Minnesota! (posted from the Luna Coffees shop in Fargo, ND)
(this post covers 6-10 August)


Thursday, 10 August-
This morning we headed west via back roads to get a feel for the rural area. The fields look very dry in this area and the corn stunted. We heard at the state park that they were having a very dry summer this year. We also came upon a new first for us--- a sign in the little town of Twin Valley offering a free building lot to anyone who wants to build a home there (see http://www.twinvalley.govoffice.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={E7863A11-16D2-4EFC-897A-E99453D63581}&DE={74920BA6-E016-4D0E-B323-D6E957DC0ED8}) for the offer. They not only will give you a free building lot, but also free phone and sewer service connections and free water, sewage and garbage collections for a year! And it’s a nice area!
We continued on to Moorhead, MN, where we visited the Hjemkomst Museum. Robert Asp, a school counselor in Moorhead, decided one day that he should build a Viking ship and sail it to Norway. And though he died of leukemia before he could finish the boat, his family completed it and five members of the family (and seven other crew) did indeed sail it to Bergen, Norway on an amazingly dangerous voyage. Asp had no shipbuilding experience and made up some of the construction methods as he went. At one point in the voyage the rudder came off and water was coming in a 14-foot crack along the keel. But they made it! And the boat is there to see in the Hjelkomst Interpretive Center.
Also at the center is a ‘stave church’ replica, also build by an obsessed Norwegian. Guy Paulson took an early retirement from his job and spent the next seven years replicating a 12th-13th Century Norwegian church. Incredible.
After posting the blog entry today, we’re planning to stay at the local Sam’s Club or Wal-Mart.

Wednesday, 9 August-
We got up at 0530 this morning to once again drive the Wilderness Drive looking for wildlife but again saw only three deer. Afterwards, we hiked the Bohall Wilderness Trail (a mile), then hiked to the Fire Tower and climbed it. That afternoon we hiked for 2-1/2 hours on the North Country Trail in very hot weather and Labashi took a roll of film shooting two trumpeter swans (the male is called a ‘cob’ and the female a ‘pen’) along with their two gray-fur-covered little ones (‘cygnets’) we came upon in the middle of nowhere. After returning and showering, we celebrated my birthday at the Douglas Lodge with buffalo burgers and shared a hot fudge sundae and spent another night at the campground.

Tuesday, 8 August-
Today we visited the Rune Museum in Alexandria, MN. This is an interesting one. A local farmer found a ‘runestone’ wrapped in the roots of an aspen tree back in 1898. The stone contained runic symbols which stated that the carvers were 22 norsemen who were 14 days from their main ship and had been attacked by native Americans--- and it’s dated 1362! The stone has a long history of being declared a fake and then real in several cycles and that controversy continues through today. We spent all morning at this fine little museum and loved it.
In the afternoon we moved on to Lake Itasca, the source of the Mississippi River. Lake Itasca State Park is Minnesota’s oldest (founded 1891) and consists of 32,000 acres. After parking in our campsite ($18), we set up the bicycles and biked down to the headwaters visitor’s area. We took the obligatory hop across the Mississippi on stepping stones and Labashi wanted to take some pictures so we went back to the van for supper then drove back to the headwaters. Afterwards we drove the 17-mile long Wilderness Drive at dusk, looking for wildlife but saw only a few deer.

Monday, 7 August-
After a wonderfully-restful night at the campground at Lake Elmo, we drove over to the bath-house for our showers. It was such a spectacular morning that while Labashi took her shower, I jogged the two-mile multi-purpose trail and cooled off a bit before taking my shower. Labashi was just emerging from the shower building as I was returning from the jog so this worked out very well.
We then headed for Minneapolis to visit the Russian Art museum. We saw the ‘Soviet dis-Union’ exhibit, which contrasted Russian art from two different sources—the ‘soviet-realist’ style which was the official style of the state and the non-conformist or dissident style. We have seen some really superb realistic Russian art in the past so were hoping to see more. On the whole, though, we were a bit disappointed--- there weren’t enough realistic works.
Afterwards, we drove to the Mall of America. We’ve heard about this giant mall and just wanted to see what it was like, i.e., how it differed from other malls we know. The first thing we learned is that parking is a problem for any vehicle over 7 feet high. All the parking lots immediately around the Mall have 7-foot barriers—too low for Mocha Joe’s nine-feet-plus. All the larger vehicles have to park in a dirt lot across the street and from there’s it’s a fairly long walk to cover. That must be fun in a Minnesota winter. We were also surprised to see it was anchored by just four stores- Nordstrom’s, Sears, Bloomingdale’s, and Macy’s and that there were very few stores we didn’t already know. The mall was three levels high and it very much reminded me of taking your average indoor mall and stacking up three of them. The one difference to that model is that there’s an amusement park in the middle of the mall. The roller coaster looked like fun—and in fact reminded me of the old wooden coaster in Hershey Park that scared me as a small boy. Otherwise, it looked like a small-town amusement park.
We had lunch at California Café and I had a very nice artisan’s cheese sampler with the best grapes I’ve ever tasted. They were Bordeaux mini-champagne grapes.
That evening we planned to stay at the Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club in St. Cloud, MN and in fact set up at the Sam’s Club. Then we noticed construction equipment in the parking lot. Sure enough, the construction folks were massing for a night shift. By eight PM the construction equipment noise was loud and we realized this wasn’t a good idea. We drove around the block to the Wal-Mart only to learn that that’s where they were working-- -the Sam’s Club lot was only a staging area. So much for St. Cloud.
We drove another hour to Alexandria, arriving there about 2330. That Wal-Mart lot turned out to be one of the best we’ve seen yet—a very large lot beside an open field and traffic lanes were far from our parking spot. What a super spot!

Sunday, 6 August-
This morning we headed up river after crossing into Minnesota. We took a mid-morning break at Wabasha, MN and happened upon the National Eagle Center, which at this point is a small downtown storefront with three live bald eagles plus a gift shop. They are apparently planning to put up a building more reflective of their name nearby. As we left town, we saw a pickup parked in a convenience store lot with a sign saying “Candy Corn”. We stopped and talked with the corn-seller and learned that candy-corn is another name for sweet corn here. When he learned we were travelers, he offered us some free ‘candy corn’, “the best you’ll ever taste” he said. We demurred given that we don’t have an easy way to prepare it. But he had an answer for that too--- “just take it into the convenience store and use their microwave”. Quite the salesman, he was.
Later in the day we made it to Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Fine Arts Center, a ‘gem’ according to our guide book, and that it was. We particularly enjoyed the late-19th century art (and I’m more convinced than ever that someday the experts are going to wake up to the fantastic work of Jean-Leon Gerome and mount a show of his work).
After the museum we drove around Minneapolis and St Paul more or less randomly to get a feel for the city.
We stayed the night at Lake Elmo Regional Park where we stayed in the ‘equestrian center’ campsites—a few bucks cheaper ($14 vs $18) and very nice and quiet. As we were getting oriented to the park, we stopped at the Lake Elmo Pond which is a popular swimming area and noticed something didn’t seem ‘right’. Everyone was out of the water and groups of people seemed to be huddled together and looking toward the water. A minute later we heard approaching sirens. We had happened upon a tragedy. We learned later that an 11-year old Hmong boy had been pulled from the water by relatives and lifeguards begun resuscitation efforts. His relatives, unable to speak English, indicated there was another boy missing, so the lifeguards set up a human chain of volunteers and found his cousin, a 12-year old. The 12-year-old died and last we knew, the 11-year old was in critical condition in the hospital.
Late in the evening we walked the periphery of the park, a two mile walk.