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We visited the Cuyuna Range Historical Museum in Crosby, Minnesota. Lots of stuff but little interpretive signage.

Some of the things brought back my own memories, though, like being in this depot looking at a Brownie Scout uniform and remembering when my Brownie troop took the train for a day trip from Decatur, Illinois, to St. Louis, Missouri, and back.

This display made me glad I only had home permanents as a child.

We also visited the Croft Mine Historic Park in Crosby. They offered a simulated mine tour but no one knew where to find the tour guide so we didn’t get to do that. They had lots of outside interpretive signage that didn’t photograph well at all so I guess you need to go yourself if you want to learn about mining in Minnesota. I couldn’t resist including this picture of the the thing that sets off the dynamite blasts, though. Now I know it’s not a figment of the imagination of the coyote and road runner cartoonist.

After those two visits we did what we usually did for the 4th of July when we lived in a house. Stayed home. Back then we figured the holiday weekends were when the inexperienced went camping so we went the weekend before or after.  Of course this time home was in a campground but the Gull Lake Recreation Area was calmer than many where we have camped so we survived just fine. The staff put flags at all the campsites which was all the celebration we felt we needed. We are grateful for the freedom this country offers us but we don’t feel a need to mingle with crowds to express that gratitude.

The next day we moved on. We saw what, at first, looked like a couple of those big round hay bales each sitting on its own trailer. A closer look showed them to be duck blinds. They fooled me so I imagine they fool the geese and pheasants that are likely hunted from them. At least I “think” I’m smarter than the birds.

There was a curve in the road facing a building missing its front corner. A new version of a drive-in?

North of Aitkin, Minnesota, are several sod farms. We pay people to grow grass! So that when we build a new house we don’t have to wait to have a lawn. We Americans must be the most impatient people in the world.

The Great River Road turned off the pavement onto a gravel road. We followed it, catching an occasional glimpse of the river. But, shortly after we crossed Hwy 169 we decided we’d had enough bouncing so we turned back and took Hwy 169 north to Grand Rapids.

It’s a good thing we did. We didn’t have enough time for the Forest History Center in Grand Rapids even having taken the faster route. We got to see the inside displays but missed the whole logging camp with costumed interpreters. If you go here, allow at least a half a day for your visit, please.

We would have stayed overnight to see the rest of it but they would be closed for the next four days and we couldn’t stay here that long and finish the trip before we need to be back in the Cities so we moved on.

We passed “Squirrel Keepers Road”. Why? Is there a shortage of them? Do they need to be hoarded? If so, I’m glad it is someone else, not me, doing it.

Then we followed a stretch of Hwy 2, which we’d last traveled nearly a year ago much further west, this time on our way to Federal Dam, Minnesota, and the Leech Lake Recreation Area where we stopped for the night. We really like these Corps of Engineer parks.

TTYL,

Linda

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

Stayed up too late; slept too late; didn’t get on the road until after noon. Another day of not going very far. At least in terms of miles covered. We covered centuries of sites, though.

The first one was the Monticello Generating Plant. Nuclear power. Very much this century. OK, so it was actually built last century since this century is only nine years old but it is still very modern.

We’ve had a couple of days where the weather wasn’t so hot. Temperatures are down some. Wind is up some. Actually the wind is up a lot. We’re glad we aren’t driving freeways where the gusts have more potentially negative consequences.

I wonder what the relationship is between the words gusty and gusto? Surely, there must be one? I don’t want to know badly enough to take the time to research the answer, though.

We visited the Stearns History Museum in St Cloud, Minnesota.

This is one of the musems we decided not to stop at on the way to the Twin Cities because we would get a second chance at it. Today is Monday. Lots of museums are closed on Mondays. Not this one, though. It’s open every day and boy am I glad! If you ever find yourself in this vicinity, make time for a stop here.

The first gallery we visited was the Arti-Find gallery. Arti-facts were displayed in shop window type displays: Hardware Store, Sports Store, Toy Store, Sewing/Dressing Room, and Kitchen. Each of those had a sign out front with rhymes listing things you should try to find in the display. Between the two of us we managed to find most of the things. Now Dave understands why I got so involved in find-the-items computer games for awhile.

