Minnesota Meandering

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07/22/2010 to 07/26/2010: Babbitt, MN: After 2 travel days we arrived in Babbitt (population 1600) and parked the motorhome in the parking lot of "Tank's", the local bar & restaurant. No water, sewer, electricity, tv or wifi. We're here for Terry's 45th class reunion and to re-visit the area where he grewup. Babbitt is in the nothern area of Minnesota, in the "Iron Range". The town was built by the mining company in order to draw workers to the tacanite mine. So all the houses are very similar and the town is nicely laid out - wide streets, big residential lots, several parks. Quite attractive. At it's peak, Babbitt had a population of around 2500. But the mine has closed, reopened, closed, and is now open again but not at anything close to what it was in the 1950's and 1960's. Terry enjoyed visiting with many of his "old" classmates and we discovered that about half of them winter in Arizona so we'll be seeing them again pretty soon.

07/26/2010 to 07/29/2010: Duluth, MN: Day one, drove all of 70 miles to spend some time with another of Terry's classmates and to checkout this area. Day two, rain. And more rain. Did nothing (except laundry!) Day three, sunny so we drove up the north shore of Lake Superior (my first Great Lake) as far as Split Rock Lighthouse and Split Rock State Park. Nice day for a drive. Beautiful scenery.

07/29/2010 to 08/02/2010: Rochester, MN: Arrived at our rv resort to discover that the Minnesota Newmar Club was just ending a rally so we joined them for "social hour" (not "happy hour" in deference to the Amish owners of Newmar Corp) and for dinner. Delightful! Our second day, rain - so we did our Christmas shopping! Day three we spent visiting the town of Spring Valley. Terry's grandparents lived there and Terry and his family lived there for a few years before moving to Babbitt. We found his grandparent's old house, the house Terry lived in, the cafe downtown (he swears it's unchanged!) that his grandparent's owned, and all of the family graves at the local cemetary. A fun day.

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