July 30 - Drive to Duluth, Minnesota

In the morning my intestinal bug had vanished, thank goodness, so we packed up the trailer after breakfast, hitched up the truck, dumped the tanks, and were on our way by a little after 10. It was a late start, but it was overcast and raining so we decided to skip the Volksmarch in Grand Forks and just drive across Minnesota to Duluth. Route 2 continued southeast in that direction and we had enjoyed driving along it up to this point. Also Monika found a Volksmarch and a Volksbike event in Duluth that we could do over the weekend to get some exercise.

The day continued overcast with intermittent showers, so it was a good day to drive along and watch the scenery flow slowly by. This northern area of Minnesota is truly a land of lakes and forests mixed with occasional farmland or pasture, so it was quite different than the North Dakota farmlands or the arid vastness of eastern Montana. Route 2 became a 2 lane road for part of the day with a 55 mph limit, but everyone was doing 60 mph and that was all I was trying to do with the trailer in tow. So I trundled along with the flow of traffic as happy as a clam. Near the center of our crossing we diverted off the interstate to have lunch and drive through the town of Bemidji. I was hoping to see something that would remind me of the time Vi and Jack and Ruth and Ray took me camping there in the late 50s or early 60s. I was at that awkward, always hungry early teenage stage and I learned to like camping in part from the trips I took with those folks over the years.

From that particular trip to Minnesota where the guys planned to go fishing, I had quite sharp memories of a storm coming up suddenly on the lake which almost capsized the rowboat before we could get back to shore in the driving rain. The waves whipped up astonishingly fast and even as young as I was I could see that if we broached to the waves would have just rolled us right over. Scary, that, and probably the reason I remembered it so well. But otherwise I had only rather vague memories of being in Bemidji and eating at a restaurant where they let me order seconds and devour them (nice people, these!). I thought that restaurant was located at a big "Y" in the main road somewhere near the lake, so I kept an eye out while we drove through the town but with little real hope because, after all, 40 years have passed and what would be the likelihood of it still being there? But much to my surprise I saw a dark green, single story wooden building at a "Y" in the road as we drove out of town on the south side, and that building almost certainly had been a restaurant at some point in the past. Did I actually touched base with an event from my distant past? I'm not sure, but the memories of those folks and their kindness will certainly persist into the future, and that is sufficient.

We continued our drive in the direction of Duluth, but when we cut south on state route 33 through Cloquet Monika spied a city campground on an island in the middle of a river that looked quite nice and had empty campsites. Carping the diem, we turned right after the bridge and followed the signs to the campground where we set up the trailer for the evening. After a typical light supper of sandwiches and peanuts we set to work on the computers while listening to the Minnesota NPR broadcast some more beautiful classical music. Their system seemed to involve repeater stations in all parts of the state that broadcast the same music and programs except for customized weather reports for each region, an efficient way to do it, in my opinion.

Since free firewood was included in the $15 charge for our campsite, something I usually associate only with Canadian campgrounds, we decided to take advantage of it and have an evening fire. The available wood was apparently the outside scraps of log from a local lumber mill, so it was seasoned a bit but definitely not kiln dried like the wood I had brought with from home. In consequence, making a fire and keeping it going was rather more challenging than had been the case for any of our campfires on this trip. In fact, it went out once or twice and we had to resort to that old standby, blowing on the embers to heat the wood scraps up to the burning point. This time-honored exercise in futility resulted in blowing smoke, ashes, and cinders from the fire back into our faces with minimal effect on the fire itself. But it was traditional, so we kept at it and finally got the fire burning brightly again. After that much work, we wanted to enjoy it as long as we could so we didn't let it burn down and douse it until 10 p.m., and then we retired for the night.

But we were so intrigued with what would happen next in "The Da Vinci Code" that we succumbed to the "Oh, let's just read one more chapter" trap. We are apparently "bookaholics", because we just couldn't stop reading that book until about 5 chapters and an hour later! The book seemed like such a mix of fact and fiction that we were often left wondering exactly what was fact and what was fiction or at least speculation. When we finally reach a point where we could pause for the night, snapped the book shut, turned off the light, and tried to put the "What happens next?" question out of our mind so that we could at long last get to sleep!