June night in MN

Not as exciting as I'd hoped. Band is ok for a classic rock cover band. No one at the bar to make small talk with. But the sweet potato fries are awesome!

Sent from my iPhone

Bemidji, Minnesota

Bemidji is an arbitrary town I picked on a map to spend my afternoon and evening in.

My drive today from Duluth (another lovely and unexpected town) took me through Cloquet (birthplace of Judy Garland, and site of the only gas station designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It wasn't much to look at.) and Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids seemed nice enough, but I was fairly tense by then. My lofty plan for Highway 2 was thwarted by sporadic rain, miles of construction, and more traffic than I was looking for. The trailer was bouncing all over, and generally unpleasant.

Fortunately, I had a beautiful drive to Cloquet to start the day right. I had missed the intended turn, and ended up driving a winding, hilly road through a mountainous forest (the Jay Cooke State Park). It reminded me of a scene from "The Long Long Trailer," but Alice handled it magnificently.

Back to Bemidji. Right now, I am in a coffee shop ("Cabin Coffeehouse") in a town famous for Paul Bunion, listening to acoustic, live, country music, and not minding at all. The forests all have the remnants of being logged--the trees all seem to be in rows, wild thick crazy rows. The coffee shop's decor references this, and I feel very comfortable. Tonight, I am going to a BBQ bar to listen to live rock music and meet locals. They have amazing accents that throw me off when I try to translate them.

This town was a midpoint between last night and tomorrow night, but I am really happy with it. It is the kind of surprise I was hoping for, and the trip makes the most sense on an evening like this.

Driving through Minnesota

Lake Superior, Minnesota

Still no Wi-Fi, so I can't update my map in the right. Now, I am likely to be in small roads and won't find Internet fir a while. iPhone it is! The success if today was a goal I set myself last night: to not use the GPS. Yesterday, it brought me a lot of grief, misjudging distances to turns or deleting the address numbers of remote parks and sensing me out into the countryside, on roads I could not reverse navigate. I stacked my wrinkled map pages onto my clipboard, picked highways over freeways and set their numbers to memory, and was on my way. It was a much more enjoyable drive. It has also brought me at last to a cross-continental two-lane highway, Route 2, which I will set out on tomorrow (I'm currently in Duluth). I'm not sure where I will camp tomorrow, but Saturday night I will be in Grand Rapids, North Dakota.

I will try to "typecast" (type-written blogging) again in the morning before I head out. I also have lots of pictures I'm saving for WiFi to post.

Alice on Lake Superier

Alice Avion at Indian Point Campground, Duluth, Minnesota