Day 5 - JHA 2018 Conference at DennyGibson.com

Day 5: April 21, 2018
Tall Paul and a Skinny Mississippi
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The Chateau Inn is where my room was in Red Lake Falls, Minnesota, and yes it was over a liquor store. You saying there's something wrong with that?

The day started with some random sightings. I initially drove west when I left the motel and when I turned south I was struck by the sharply defined line of clouds in front of me. A turn to the east soon followed and, about twenty-five miles later, the collection of smiley faces caught my eye. Not a bad way to recycle a bunch of satellite antennas. The road is empty in the third picture but it wasn't just seconds earlier. A black bear had ran across the road but it took me a second to recognize it and another to grab the camera. I though I'd missed the bear completely but, when I zoomed in on the photo at end of day, I could just make it out on the left side of the road. Here's the enlarged area.

This was not the first unpaved road of the day but it was the first that was not well maintained and dry. There would be more.

A well maintained and dry unpaved road near the town of Solway was the first I'd seen marked with the name Jefferson. Before the section ended, things became somewhat friendlier.

As the plaque between them explains, Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox have been standing on the shores of Lake Bemidji since 1939 when they were two years old. They are Bemidji's most famous statues but are far from being its only statues. There's a muffler man style Indian partially hidden by a tree right across the street and a metal dancing Indiana at the other end of the park. Although only a couple can be seen in the picture, pieces of artwork stand on just about every corner of downtown Bemidji. Very impressive.

The last two pictures are obviously not of statues. They show Bemidji Brewing outside and in.

This is about seven crow and ten or so river miles from where the Mississippi River begins.

A mix of melted and unmelted snow made the path to the Mississippi Headwaters rather uninviting but I managed to slosh my way there. Some younger members of a family I saw returning to the parking lot were wearing boots and I thought that might be an indication they had waded across the river but I now suspect it was one of their parent's requirements for allowing them to wade TO the river. The line of rocks mark the point at which the waters of Lake Itasca become the waters of the Mississippi River. Although one girl did take a couple of steps on the rocks, she quickly changed her mind and moved back to solid ground. No one waded or crossed on the rocks while I was there and I had not intention of doing so. The idea of going back up that wet path with cold feet -- or more -- did not interest me at all. I did cross over the Mighty Missippi on the log so I could get a view of the other end. In the third picture, you may have noticed three swans in the background. They seemed quite content to stay there and were actively feeding. They made me regret not having a longer lens with me but I enjoyed watching them. Here's the best I could do picture-wise.

The course I had plotted would have taken me out of Itasca State Park through the south entrance but that was still closed. I simply scooted out of the east entrance instead.

On this trip's cover page, I mentioned that the Algers shared several pointers from their own Jefferson Highway drive. I know it was Lynda who turned me onto Saint Urho but I can't currently find any evidence of that other than my own notes. I'm also pretty certain that I would have otherwise missed this fantastic fictional Fin.

This colorful fellow seemed to be directing me onto the day's last stretch of dirt road so I took it as a sign of good luck. Nope. This was probably the worst road I've yet driven on this trip. No pictures of the worst parts because, well, you know, steering wheels and stuff.

Yes, I'm staying with a Vikings' fan tonight. The owners of the Brookside Motel in Wadena, Minnesota, use the truck in local parades. My room is near the middle of the building.

When I went out for dinner, I found this cool little theater on Jefferson Street and snapped a picture with my Panasonic. Then I did the same thing when I got "home".

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