May 30, 2016. We Follow the Great River Road, in Circles.

May 30, 2016.  We Follow the Great River Road, in Circles.  So, here's the deal.  The Great River Road does not follow the river.  There are places where the river goes one way and the Road goes another.  In fact, that's the case most of the time.  We might drive 20 miles without seeing the river at all.  Then, when we do see it, it is only as we pass over it for fleeting seconds.  The river, below the headwaters was 10-15 feet wide.  It's now 40-50 feet wide. 


After two hours of following the River Road, we lost it all together.  It is easy to do. The Road is marked only before and after a turn.  If the sign is missed, you can drive for miles and miles before you realize the Road is gone. 


It is 60 miles from Bemidji to Grand Rapids, MN.  That is, it's 60 miles down Highway 2.  Via the River Road, it is 100 miles under a speed limit of 55.  That's where we spent the two hours mentioned above.  It was lunch time when we arrived in Grand Rapids, so I turned off the Road to get to an eatery.  It took us 30 minutes of driving in circles before deciding that the Road had disappeared. 


We did what any sane couple would do.  We took the most direct route to a place where we were sure the Road could be found.  That place is Little Falls, MN.  It is a very nice community with murals and a stately county courthouse. 


Little Falls State Park was given to the state by Congressman Charles A. LIndbergh, Sr.   His son is the famous aviator who flew the first transatlantic flight to Paris in 1927.  The family home is across the road from the park.  We may tour the home tomorrow if it's open by the time we leave. 


The park is lovely.  The pines have been here several hundred years.  They are tall and stately.  One of the pictures shows a pine which began its life at the beginning of the 17th Century.  That was more than 150 years before the American Revolution.  In the early years of the last century, Lindbergh, Jr. referred to it as the "Sentinel Tree" on the Lindberg farm because it towered over other trees in the forest.  As the sign says, the tree was struck by lightening in 1986.  It died one year later. 


We know where the Road is now.  We'll get back on it tomorrow.  The distinctive today was the absence of towns or villages on the Road.  We expect that to change as the river gets larger.  That makes sense, doesn't it?  When the river gets wide and deep enough to support commerce, villages would grow up on it.  First, there would be a logging enterprise, then a store, then a saloon, then an inn and finally a bank.  Houses would be built and a town would grow.  That's what I expect to see as we continue to follow The Great River Road. 


Tomorrow, I'll talk to you from somewhere near Minneapolis. 


Goodnight.