June 10 - St.Cloud, Minnesota

Our first task of the day was to shift the trailer to St. Cloud, Minnesota, where we had found a happy confluence of a Volksmarch in town and a Good Sam campground. I wasn't in any hurry to embroil myself in the rush hour traffic of the twin cities, so we slept in and took our time taking showers and preparing the trailer for the trip. As a result we didn't get on the road until shortly before 10, but we were successful in avoiding backups as we wriggled our way through all the construction zones around the twin cities and headed northwest to St. Cloud. We found the RV campground without problems and had, for a change, a perfectly flat space with water and electrical hookups, which was our version of hog heaven. Monika celebrated by cooking a nice meal of chicken and noodles, after which we set off to find the Best Western hotel that had the registration materials for our walk. In contrast to my experience in Minneapolis, I found the hotel situated conspicuously on the opposite bank of the Mississippi River as we crossed the bridge, and I could simply pull around and park in their lot for free. That certainly made my life simpler, and we quickly signed up and started off on our walk.

The St. Cloud Volksmarch started out with an exploration of every possible cul de sac in a historic section along the river. The district was populated with a lot of very nice old homes, some of which should certainly be given the title of "mansions".

We thoroughly explored that section before starting a large "Z" shaped path through the St. Cloud State University--we walked along one edge, cut through the campus on the diagonal, and finished up walking along the edge on the bluff above the Mississippi River. The campus included many modern buildings plus a small but restful world peace garden in the middle.

From the campus we crossed the river on a bridge and again made a big "Z", but this time the two main legs were through beautiful and extensive gardens, which I had not expected. The garden on the upper level of the riverbank had a series of roughly square garden plots, each one centered around an intricate, Victorian style fountain. The flower beds were laid out very neatly and the total effect when all the flowers were blooming would probably be outstanding. We were there so early in the season that they were still putting in the annuals and areas like the rose garden were still just budding.

The lower garden was situated right on the shore of the Mississippi, and we had great upstream and downstream views of the river. The lower garden seemed to have more blooming flowers, some of which we were familiar with and some of which we did not know, and these framed the central fountain and pool very nicely. Our path continued along the riverside back north until we reach another bridge to cross back over to the hotel and our truck. But on that last leg we passed the St. Cloud public library and stopped in to answer our accumulated email on one of their workstations. Free internet access is a concept that I would imagine only occurs in the U.S. with its tradition of free public libraries. Add that free access to the free Hotmail account that saves us $20 a month and I ask you, is this a great country or what?

After the walk we stopped off at a Wal Mart for groceries before returning to camp for a light evening meal. For the first part of the evening we did Competing Computers, which is kind of like Dueling Banjos only with keyboards rather than key signatures. We wrapped up the evening reading the fifth book about the Ladies Number 1 Detective Agency, and I'm amazed how involved we are getting with these imaginary characters. I think it is because the main characters, although flawed, are each decent human beings for whom you can without reservations wish for good outcomes.