Then we went to the Gallery Theater and watched a film about the Central Minnesota granite business from quarry to finished products. It was very well done and I have new respect for the skills of the people who harvest and finish granite. Later we drove by the Stearns County Courthouse and I recognized pieces of granite they’d included in the film.

The next gallery I walked through was an 1880s prairie display of natural and cultural systems. I was most interested in the displays of various American Indian housing types and their construction techniques and the reasons behind those techniques.

The Early Settlement gallery was titled, “In Their Own Words.” I got to read people’s statements about what life was like back then and about tools they used. This personal touch made things more interesting than just looking at the things.

By the time I got to the display about Samual Pandolfo and his Pan car and town, I was too tired to really appreciate it.

But not too tired to spend a little time in the museum store where I bought a Garrison Keillor book which I know I will enjoy reading. The clerk said her book club read it and had varied reactions to it so I said, “Well, he’s not always polite in what he says.” She thought I’d hit the nail on the head. Mr Keillor may think he’s laughing with you about some of our foibles but seem people feel laughed at instead. Scandinavian/Germans aren’t often raised to see the humour in their lives but I sure do appreciate having it shown to me.

I saw a billboard that was advertising itself. It said, “Why outdoor advertising? Because no one ever goes to the bathroom during a billboard.” Whoever wrote that doesn’t know us RVers very well, huh?

Today we saw lots of evidence of Minnesota’s “other” season:  road construction.

Sartell has a linear park along the Mississippi River with porch swings along it so you can just sit, rest, think, admire or whatever suits your soul in a place like this. There are no parking lots here so by the time I dug out my camera this is the best picture I got of that but, if you look closely, you will see one of the swings at the far left above the outside mirror of our RV.

We pulled into Charles A. Lindbergh State Park just after the ranger had closed out the register for the day. So we used a credit card to pay for a night since that didn’t affect his cash drawer. Once again it looks like we’ll get a quiet Monday night with very few neighbors. That’s good. We need to stock up on those since the 4th of July is rapidly approaching.

TTYL,

Linda

It was a driving trip south on the Great River Road from Minneapolis/St Paul, Minnesota, to Hannibal, Missouri, that prompted us to buy a new RV. Day after day of looking for clean public restrooms and night after night of looking for comfortable motel beds helped us decide it was time to own another RV. We sold our last one, a VW Westfalia camper, about 20 years ago. Now that we are traveling again we wanted to take all the comforts of home with us. This is the first RV we’ve owned that included our own bathroom so this little 24 foot motorhome is real luxury to us.

Now it time for us to drive another stretch of the Great River Road.

These signs help us find our way. Yes, we have maps but they don’t always give us as much detail as we need. And, yes, we have a GPS, but it doesn’t know which city streets are part of the Great River Road. Or, if it does, I don’t know how to get it to tell me so. So we use the signs as well as the maps with, of course, my database of places to go and things to see along the route.

We started this particular journey in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, a Minneapolis suburb where we used to live–back when we owned that VW camper. We started at 85th, just south of Hwy 610.

The first site we didn’t stop at was Coon Rapids Dam Regional Park. We’ve been there many times before. They have a carp festival you should attend if you like community festivals.

The first sign I’m going to tell you about on this route said, “10 doz. crawlers.”  In case you don’t know night-crawlers are a type of worm used for fishing bait. Why 10 dozen? They couldn’t do 12 dozen; that would be gross.

Another sign said “10 ton route.” It didn’t say if that’s the maximum or minimum. Or only. We only weigh half that. I hope that’s OK.

In Monticello, the hospital is across the street from the middle school. They look alike. Maybe to remind us all of how painful middle school can be?

We stopped for the first night at River Terrace Park in Monticello. We hadn’t really driven very far today but the winds are horrible and this park is right on the river. If you ever come to this park don’t get scared off before you get camped. You drive through the mobile home section first, then you go into the dining room of a house to register, then you drive to the campground portion and find this. That’s our view from our living room window.

We are here on a Sunday night in June.  We don’t promise you a spot this close to the river if you come on a weekend.  But, who knows, you might be as lucky as we are.

