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Published: September 4th 2007
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Emerging from the Brush
We emerge from the brush, relatively unscathed. Onaxthiel writes: This is another of those mostly driving days. We left the Blueberry lake camp site about nine this morning. We found that it took a bit over a half hour at an easy pace, as compared to about 20 minutes at an uncomfortably fast, but not quite running pace. Think evasion run speed if you know what that means. We woke up after what for me was an interesting night. Obfustacor sleeps like a de-lobed zombie, while I tend to be a light sleeper in the extreme. I watched the clouds move over our camp site with some apprehension last night until around midnight, then got about an hour of sleep before the rain started up. We buttoned up in the bags, which worked quite well. Five minutes later, I could hear Obfuscator snoring over the sound of rain hitting my gore-tex like pebbles on…something…that… makes noise. Once the first little cloud burst passed, I stuck my head out and fell asleep for another hour or so, until the second (shorter) burst. Once that one was over, I stuck my head out and watched a lightning and thunder show, but no rain. Rather unusual. Once that was past, the
Lake near Bear Head Lake State Park
Lake near Bear Head Lake State Park stars and moon were out. This is always a reassuring sight. The next time I woke up, the sun was out. I woke up Obfuscator and asked him if he wanted any shots of the morning mist. He gave a quick no and racked out for 45 more minutes of sleep. So today we drove back down 2, through Grand Rapids, past what Obfuscator aptly termed “One of our god awful excuses for a church” Not so much for modernist architecture in his Lutheran churches is my brother. On the drive to Bemidji, we discussed the trolley problem, a philosophy question that posits “if a runaway trolley was heading towards a group of five rail workers, and you have the track lever that will put the trolley onto a siding with only one innocent bystander on it, would you throw the switch?” Obviously no right answer, but still an interestingly dark bit of parlor talk, as we so often delve in. Highway 2 to Bemidji is one of the straightest roads I have seen, certainly on this drive if not ever. On the way we saw a giant fish that looked like it ate a building and now was trying
Girl - Victim of Babe
Girl about to be devoured by Babe, the Spawn of Satan. to regurgitate the front door. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a shot off fast enough. The town itself is small, but quite lovely for that. The towns placement on the northernmost arch of the Mississippi serves it well in making the approach quite picturesque. We have pictures of the Paul Bunyan and Babe (For those that don’t know, Paul Bunyan was a 19th century equivalent of Chuck Norris. Babe was his Demon Ox. Some people don‘t think he was demonic, but how many BLUE OXEN can you think of? Can this really have come from God?) memorial statues, and some of his personal effects that are on display at the local tourist information desk, including Paul’s shotgun, which he presumably used to kill the 15 foot Indian who is memorialized across the street from him and Babe. Public art is a big part of Bemidji, mostly with western themes, like Indians and wild horses, but with other victims of the white man’s western expansion thrown in, like the once common and now extinct mechanosaurous. We did finally get to upload our last few days of notes at a nice little café in downtown. Then back to the road for us. Next
Paul Bunyan's Boomstick
Paul Bunyan - Gargantuan Grouse Hunter? stop: lake Itasca, the start point of the Mississippi. History tells us that the man that named Itasca named it that as a combination of verITAS and CApita meaning “true head” Why he didn’t call it Veritasca instead is not for me to understand. It is a nice spot, and the Mississippi is pretty small there, to the point that you can jump the river at some points of the park. We also noticed at least four different languages being spoken at the site of the headwaters, including Spanish, Hindi, and Some Slavic language we couldn’t identify.
On to Grand Forks. On the way, we stopped at the Polk county museum in Crookston. They have the worlds largest ox cart, presumably once drawn by the hell spawn, Babe, and two picturesque but closed up churches. Right after Crookston seems to be the start of the great plains. At least, it is flat enough that we could see no hills. Period. No hills. Just flat horizon on all sides. Finally, we arrived in East Grand Forks, the Minnesota side of the famous tableware. They have a sign for Cabellas. Turn left at the first stop light! Evidently the town has
Giant Indian
Giant Indian - Victim of Paul Bunyan's oversized white rage. grown since the sign went up, because we got lost for a bit and went back to 2, and turned at the SECOND stoplight to find Cabellas. We (I) Thought it might be getting to late to drive, we also wanted to see a bit of grand forks in the day light and do laundry, so we decided to stay at a state park located in downtown. Strange place to keep a state park, but it paid off for us. We took a brief walk through downtown, and took photos of a very photo worthy sunset. We walked back to camp, rolled out the bivys and went to sleep in time to barely notice the second night of getting rained on in a row. Leasons learned: It will rain, but the car is a better place to have the gear than under a poncho when it hits. Air drying dishes from dinner doesn’t work well when the rain storm is right behind you. Cell reception is great and something worth using when you can get it.
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