenspiel I'd heard they had here.

This is the glockenspiel.

A sign nearby told me I was too late for one show and too early for the next.  So I decided to go find the post office and walk Dext while I was waiting.

one side

the other side

My wonderful family had sent me mail c/o General Delivery to the post office here, and it was there waiting for me.  A few blocks down the street was a nice large park with big trees and lots of grass, so Dext and I went down there.  I found this historical marker about the town.

Some info about the town's beginning.

part 2 of the message.

There was also this statue, which I thought looked a little odd, especially since it was erected in 1991 so can't claim deterioration from age.

German Bohemian Immigrants

on one side of the statue

on another side

In the neighborhood I saw a style of gingerbread I don't remember seeing before.

Looks very lacy.

We walked back to the square in time for the next glockenspiel performance.  This first sign explains the characters that display themselves in the tower.

And here's about 2 minutes of the show.  Sorry - you'll have to turn your screen sideways.

We waited until the end of the program (a full 10 minutes in all) and then drove through town, passing the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame.  It's open only on Thursdays through Saturdays, so I couldn't have seen it in any case, though it would have cost $6, which seems a little steep for what it is.  On the other hand, they say they have exhibits for Bob Dylan, Judy Garland and Prince, among many, which might have made it more enticing.

Tonight's campground was actually in town, though we descended quite a way to wind up alongside the Cottonwood River, arriving in our campsite by 3:30.

It was pleasant and wooded, and I thought some of the buildings looked like the CCC had put them up.  Which turned out to be the case, according to this history of the park that I found.

The campground had 2 sections and there weren't more than a dozen groups staying the night in the whole place - so it was quiet and comfortable.

Minnesota - Day 25 - westward to Lake Carlos

Lake Carlos State Park, Alexandria

Sunday, 25 September 2022

The wind was still blowing and, on our 2nd walk before leaving the campground, we saw waves on Mille Lacs Lake that were ocean-like.

On the way out of the park, I stopped at the campground office and took photos of a couple of informational signs.

This one explains who Father Hennepin, the park's namesake, was.

And this one has information about Mille Lacs Lake.

This is the sign.
Enlargements below.

And then we got on the road.

today's route

As I was driving out of the campground, I heard on public radio that there's a very popular video game recently released called Trombone Champ where people can play the trombone.  Here's a little article about it.   https://nypost.com/trombone-champ-game-viral-success

From the campground I drove around the south and west sides of the lake, which were the only parts I hadn't seen.  It's a big beautiful lake.  I saw a Great Blue Heron, some cormorants and a lot of gulls.

I've been hearing a lot on the radio recently about a resurgence of avian flu that's been showing up in poultry farms in MN.  It's worrying all on its own, but especially so because they say it's showing up earlier than usual.  They say bird migrations usually spur it, but right now we're just at the beginning of migration season.  There are already chicken farms where the chickens have had to be slaughtered because of that flu.

We ended up back in Brainerd, and from this direction I saw a sign saying the population is 13,590.  And back to Baxter, and farther on back to Motley and Staples.  I sat at a railroad crossing in Staples for a very long train of coal cars - or grain or whatever was in those cars, and after a while another train came from the other direction hauling tanker cars.  Both passed at the same time, and then the first was finished but we still had to wait for the 2nd.

I saw a horse-and-buggy warning sign.

At Hewitt, pop. 251, we stopped to take a break after driving more than 2 hours.

Hewitt Museum

Built in 1911, this building was the public school until 1979.  It's now the town's museum and the building is on the national historic register.

We stopped there because no one was parked there, and the sign said it didn't open until 1:00, so I figured we wouldn't bother anyone.  Almost immediately I learned that a small playground right next to the museum is very popular on Sundays with people entertaining their grandchildren.  And we hadn't been there more than about half an hour when folks started gathering in the parking lot on the other side of the museum.  In fact, there were soon enough people that I figured we'd better make ourselves scarce - I couldn't tell what they were doing but wasn't sure we wanted to be involved.

I passed a field where round bales of hay were being stuffed one after another into a long white opaque tube of plastic - to protect them, I guess.  

Checkout time in MN's state parks is 4:00 PM, and that's when check-in time is too.  I got to tonight's campground at 12:45 and the previous tenants were still in my spot, so I went to a parking area near the lake and a picnic area.  I found a walking path that led to the park's other campground, and Dext and I walked along there for a way.  I went back to the campsite at about 2:45 and the folks had gone.  In fact, the campground had been nearly full when I first drove through, but by 4:00 it was nearly empty.  There were only 6 of us overnight in a very large (and obviously popular) campground for a Sunday evening.