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.