R and J in the USA

We tackled our third extra-long driving day of the trip after our Gary, Indiana, 5K, driving five hours from the northwestern tip of Indiana, up through Chicago, cutting across the southern part of Wisconsin, passing signs and landmarks we recognized from our visit not weeks earlier, and, finally, into the southeastern tip of Minnesota not too far from our fraternal twin city of Rochester, MN.

You may be wondering why we took the route of going from Michigan to Wisconsin to Iowa and then back east to Illinois and Indiana as opposed to hitting Indiana after Ohio, then up and around Michigan’s upper peninsula, down into Illinois, and THEN Iowa into Minnesota. This is where part of the riddle of the trip’s itinerary comes in.

There is the question of what is the most geographically efficient route. Then there are other considerations, like weather and dates of certain events. Julie knew she wanted to be in Upper Michigan on her birthday and we knew we wanted to be in Iowa to hit the famed Iowa State Fair if we could. We also needed to do all that and still make it to Alaska before the end of September, when things there would start shutting down. So, when we stayed the extra week in Michigan, we had to make some rearrangements. When we did, the route we landed on ended up being the most geographically efficient route with the least amount of backtracking that would still have us hitting all of our dates.

We rolled into our Harvest Host in Dakota, Minnesota, a huge farming operation called Frickson Farms. They were all set up for a number of campers with a beautiful clearing surrounded by corn. The spot was flat and peaceful and the stars were stunning. We are pretty sure we were falling asleep to the sounds of a gun range not too far away. We swung by their farm store in the morning and left with some local eats in tow. We made a quick drive by Rochester (Minnesota) to see the other Rochester that come up in internet searches.

We made our way up to the Twin Cities with plans to take in a Twins game – our first baseball game of the trip. We had been trying to catch a game since the early days of the trip, our most notable miss being in Boston, where we had hoped to catch the Red Sox in action. We had settled for a stadium tour. Finally, we would get to have our first full-stadium experience. Before we hit the ball game, we got in a few hours at the state museum and learned all about the history and various elements of the cultures and activities in Minnesota…and about the weather.

Now that our minds were filled up, time to fill our bellies at the ballpark! Though Julie had her sights set on a ballpark hot dog before entering, they had her at rib tips, and we carried an excessive amount of meat to our seats for what turned out to be a great game with Julie’s childhood favorite team, the Toronto Blue Jays. You can read more about the game in a separate Minnesota post.

We had a choice to make of whether we would spend the night in the Twin Cities or make the extra trek out to Darwin, Minnesota, to see one of the three contenders for the World’s Largest Ball of Twine. This one bears the mantle of the World’s Largest Ball of Twine made by one person. We made the journey and were more than glad we did.

Ryan caught Julie in a moment of total revelry staring at the massive, multiple tons ball of twine, encased in glass and being the claim to fame of this barely there teeny, tiny town of Darwin. The twon wholeheartedly embraced this ball of twine that brought people from all around to their little spot on the map. You can read about what she had been thinking in that moment of revelry in our Ruminations section.

We found a beautiful spot to park along another river, where Julie went for a jog and stumbled upon sculpture art, historic monuments, and more touching small town war memorials. We had seen such memorials in every single town we’d passed through, ever uplifting, sobering, and humbling all at the same time.

We headed back to the Twin Cities for more attractions. We visited the Minneapolis Sculpture Park, which was something we didn’t know we needed to see. If you have an itch you are trying to scratch, and the only way to scratch it is to see a giant sculpture of a rich, bright blue chicken, we can tell you where to go. The art was stunning. The idea to make a sculpture park like this seemed so great, we wondered why there wasn’t one in every single city.

We returned to the twin cities just in time for the last few days of the Minnesota State Fair, where plenty more Kettle Corn was had and Julie stumbled upon an entire booth dedicated to gluten free fair delights. Julie got to eat her first funnel cake in decades. She delighted in every single delicious, calorie-filled, nutrient-deficient, delectable bite. We drank delicious jam lemonades. Ryan’s was blueberry mint. Julie’s was strawberry jalapeño. Both were delicious. We ate delicious paella and watched a lumberjack competition.

We attempted to dissect what we felt were the differences between this state fair and the Iowa state fair. They had much in common, from the absolutely crowded streets (though Minnesota’s seemed more crowded), to the delectable, creative food creations, to the proud displays of agriculture and industry. They were also distinctly unique, though we didn’t know exactly how.

We ate next to a couple of young women eating their fair delights, one of whom was a local and the other of whom was a student recently moved here from Germany. We welcomed her to the USA. We enjoyed hearing her impressions of the country while we were on this trip gathering our own 

We had our first truly negative “People Along the Way” encounter entering the fairgrounds. We have had a few mildly negative encounters here and there, but they are tremendously mild, indirectly observed between others and, even more importantly, most striking in their remarkable rarity. To read more about our thoughts on this experience, head to our Ruminations page.

This encounter was not directly with us, but involved us as we crossed the street with a gentleman who was less than kind to the state fair parking attendant. When leaving the fair, we approached the parking attendant who was on the receiving end of this behavior, to apologize to him on behalf of humanity for how he had been treated earlier. He shared his approach to dealing with such things, which you can read about in our People Along the Way section.  

