The original plan was to get an early start to see several museums before heading north again. Then we realized we couldn’t do it all in one day. Do we pay for another day here? How close to the 4th of July weekend do we want to try to move to another park? We decide to move today and make trips back here, about an hour each way, for the local museums. So we no longer need to rush quite so much. In fact, we stop rushing at all. Our early departure time? 11:41 a.m.
On the way north I saw this:
I asked Dave if he thought there was a Purina Chow factory ahead. He said it was probably Camp Ripley since military installations often paint their water towers this way. He was right, of course.
A sign said, “Come see what I saw.” It was an ad for a chainsaw gallery. Are you all familiar with the people who use chainsaws to carve tree trunks into sculptures? This was a gallery for those artists.
It was fairly early on Tuesday afternoon when we pulled into Gull Lake Recreation Area. I think we got the next to the last site available. This is one of the most popular vacation weeks of the year. Next week will be the most popular since taking next week off extends most people’s vacation another day with Saturday being the 4th of July making Friday this week a holiday for those who work Monday through Friday. Wow, what a convoluted sentence that was!
We had planned to check in and head right back out but check in here is done by a roving ranger so we had to sit and wait for him. There was no way we were going to leave before officially making this site ours. But he eventually came and we left soon after. It was too late to go back and do a museum but we did go buy groceries, diesel fuel, and propane. Then we went to the 371 Diner for supper.
I don’t understand people who think that cooking a burger on a dirty grill so the burger tastes burnt is a good idea. Do they like eating charcoal? I don’t. Plus, I misread a sign that I thought advertised a chocolate fudge malt so I ordered one of those. It was a chocolate brownie malt. Did you ever try to drink a brownie? Through a straw? It was not one of my better meals. Cool diner, though.
The next day we did manage to get up and out early. It felt like a good stay at home day but we have much to see on this trip and we shorted ourselves a week to do it in by staying in the Twin Cities for an operating session we hadn’t anticipated attending since we didn’t even know it was scheduled.
So we headed back south on the “C. Elmer Anderson Highway.” My mind, of course, heard that as “See Elmer Anderson,” so I wonder why I would want to see a former Minnesota governor? Isn’t he dead, anyway? But then so is Charles Lindbergh and we are on our way to see him. Well, not actually him. Just a museum about him.
Unfortunately, we did that on July 1st. A new fiscal year started on July 1st and the museum changed its hours today in response to a massive budget cut. It was open yesterday when we drove by and the sign said it would be open today but that was a different fiscal year. Still, there were two cars in the parking lot. So I called the museum and a man answered and asked if he could help me. I said, “I hope so. We are sitting at your gate. Yesterday your sign said you would be open today.” So he let us come in the back way and we got to see this great museum but not the house which really is not open today.
Lindbergh was a man of many talents. He was an inventor of avionic and medical things. He was a world explorer who specialized in finding places for airfields for future airline travel. In those travels he saw Germany preparing for war then warned the US that we should stay out of that war since we weren’t nearly as prepared as the Germans were. He was the father of the kidnapped toddler. But he is mostly known as the man who flew solo from New York to Paris.
There were also exhibits about his childhood. In my favorite quote from that era he said that the Mississippi river turns every which way but always leads back to the farm, adding, “One can’t get lost–voyaging down a river.”
In all we spent and hour and a half at a museum that was closed. It was a peaceful visit. I would like to have bought a book there but the gift shop wasn’t open, either.
Then we made a quick stop at the Minnesota Fishing Museum. Once we determined it was mostly exhibits of various lures, boat motors, etc. we decided not to pay to go in. I did buy a book there, though. A book of stories about being a game warden. I expect to laugh a lot when reading it.
We drove by Donna’s Big Johns restaurant advertising “Food so great you will lick your plate.” Decided we didn’t want to see if that was true of their other diners.
By the time we got to the Minnesota Military Museum it was too late in the day to stop there. My body is grateful for that.
We did head on towards the Ripley esker, though. Since it is a “geological oddity” it doesn’t close. Just before we got there we passed an elk farm.
The esker turned out to be a place where streams flowing under glaciers caused an upheaval of the earth forming a ridgeline. A sign said it’s easier to see it when the trees don’t have leaves but here’s the best we could do to share it with you.
We stopped on our way back into our park to fill our water tank. While there I saw a bicyclist talking on a cell phone. Then another one! It amazes me how many people are unwilling to just drive, or ride in this case, without someone to keep them company. You all keep me company on our drives because I’m always taking notes of things to share with you the next time I get a good internet connection. We don’t have the best connection at Gull Lake but it’s great here in this parking lot!
TTYL,
Linda