TTYL,

Linda

While still camped at Baker Park Reserve we watched people arriving across the road from us. The first car arrived and started setting up a HUGE tent which intruded on the site next to them. Then a car arrived pulling a boat and parked in the second site’s driveway. The first group set up an awning over the second site’s picnic table. A third vehicle carrying four people arrived and parked in the site with the first vehicle. The one with the boat moved to nearby overflow parking and a pickup truck with a truck camper in its bed and a boat pulled behind it backed into the second site. They later moved the boat to the overflow parking and re-parked their camper. In the meantime, a second HUGE tent appeared. By the time they were done they had 4 vehicles, 2 boats, 2 tents, 1 camper, 2 covered picnic tables, and least 10 people. We never heard them, though. Nice quiet neighbors. That’s the kind we like.

While staying in the Twin Cities I uploaded my Minnesota Public Park Camping database to this blog. It’s the largest one yet; it has 297 records. If you are interested in it look at the bottom of the right hand column of this blog.

REI is our primary source of freeze dried food. We shopped at two of their stores in the Twin Cities so now our food cupboard is full again. We also bought some other things there to make our lives more comfortable. Such as a couple of these seat cushions which let us sit on the daybed without falling over backwards.

We also shopped at Micro Center which bills itself as a computer department store. I should say Dave shopped there. I stayed in the RV to keep from buying a new computer. Dave needed a USB port to serial port adapter for a project he and a friend are working on. We know from experience that Micro Center is a good place to get this kind of thing. If you can keep from buying a new computer while you are there.

I saw a NAPA Auto Parts car that was dead on the side of the road. I wonder which parts he needed?

Baker Park fills up on the weekends so we needed to move back to our friend’s driveway for a couple of nights.

They are willing to have us there using their electricity because Dave is helping Tom solve a model railroad operating computer challenge. Plus, Dave rides with Tom to operating sessions; Tom prefers having company for those drives. So it’s a win-win situation. We take turns buying the pizza. That’s a win-win, too, because the guys can share their lots-of-meat pizza and Nancy and I can get all the ingredients the guys refuse to eat.

On the way there we did a bunch more errands. We finally found some Coffee Rich at Lund’s so I can continue having cereal for breakfast–for awhile, at least. We went to our rented storeroom and put more stuff in than we took out so our RV weighs a couple pounds less–like me it’s not enough of a loss but we’ll take any we can get. We went to another batteries Plus and got a second new battery for my camera so I can, once again, swap them in the middle of a museum. And we went to Walgreen’s to get my favorite type of pocket notebook in which I write the notes for these blogs.

Along the way I saw several “interesting” signs:

1. Morries.com “Voted the #1 car site by Morrie himself.” I should hope so. My Dad once told me when I was running for some office that if I didn’t vote for myself why should I expect anyone else to do so? I do wonder about Morrie though since he’s been selling cars as long as I can remember; do you suppose it’s Morrie Jr. doing the voting now?

2. McDonald’s is advertising sweet tea saying, “Get it for only $1 on any day that ends in Y.” That means you can only get it seven days in any one week. They make you feel like you need to hurry to take advantage of this deal that is available all the time. Good advertising psychology.

3. A golf advertising sign said,  “1 birdie, 3 pheasants. I am legendary.” Are they saying pheasants aren’t birds? Are they saying you can kill pheasants with golf balls? What is the message here?

4. Target Free Thursdays. The Walker Art Center has free admission every Thursday from 5-9 p.m. There’s nothing funny about this one; it’s just a good deal if you like art museums.

We keep getting messages from friends and family saying things like “So, when are you coming to see us?”  to which we say, “Not yet.”  I guess I’d better explain. Dave gets homesick. Minneapolis was home his whole life until we hit the road last year. I’m afraid if we stay here too long we will never leave again. So we made a deal we would come here for most of the summer but we would take trips away from The Cities regularly during that time so we wouldn’t get too strongly attached again. So my next posts will come from our trip up the Great River Road to the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Then we’ll be back in The Cities for a little over a week visiting more friends and letting Dave get in a couple more model railroad operating sessions. Then we go to Winnebago’s big annual together in Iowa. Then we go back to The Cities to visit some more and do all our medical appointments. So we’ll be in and out of “home” until at least the middle of August. By then we should have managed to see everyone who still wants to see us.  So, if you are one of them, be patient, please; your turn is coming.

TTYL,

Linda