Minnesota - sorry, we didn't get to all 10,000 lakes

After spending too little time in Michigan and Wisconsin, we decided to linger a bit in Minnesota. Partly by accident and partly on the advice of a few friends and co-workers. We could easily have spent longer and we'll try to avoid making this a laundry list of went here/did that, but as a state - Minnesota has a lot to offer.

After crossing into the state along the shores of Lake Superior and discovering that there's a Saint Louis River (seriously? seriously.), we opted for a bit of culture in the Duluth area. We poked around the Canal Park area and downtown a bit. Great people watching and a couple of fabulous sandwiches were had (Northern Waters Smokehaus) before we had a chance to watch the aerial lift bridge. We saw some regular sailboats go thru, but timed our visit (based on a friend's advice - thanks Sheldon!) to see an unladen ore ship go thru. We watched the 865 foot Erie Trader pass under the fully raised bridge. Super. Cool. And not just for the geek. We also spent a nice bit of time at Glensheen Mansion - the self-guided tour gave us time to have quick chats with the UMinn students staffing the place (both about history stuff and their plans/majors). We also recommend checking out the trails and the Swinging Bridge history out at Jay Cooke State Park.

We are still novice mountain bikers, but had seen some info about Cuyuna Country State Rec Area - basically they took the old mine pits, let them fill with water, stocked them, and created an entire network of amazing mountain bike trails between and around them. We were humbled by the youths ripping around the trails...and by the older-than-us folks shredding with equally big grins The trails flow and lots of them are one direction, so the only limits are your lungs, legs, and brain. Being in a mining area, the rocks are hard and plentiful, but never seemed spiteful like they can in PA (hope that makes sense). With all the lakes, there's also the chance to put in the kayaks and create some fun paths to explore.

Deep breaths to find oxygen on the trails above a mine lake

We should mention that the site we reserved had no hookups so this was our first no electric stopover. No issues at all with the batteries' charge for the three days/two nights. The Rec Area is just outside the twin towns of Crosby and Ironton and we were lucky enough to catch their Fourth of July parade and fair! We celebrated our National Birthday by sampling the local beer, more fried cheese curds, followed by some more mountain biking.

Our next stop was at the headwaters of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca. It's a fun State Park with easy to follow hiking trails, a fire tower to climb, trumpeter swans!, bike paths to historical sites, and Wilderness Drive which let us bust out the tri/road bikes. Mammalian wildlife continues to avoid us, but we saw a bunch of bald eagles, herons, loons, ducklings, a red pileated woodpecker, swallows, the swans, and more. We were also close enough to get into Bemidji for ice cream and to take a picture with Paul Bunyan and Blue.

We waited until sunrise to walk across the headwater (main picture), but the marker is fun even if there are human animals frolicking!

We continued our trek northwestward and the landscape changed again to the Red River Valley near East/Grand Forks to the beginnings of the "flats" and prairie terrain. Quite different from the hardwood and coniferous forests we have been passing through! More on North Dakota in our next post.