We definitely did not hold it against Minnesota as there are people like that everywhere and only minutes after that encounter we had a positively positive one when a wonderfully lovely woman approached us with 2 spare tickets to the fair as we were approaching the ticket booth. Despite her grandmotherly demeanor in both look and behavior, we found ourselves still slightly suspicious and she even acknowledged it herself. She asked us only $10 for each ticket and, still, we were delighted when the tickets turned out to be legit.

After all of the excitement of the Minnesota State Fair, we made our way to a lovely spot we found on iOverlander at the old Schmidt’s Brewery in St. Paul. We stumbled into what seemed to be a pinball machine promised land. Ryan was giddy with delight looking at each different pinball machine decked out in homage to whatever different cultural phenomenon, from modern ones with themes such as Game of Thrones and Stranger Things, to vintage machines harkening back to our heydays dedicated to Back to the Future, Labyrinth, KISS, Happy Days, and many other 70s and 80s pop culture paragons.

We made our state capitol visit, which, once again, would strike us with awe and enrichment at the architecture, history, and culture we would see and learn about. We made our way to the state museum and learned much about Minnesota, as we always do when we get a chance to partake in a state museum. We didn’t even know state museums existed until we stumbled upon the Virginia State Museum in our first visit. We promptly added them as a must-see destination in each state. They routinely are a source of enrichment and enlightenment.

We walked through St. Paul’s Summit Avenue neighborhood, famed for its beautiful Victorian-era homes. At the head of the neighborhood was a massive cathedral with gorgeous architecture. Along with the state capitol, the cathedral bookended a wide thoroughfare. It was an impressive layout.

We said goodbye to the Twin Cities and headed up north to see what natural wonders Minnesota, the famed land of 10,000 lakes, would put in our paths.

We drove past piles of iron ore waiting to be shipped in Duluth and along the northern shore of Lake Superior. Having seen the lake’s southern shore in Michigan and Wisconsin, it turns out this greatest of the Great Lakes was still beautiful, as were all the Minnesota points and parks from which one can view it. We passed by Gooseberry State Park and Palisade Point en route to our campground in Tettegouche State Park, which had views that could easily drop a jaw or two. We enjoyed some peaceful time at the park and eagerly made our way even further north to our next destination of Ely (pronounced Ee-lee) to canoe the famed boundary waters.

There is so much to say about Ely and the Boundary Waters. The long and the short of it, it is a burst of warm, rustic, and down-home civilization amidst miles and miles of isolated driving without seeing a town. If you ever have a chance in to make it up there and hop on a canoe, with or without a guide, we encourage you to do so. The list of things we loved about our short time in Ely is long. It includes a wooded open-air toilet, portaging a canoe amidst moss filled forests, a tannin-colored swim in the most serene waters and forests you could imagine, and delicious treats (including an unexpected gluten free tart for Julie and a Thai food truck up in the middle of rural Minnesota).

We left Ely contented with our short time there, feeling that we experienced so much, and headed even further North to Voyageurs National Park.

Voyageurs was a beautiful mix of lakes and woods. We found a campground on one such lake that beckoned us out to partake of its calm and beauty. Julie hopped in the cold water out of principle, getting a chance to talk with a couple form Peoria, Illinois, in the process. This was her first real Illinois People Along the Way encounter, despite it happening in Minnesota. You can read about it in our People Along the Way section.  

We were not going to leave Voyageurs without getting on that water, so we rented a tandem kayak from the campground office and made our way to one of the many nearby islands. We lay on the rocks in the sun and felt like we were really there in this place.

The next day, we made our way towards our final destination in Minnesota, a state that, like so many others before, we had become quite smitten with, whether rural, urban or natural.

Before arriving at the location of our Minnesota 5K, which we would run the next morning, we had one very important stop to make. For those of you who were, like Julie, completely ignorant of the significant geological geography of most of the country, and definitely of its midsection, the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi come out of Lake Itasca, located just a bit north of central Minnesota. We had to stop and see the birthplace of this iconic river. We weren’t sure if it was because we knew what the waters in this little stream would become or if it just was what it seemed, but something about the headwaters of the Mississippi felt a little magical. It was beautiful and humble to its destiny. We were not the only ones excited by it. The place was chock full of people enthusiastically taking pictures and wandering about this significant spot.

Our next and final Minnesota stop, Detroit Lakes welcomed us enthusiastically. We arrived at a pasta dinner being thrown by the organizers the next morning’s 5K race and, to Julie’s pleasant surprise, they had a gluten free, dairy free option. Julie ate way too much pasta, and we delighted in the heartfelt enthusiasm of the event, which included over 1,000 racers combined in the event’s 5K, 10K, and half marathon. You can read more about it in our 5K section.

You may have already guessed it, but Detroit Lakes is full of lakes and they were beautiful.

What you might not have guessed is, like so much of Minnesota, sculpture art abounds. Detroit Lakes had a troll series that was pretty neat and a poetry walk. Minnesota clearly knows the value of bringing art alive into the world.

Like so many places, our time in there was brief. But it was more than enough to entice us to another visit and to give us a sense of how great the folks there are. We learn so much about each community from their 5Ks. Each 5K has a different vibe, a different reason for being organized, and a different community participating. There is a commonality to them all – a sense of positivity and a coming together, a mutual encouragement, and a pursuit towards something both individual and communal. And they all also give you a glimpse into life in that place. We loved the glimpse we had into Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, and it was the perfect way to cap off a great time in the state.