Minnesota - Day 23 - meandering past Mille Lacs Lake toward Crow Wing

Crow Wing State Park, Brainerd

Friday, 23 September 2022

today's route

As you can see from the map, there wasn't really much distance between last night's campground and tonight's, so instead of just going straight over there, I did a little sightseeing tour of the area.

I had to stop on the road and wait while about 15 wild turkeys crossed the road.  Except I'm pretty sure they weren't turkeys.  They seemed much smaller and thinner than turkeys usually are, and after spending some time with the bird book, I'm pretty sure what I saw were female Ring-necked Pheasants.

female Ring-necked Pheasant

These females are still pretty good-sized birds - 21" long - but female turkeys are 37" long, so you can see why the size bothered me.  

I heard on the radio that Minnesota is #1 among the states in voter turnout, and that may be partly attributed to the fact that it's tied for #1 in having the longest period for early voting - 46 days.  That came up because early voting for the November election started today.  The Republican candidate for MN Secretary of State (in charge of elections) says she wants to reduce that period to 2 weeks, saying it will help prevent fraud.  

I passed a small pond alongside the road that was filled with plastic ducks of many colors.  Big ones, small ones, all different colors.  I have no idea what for, but it made me smile.

I passed a sign that read "1854 Treaty Boundary."  That was it.  No explanation.  And I've had a little trouble trying to figure it out.  But I think the US signed a treaty in 1854 with a number of Native tribes in this area, where the tribes agreed to give up ownership of the land in exchange for the right to control the hunting, fishing and gathering activities on that land.  That authority is now exercised by an Intertribal Natural Resources Council.  I suppose this is something kids that grow up in MN learn in school, but it's the first I'd heard of it, even after driving around the state for weeks.

After the town of McGrath, pop. 41, I saw another 7 or 8 female pheasants.  They must be really common around here for me to see so many.

The road turned to go around Mille Lacs Lake (a name I don't understand because of its redundancy, but that's what it's called).  I think that name is pronounced "mill LAX" and sort of run together into one word.  Today was very gray with a slightly lighter gray sky and occasional light rain.  And some real wind, which whipped up the lake into waves so serious it almost looked like the ocean.

A Bald Eagle flew up right in front of us.

I passed more small towns and, at Crosby, pop. 2,360, I crossed the Mississippi River and was back on the Great River Road.

Which I left almost immediately to turn north to go to Emily.  Which turned out to look smaller than its alleged 843 residents would suggest.  And I drove on some small county roads back south to the town of Brainerd (without a highway sign to say so), crossed the Mississippi again and stopped at Gregory Park.

I was surprised to learn from this marker that the park was named for a railroad big wheel who went by his middle name of Gregory.  The sign says his last name was Smith, and I'm betting the "J." stood for John, and he used his middle name so people wouldn't think his name was an alias.

It was a very nice park, a full 2 city blocks in size, and Dext and I walked around a bit.

From there we went to the next door town of Baxter, pop. 7,610, and I stopped at a place I'd heard had wonderful scones.  Which they were sold out of, so I left emptyhanded with thoughts of maybe swinging back by here in the morning when they opened.

The campground was less than 8 miles away, across the Mississippi again.  Actually, the river ran right alongside the state park, and I got this photo from the campground's amphitheater.

That's the mighty Mississippi not far from its source.

It was lucky Dext and I got that walk in when I could take the photo - that was about 2:30 - because by about 5:00 it was pouring down rain, there were practically creeks in the middle of the roads and visibility was pretty low.  Because it was a Friday, campers were streaming in almost as thick as the rain.  Most of them were popups and small trailer/campers, and these need work to make them usable.  The popups need to be popped up and the campers need to have braces put in place to balance them.  I was really glad it wasn't me out there in the pouring rain trying to get set up for a night's stay, and glad yet again that I'd made the choice of RV I did.

When we went out for our last walk of the day, Dext got completely soaked.