Perpetual Ruminations

Friday

I missed an entry in here for yesterday, but it was a good reason. We had taken a two day road trip and didn't get back home yesterday until about 11:00 p.m. and I had to be up by 3:00 a.m. this morning for work. So, I didn't even try to get in here to write. Besides, I was three quarters asleep already, and suffering a good case of white-line fever.

I haven't tallied the miles yet so no total, but I would estimate about 1100 miles round trip. We started out going up to Sica Hollow, then shot over to Minnesota and headed east and north. We started looking for a place to camp about dusk, but everything was closed for the season. We tried quite a few different areas around the Detroit Lakes region. When we couldn't find anything we continued a little further north for the night.

Around midnight I was getting too tired to drive, and found a spot to pull off the road into a nice wooded trail. We "camped" in the van until about five the next morning. We had blankets and pillows along, and we put down a couple of heavy quilts to lie on, but it was still too hard to sleep on the floor of the van. We also had the seats out for room, but with the luggage and two golden retrievers, it was still pretty cramped. Rhonda is not only a bed hog, but a van hog as well. It got a bit chilly but not too bad. even so, she snuggled up so close I was pressed against the side of the van to the point I couldn't hardly move. Of course, she was sandwiched between me and the dogs, and didn't sleep any better.

Shortly after five we got up, packed things up some and headed back down to Pelican Rapids, then went back north to Itasca State Park. We found a convenience store just outside the park and got more coffee before entering. We spent a half a day site seeing the park and enjoying the headwaters of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca.

After we left the park we should have made a straight shot for home, but it was a beautiful day, the fall colors were amazing, and we were enjoying our trek, so we continued north for a while, then started west. But, we ended up in an area they are destroying by putting up a wind generator farm. I can't imagine anyone thinking these things are a good alternative energy source. They destroyed a big area of forest, stripped the land, and put up these towers to produce a fraction of the energy we could get from other sources. Is saving the environment really being achieved if you remove everything natural and replace it with man made structures? Not to mention the waste and pollution incurred in making the material these things are made from.

Anyway, we turned around and went west instead, back into the natural beauty we had been enjoying. We shot up north and ended up close to Bemidji, then took our time driving east until we came to North Dakota. At this point, we turned south and took a scenic route across the state and came out in the Sisseton area. From there we got on 25 and followed that to 212 by Henry, which is close to home.

It was a very beautiful trip with the forests in full fall color. Itasca State Park was terrific, the colors in the park were at their peak. Plenty of things to look at, a nice ten mile drive through the park, and of course, seeing the mighty Mississippi River at it's very start, Lake Itasca. It's hard to believe the big river is only about two yards wide and a foot deep. It's also hard to believe those swirling brown waters start out so crystal clear.

We had talked about trying to make another road-trip going west yet this year. We thought we may get a chance to drive the Black Hills and over to Devil's Tower yet before the snow, but upon our return last night, that whole region was under a blizzard warning and had over a foot of snow on the ground with more still coming. We may still go west to Rapid City, but I doubt we will do much else except visit my brother out there, for this year anyway.