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Tag Archives: Iowa

Minnesota – Land of Clear, Blue Water

02 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Angle Inlet, Iowa, Matchstick Marvels, Mille Lacs, Minnesota, Mississippi River, Northwest Angle, Ojibwe, Pat Acton, Rainy River

We are extremely happy to say that after 3 weeks in lovely Iowa we finally got a working refrigerator (YIPPEEE!!) While we were waiting for said fridge we did some more looking around and visited both the highest point and second highest point in the state.  The highest point in a place that is basically flat (there are some areas with hills, see last post) is a bit amusing.  Getting to the observation tower at Pilot Knob the second highest spot actually requires a short walk up a hill and from the tower the countryside has contours and character.

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View from the tower at Pilot Knob, Iowa

The highest place in the state is Hawkeye Point  and I swear if they cut the grass too close it would lose that designation 🙂 , but they’ve done a nice job of marking the spot.

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and Hawkeye Point, the highest point in Iowa… just.

While hanging around waiting for the fridge we also popped down to the Matchstick Marvels Museum in Gladbrook to see Pat Acton’s amazing sculptures made entirely out of wooden matchsticks.  Ripley’s Believe It or Not has commissioned and purchased many of his HUGE pieces but there is also an impressive collection in Gladbrook.  I can not begin to imagine the patience this must take….not to mention the hours.  Stop by if you’re even close to the neighborhood, or a Ripley’s.

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478,000 matchsticks…

One other note about Iowa, A&W root beer milkshakes, (at least at the Forest City restaurant) are worth the trip…. YUMMMMM!!

Next up, Minnesota…land of 10,000 lakes….HA!….there are 11,842 lakes exceeding 10 acres in size and literally thousands of smaller size, and that doesn’t touch the rivers, and streams.  Water, water everywhere and yes, you betcha! mosquitoes but we had fun anyway!

Heading north on I-35 we swung west of Minneapolis and continued north on St. Hwy 169 to Onamia and Mille Lacs Kathio State Park.  The landscape started changing pretty quickly to hills, curves, fewer and fewer crops and more trees.  The park was very pretty, private and almost empty and we would have walked around but in hooking up our electric we were so nibbled on we decided not to venture out, plus we had a thunderstorm shortly after arriving. I nearly spilled my drink with one close by strike.

Next morning we went to the Mille Lacs Indian Museum.  This area is the home of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. The museum briefly tells some of the story of their history and craft, but mostly more recent history.  The Four Seasons Room is however the stand-out reason for making this worth the visit.  Admitted only with a guide, this large room is a circular diorama depicting the four seasons of the year flowing seamlessly from early spring into summer, fall and then winter. It shows how the traditional Mille Lacs lived. On a slightly raised platform backed by a beautiful floor to ceiling painting of the actual surrounding landscape the very detailed scene of wigwams, work utensils, toys, clothing, everyday necessities and tools are exactly and wonderfully, naturally displayed.  The life size mannequin’s faces are of the Ojibwe people who helped build and equip the diorama. It is perfectly done and absolutely delightful, in fact if you’re ever in Minnesota go ahead and put it on your MVL (Must Visit List)!  Oh, and we were there when they opened so we had the place to ourselves!

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Summer season.

After doing the museum we headed up into serious lake/water country via Brainerd (lunch at Last Turn Saloon ~ beautiful bar, really good wild rice/chicken soup) to Itasca State Park and the headwaters of the Mississippi River….yes THE Mississippi !  Side Note: I am phonetically deaf and CANNOT spell but I have always loved spelling that name, it’s practically a song 🙂   It flows out of Lake Itasca as a lovely, shallow little stream. The mighty Mississippi isn’t the “Big Muddy” here.  Interestingly as I was mapping our route and looking for where the river flowed from the park I couldn’t find it until I discovered my mistake.  We are so geared to thinking it’s a southern river that it took me a while to see it actually flows north at the beginning!  This also should be on your MVL.

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Spilling past the rocks, the Mississippi heads for New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico.

