#31 MINNESOTA

Minnesota is the Dakota Sioux words for sky-tinted water. The quarter and license plates proclaiming Land of 10,000 Lakes don’t lead you astray, the state has 90,000 miles of shoreline, more than California, Florida and Hawaii combined. Minnesota actually has closer to 15,000 lakes but obviously someone decided to err on the side of caution. John & I celebrated our 7th anniversary at Two Harbors Lighthouse Bed & Breakfast, on the Minnesota shores of the largest freshwater lake in the world, Lake Superior aka Gittchie-gumma (among a number of other variations). We were in the Keepers Room in the main house and it was extremely comfortable. The three bedrooms upstairs share a single bath and I consider us so fortunate that we were the sole occupants that night. If I return, I would opt to stay in the Skiff House, a separate building located across the yard, for privacy alone.

The idyllic Two Harbors is a cliché small town, the perfect place to wile away your summer holiday. It’s named for its two harbors, Agate Bay and Burlington Bay and have humongous iron ore loading docks which we were disappointed to not see in action. We were only there overnight so had to wile quickly. A steam tug Edna G was docked by the taconite loading docks. It’s owned by the Minnesota Historic Society and of course, we had to take a tour. Afterwards a cooling walk out to the end of the breakwater capped off the balmy afternoon.


The next morning we followed the shore north 20 miles to visit the Split Rock Lighthouse which perches on a cliff top adjacent to a state park. I made note of the campsites for the perpetual “next time.”





We retraced our tire tracks to Duluth. The Duluth-Superior harbor is the world’s largest, farthest-inland seaport, and over 1,100 vessels drop anchor each year during the April-December shipping season. Each carries cargo such as iron ore, coal and grain some 2,432 miles across the Great Lakes and beyond. The most famous landmark is the Aerial Lift Bridge. We couldn’t figure out exactly how it works but finally discovered that the 1,000 ton (!!!!) center span is raised and lowered with two 500 ton concrete counterweights, an average of 5,500 times a year. If we had stayed in the area I’m sure we would have witnessed it in action, they say it goes up 25 to 30 times during the height of the season. The Boat Watchers Hotline is http://www.duluthboats.com/ or 218.722.6489. There was a Hampton Inn right on Canal Park Dr., a terrific location to watch it all. Ah, next time… We did patronize Northern Lights Books & Gifts right across the street. I keep finding this statistic: VisitDuluth.com reports “In the early 1900’s mining and timber barons built many of Duluth’s incredible mansions. At the time, Duluth had more millionaires per capita than any other city in the world.” I can vouch for some of the beautiful mansions.

It seems like a great area for cycling. The 60 mile Willard Munger State Trail, running south from Duluth to Hinckley, is the longest paved path in the U.S. If you prefer to go on foot, The Superior Hiking trail is one of Backpacker magazines ten best trails in the U.S. http://www.shta.org/. Venturing farther into the Land of Lakes you can hike or bike parts of the 100-mile Paul Bunyan State Trail around the 465 lakes in the Brainerd Lakes Area If you’re feeling really adventurous you can paddle the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a dream trip of mine.

Somewhere over the state…Judy Garland was born in Grand Rapids. Check out her birthplace: http://www.blogger.com/www.judygarlandmuseum.com%20 . The North Star State is also home to Bob Dylan, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Paul Getty, Jane Russell and Charles M. Schulz.

We stopped at a Road Food recommendation in St. Paul for lunch. Mickey’s Dining Car did not impress. The food, when it finally arrived, was fine but we would have preferred to have received what we ordered. I was happiest with Mickey’s when I watched Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion and within the first five minutes the camera spanned the Mickey’s rail car. “I need to go there” I thought, and then I realized that I’ve already been there. How sad! It really is a cute location, and Altman used it well in the opening and closing of the film. I would have been better off with a Milky Way candy bar, first created by Frank C. Mars of Minnesota, out of a road side vending machine. Let’s face it, that’s what road food always comes down to isn’t it? OK, I must confess we had two other very enjoyable road food-esque meals in Minnesota. Lunch was good at Bridgeman’s Family Dining Soda Fountain in Floodwood and our walleye dinner with wild rice at The Vanilla Bean in Two Harbors was one of the best meals I’ve had in ages. There is no commercial walleye fishery in Minnesota, it all comes from Canada but the wild rice is a MN staple. Traditionally, August is called “manominikegississ,” the month of rice-making. I participated by purchasing some to take home.

You recognize the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul) from the opening credits of Mary Tyler Moore Show. The State Capitol dome was visible as we left the city heading south down I 35. My final MN highlight was driving through an area I had lived in when I was 6 years old. Southeastern MN is flat. It’s primarily an agricultural growing and processing area. I lived in Waseca but time dictated I reminisce at the exit sign only. If I could squeeze in a few extra hours I would have driven through my former small town home and then veered south to Austin to visit the Hormel Food Corp’s. Spam Museum. How cool and kitschy that would have been!

My Minnesota song pick comes from Laura Barton’s 50 songs for 50 states: The Hold Steady’s Stuck Between StationsTales of drinking, dancing and making out in Minneapolis: "These twin city kisses/ Sound like clicks and hisses/ And we all come down and drown in the Mississippi River."

The Book Club Classics! 50 States 50 Books pick for Minnesota is Tim O’Brien’s In The Lake of the Woods.

The Amazon.com description reads: “In 1994 O'Brien wrote In the Lake of the Woods, a novel that, while imbued with the troubled spirit of Vietnam, takes place entirely after the war and in the United States. The main character, John Wade, is a man in crisis: after spending years building a successful political career, he finds his future derailed during a bid for the U.S. Senate by revelations about his past as a soldier in Vietnam. The election lost by a landslide, John and his wife, Kathy, retreat to a small cabin on the shores of a Minnesota lake--from which Kathy mysteriously disappears.
Was she murdered? Did she run away? Instead of answering these questions, O'Brien raises even more as he slowly reveals past lives and long-hidden secrets. Included in this third-person narrative are "interviews" with the couple's friends and family as well as footnoted excerpts from a mix of fictionalized newspaper reports on the case and real reports pertaining to historical events--a mélange that lends the novel an eerie sense of verisimilitude. If Kathy's disappearance is at the heart of this work, then John's involvement in a My Lai-type massacre in Vietnam is its core, and O'Brien uses it to demonstrate how wars don't necessarily end when governments say they do. In the Lake of the Woods may not be true, but it feels true--and for Tim O'Brien, that's true enough.”

I thought it was a creepy page-turner which I’m uncertain if I can wholeheartedly recommend but I couldn’t put down. Again, there was a definite sense of place that made it an appropriate read for the state. The thriller will haunt me if I ever find myself in Boundary Waters. It’s an unsettling enough portrait of a politicians motivation in this election year (Why does it seem that we’re always in the midst of an election?)