As part of our Field of Dreams highlights we headed to Chisholm, Minnesota home of Archie “Moonlight” Graham, who by the way was a real person (“bet you didn’t know that”) to see if there was any remembrance of him or the movie…basically nope!  This part of the state is called the Range after the Mesabi Range which is the chief iron ore mining resource in the country.  The trees hid a lot of it but there were piles and piles of red rock tailings.

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This is an iron ore pit mine that has been flooded.

We went to International Falls because, well because it’s International Falls and the Icebox of the Nation. We stopped in at Sandy’s Place and had lunch.  Tiny, packed with locals, we had the Friday special meatball dinner.  Sandy said she makes 30 pounds of meatballs (the size of tennis balls) and sells out.  The special (and most everything else) comes in small, medium and large and they ain’t kidding about large!  Oh…and strawberry cream (Ed) or banana cream (me) pies…yum!  GO, it’s FUN and pretty darn good 🙂

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Ok, so maybe not tennis balls but still good and leftovers for dinner too… $8.50

In looking at the map I noticed a narrow tip going off at the top of Minnesota that I don’t recall ever having noticed before.  Northwest Angle MapCalled the Northwest Angle, it is the northernmost point in the lower 48 and there’s only two ways to get there….by boat or via Canada!  Well, of course we had to go and we only have the RV and I don’t do boats so off to Manitoba we went!

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Oh Canada!

Don’t tell Donald Trump but not only is there no wall, you drive out of Canada into the USA for 8 miles before you PHONE in the fact that you’re in the country!! Helloooo!   We kid you not!! WHAT FUN!!

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Really… this sign is at the border.

While clearly the best way to see this state is with a boat, and indeed judging from the cars and trucks on the roads everyone except us had one, we have enjoyed our visit very much. Plus one of the benefits of all this water is the sky which by early/mid morning begins to transform and by the mid-afternoon was just gorgous with huge puffy white cotton balls of magnificent clouds.  Very nice!  Maybe some day we’ll even try winter up here…..well maybe not!  -30*




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Pick up the receiver, push the button for whichever direction you are heading, and talk to the agent who answers the call.  The American asked us the purpose of our visit, Ed said just visiting.  He said visiting who, Ed said no one, just visiting the Angle.  He said oh, bucketlisting?  Ed said yeah, bucketlisting.  

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Beautiful Minnesota.

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Winter scene at the Four Seasons Room diorama.

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Both sides of the road in Warroad, MN are lined with these lovely petunias.

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One Mississippi…  Lake Itasca flows over these rocks to become the Mississippi.

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Two Mississippi…  Spitting in the river…  Look out New Orleans! (and our friend Michael Verderosa)

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Three Mississippi… 

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At Hawkeye Point the national Highpoint Club has made a display of license plates from each state.

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Notre Dame Cathedral – 298,000 matchsticks.

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Cutty Sark Clipper Ship – 38,000 matchsticks, even the sails. 

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Last Turn Saloon back bar built of solid oak in 1871.

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Rainy River.  Ontario, Canada on the left, USA on the right.

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A local denizen of the upper Mississippi.

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Marti is getting pretty good at this.  Rainy River with Canada on the right.

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Whack-A-Mole Wheels at the tippy top of the lower 48!

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Ed would kill to drive one of these in the snow.

 

 

 

“Is this Heaven?” “It’s Iowa!”

18 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by Ed and Marti Kirkpatrick in Travels

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Bily Clocks, Church in the Wildwood, Effigy Mounds National Monument, Farmland, Field of Dreams, Forest City, Iowa, Kevin Costner, Lichtsinn RV, Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum

With sincere apologies for our long absence Ed and I send greetings with great appreciation to all of you wonderful blog readers.  Thank you for sticking with us!

After the funerals for my brother and then Ed’s aunt, we ended up staying home in Maryland for some extra fun and games!  Thank you Carolyn Mackintosh and the Maryland Horse Trials for putting up with us again.  We did spend a week traveling to Upstate New York for a rally of 69 View/Navion owners (our type of RV) from around the eastern half of the country. We are part of a Facebook group and many of us have become “good friends” there so it was super to meet up and put faces to the names.  We had very interesting weather. Cold, sunny and blustery one day, cold, rainy and blustery the next, but it was a great week and lots of fun.

Ed has Dupuytren’s contracture in his hands and after many years it had finally bent his fingers so badly the doctor said surgery now! Since it was both hands, it meant two separate surgeries so…..we were home an extra month and a half.  Life’s an adventure!  Pictures at the very end of this post for those curious!

Because our life is an adventure, the first place we had to go was Forest City, Iowa!  Our RV fridge has been giving us fits for about ¾’s of a year now and finally simply just was not working.  According to many, many reviews, and our personal phone exchanges, the best RV repair place is Lichtsinn RV and since it’s sorta on the way to the Pacific Northwest where we want to go…..here we are!

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Lichtsinn provides free camping spots with electric to customers and we have stayed here multiple nights.

IOWA!  Who knew?  It is beautiful, at least the northeast quarter we’ve been in!  Yes admittedly it’s mostly corn and soybeans but we love farm country and this is some of the prettiest we’ve ever seen.  Contrary to what we expected, it is not all flat, in fact a great deal of it is big rolling hills.  Often the roads seem to be on top of the world and we can see beautiful country side for miles and miles.  Perhaps the most impressive thing is how amazingly clean and orderly everything is.  The farms big and small, mostly big, are organized, yards full of flowers, grass cut, barnyards and surrounds clearly heavily used but not in disarray or knee deep in muck and junk.  20160705-_EKP7251-PanoEvery town, big and small is neat and trim.  Even in the yards of clearly less prosperous homes the grass is cut, there’s no “stuff” lying about and there are often flower beds or pots.  The paint might be peeling, but there is no question of their pride and belief in good honest living and hard work. There’s not even trash along the roads, just masses of wild flowers!

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Although not all in this picture, Queen Anne’s Lace, Thistle, more Bread and Butter flower than we have ever seen, Black-eyed Susans, Cow Parsnip, Chicory and even more line the roadside.

We spent the 4th of July overlooking the lake at the COE (Corps of Engineers) Dam Complex campground at Coralville Lake, IA where the celebratory boating was in full swing.

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By sunset, most of the boats had gone home.

In our particular spot there was also a massive Mayfly mating and molting swarm going on.  Eventually, the rain washed them off the side of the rig.  We didn’t see any fireworks that evening but we did have maybe the best hot dogs ever for lunch! If you’re ever in Galesburg, Illinois stop in at the oldest restaurant in town, Coney Island and have their signature Coney Island hot dog.  You won’t be disappointed and the decor is great too!

Being big movie fans we made a side trip to the set of one of our favorites, “Field of Dreams”.  In Dyersville, IA the farm house (not open, folks still live there), baseball field and corn crop are open to the public free of charge.  I don’t know if it’s the influence of the movie or just the story’s premise, but the place is kind of magical.  If you’re a baseball fan (Ed is especially) you have to stop here (and he got a T-shirt).

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“If you build it, he will come.” – Field of Dreams

We stopped in Waverly at the East Bremer Diner where I had a Midwest favorite called a Cheese Frenchee for lunch.  Basically a grilled cheese sandwich made with mayo, dipped in egg batter, crumbs and deep fat fried!!!  Pretty good heart attack on a plate 🙂

From there we headed up St. Rt. 218 to Nashua and The Little Brown Church in the Vale.  In 1857 a young music teacher, William Pitts, was traveling by stage coach to visit his future wife.  At a stop to change horses in the Bradford area while walking down Cedar Street he noticed an empty lot and thought how lovely a spot it was for a church.  Upon returning home he wrote the poem “Church in the Wildwood”, later setting it to music and putting it in a drawer, forgot about it.  Meanwhile back in the town people wanted a real church, which they didn’t have.  Someone donated land, and finally in 1860 limestone was quarried and a foundation was laid. The Civil War slowed things but someone donated timber and others the sawing into lumber and the work continued.  When it came time to protect it from the elements the cheapest paint available was Ohio Mineral Paint which unhappily was brown.   In 1862 Mr. Pitts and his wife moved to the area to be near her parents and he was hired to teach singing at the Bradford Academy.  To Mr. Pitts’ great surprise he discovered a little brown church just where he had envisioned it!   He dug out his song, taught it to his choir who sung to the equally surprised congregation at the church dedication!

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This is a VERY popular place for weddings.

In the town of Decorah, where we stayed at the nice Pulpit Rock Campgound, we visited the Vesterheim (western home) Norwegian-American Museum.  This area was where many Norwegians settled and this extensive museum documents their culture.  Their love of decoration and color in clothing, furniture, household items, and even wall paint is I believe an effort to ward off the cold and depressing bleakness of the Norwegian winter. Fun and worth a visit, although I will admit to a bit of an overload by the end.

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The good “plainer” pioneer Anglo Saxon farm people found these Norwegians and their colorful and decorative homes disturbing.

Just a bit outside of Decorah is the little town of Spillville and The Bily Clocks Museum and Antonin Dvorak Exhibit.  This absolutely needs to be on your MVL (Must Visit List)!   The brothers Frank and Joseph Bily (BEE-lee) made clocks in ALL their spare time!  Many huge and intricately carved, most with moving figures and incredibly complex filigree, they never sold any.  In fact they turned down Henry Ford’s offer of a million dollars for their 8 foot tall, 500 plus pound “American Pioneer History Clock”!  Truly delightful and amazing!

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Just a sampling of the many clocks the Bily brothers made during their lifetime. There is a lot more story at the museum about the family and the clocks.  Go there.

Oh, and the composer Antonin Dvorak lived upstairs one summer in the building that houses the clocks.  Seems he was very home sick and a friend told him about a lovely spot in Iowa where the towns folk spoke Czech as their native language!

Located on the border with Wisconsin, Effigy Mounds National Monument preserves more than 200 burial mounds built by Native Americans. Found in many states across the Midwest these mounds still hold sacred meaning to the Indians of this part of the country. While there is some academic discussion going on as to how relativity recent some may be,  most agree the majority are prehistoric. We had a wonderful hike through the woods looking at them and wondering about the beliefs and meanings behind these complicated and work intensive mounds that can only truly be recognized as animal shapes from the air. Like the Blythe Intaglios we visited out west, one has to wonder who they believed would see them for what they are?

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A long line of smaller mounds.

All in all….we might consider living in Iowa…..except we no longer grow corn or raise cattle.




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“Ray, people will come Ray.  They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom.  They’ll turn up in your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it.  They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past.”

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“Man, I did love this game.  I’d of played for food money.  It was the game…  The sounds, the smells.  Did you ever hold a ball or a glove to your face?”     “Yeah.”

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Iowa farmers are really good at contouring the planting to prevent soil erosion.  They plant grass or alfalfa in the space and harvest that for hay.

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Erik Selland built this house from one pine tree in Big Canoe, Iowa in 1852-1853.  Using very wide hand planed logs from the one tree the house had one room and an upstairs loft.

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Norwegian dress-up clothing is called Bunads.

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Some of the wonderful clocks carved by the Bily brothers in Spillville, Iowa.

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View of the Mississippi River looking south from Eagle Rock at Effigy Mounds National Monument. It’s the border with Wisconsin.

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Some of the larger mounds at Effigy Mounds National Monument.

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One of the highlights of the Puckerbrush Days festival just this past weekend in Forest City, Iowa is a Mudball Volleyball Tourney.  Even though they fell in the knee-deep muck, missed shots and got mud in their eyes we never heard so much as a damn out of these kids.

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and we watched fireworks that night from about 50 yards from the launch site.  Pretty exciting!




SCARY PICTURE of Ed’s hands…

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