by Shawn Inmon
There was a time when you could stand on the bridge deck as it rose up and down. An accident in the early 1980s claimed the life of a woman who was riding the bridge, and that put an end to that.
Duluth’s aerial lift bridge
Of course, since it is a busy roadway, it isn’t constantly going up and down like an elevator. There is a schedule, and it can be hours in between lifts. Happily, the bridge is a rock star in Duluth, and the Maritime Museum has a television screen that shows scheduled ships. When we got to the Maritime Museum, we found that we had about an hour’s wait until the American Mariner was scheduled to go through. The American Mariner is 715 feet long, which gave us a perfect comparison to the size of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which was 730 feet, stem to stern.
The weather had been downright chilly in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but here in Minnesota, the sun came out, a gentle breeze wafted off the water, and it was shirt sleeve weather once again. We strolled along the approach to the bridge, all the way out to the farthest point, where you can first spot the ships and watch their approach. We saw the American Mariner when it was still miles away, a small dot on the horizon.
“It looks so small,” I said, proving I didn’t learn the lesson of perspective at any point in my life.
Thirty minutes later, it wasn’t small at all. It motored smoothly past us, under the bridge, and it was gone in a matter of moments. It was so cool to witness that I ran back inside the Maritime Museum to see when the next ship was due. There was a thousand footer coming through at 5:00 PM. As interesting and fun as it was to watch, we didn’t think we could justify a four or five hour wait to see another one. Someday, though, we might come stay in Duluth and just watch the bridge go up and down.
Since we are in the northern Midwest, now, we’ve been seeing signs of the mythical figure of Paul Bunyan in various locations. A number of places here in the North-Central part of the United States lay claim to the legend of Paul Bunyan. There are statues of him scattered all over several states. Different places claim to be “The birthplace of Paul Bunyan.” It’s a fun argument, because like all the best arguments, it can never be settled. As we drove past several dozen of the lakes that give Minnesota its nickname, we saw an impressive likeness in Akely. He is 25 feet tall, even when he is kneeling. No sign of Babe, his blue ox, though.
We talked about driving to Brainerd, because of the Paul Bunyan statue that was shown in the movie Fargo. We love Fargo. It’s an all-time Top Ten movie for us. I can quote from it obsessively. However, in doing a little research, we found that none of the movie was shot in Brainerd, and that the famous Paul Bunyan statue was something the Coen brothers had constructed just for the movie. Since it would have been a two hour drive out of our way, no Brainerd for us. Still, there is a rumor of a wood chipper in Fargo, North Dakota. Now, that would be something we would drive to see.
Day Fifty
We’ve experienced so much on this trip, it’s going to take months to digest it all. We’ve seen two oceans, a gulf and five Great Lakes; at least a dozen National Parks, 30 states, and more monuments and memorials than I can count. The thing I am noticing is, what sticks with me, are the stories. Stories about people.
Arches National Park was one of the most stunning things I’ve ever seen, but getting a better understanding of what transpired at Harper’s Ferry is what echoes in my mind. The Florida Keys were among the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, but somehow meeting and getting to know JFK and his World’s Largest Ball of Twine sticks with me.
Today, I learned about the story of Robert Asp, and Dawn and I both can’t help but wonder, “How is he not more famous?” As desperate as Hollywood apparently is for movie ideas (I am basing that on the rash of failed sequels and remakes that have littered the box office scenery of late) I don’t understand how someone hasn’t gotten the bright idea to turn Asp’s story into a movie. Probably just as well. They would probably cast Jessica Simpson in the lead and make it all about her.
Here’s an abbreviated version of Robert Asp’s story. In the early ’70s, Mr. Asp worked as a guidance counselor, shaping young minds and providing career advice. In the summer of ’71, he was helping a fellow teacher work on his house when an accident occurred. He was injured badly enough that he spent the rest of the summer in the hospital. While there, his brother brought him a pile of books on Viking history. Laid flat out on his back, a dream was born: he decided to build a perfect replica of a Viking ship, and sail it to Norway.
Me? I would probably binge watch all the episodes of The Sopranos again. Robert Asp decides on a lifetime project. He was no simple dreamer, though. He was a man of action. He intended to build the ship all himself, and to do it in two years. A ridiculous goal, of course. In the end, he didn’t do things on his own. He had many helping hands, including his supportive family and local community. A town not far from where he lived bought an empty potato warehouse and leased it to him for $10 per year. Local school kids did bake sales to raise money. Everyone collected cans so they could be melted down and turned into the metal parts the boat needed.
Even with all the help, the two years stretched out. The year he started construction of the ship, Mr. Asp was diagnosed with leukemia. He continued building the boat, saying, “I’d rather work on it than sit around waiting to die.” By 1980, it was almost complete, and he was able to captain the ship out onto Lake Michigan. That was as far as he got, though, as he finally lost his battle with leukemia on December 27th, 1980.
Before he died, his family told him, “You take it as far as you can, we’ll take it the rest of the way.”
You know what? They did.
In June of 1982, members of his family and other volunteers sailed the ship through the Great Lakes, across a series of locks and canals, out into the Atlantic Ocean and toward Norway. The trip wasn’t perfect. They hit a storm that nearly did them in (are you listening, Hollywood? All your drama is built right in) but they made it to Norway in their father’s hand built, seventy-six foot Viking sailing vessel.
That’s the power of a dream. It starts in one person, but even if they fall, it can be picked up and carried by others.
Today, that Viking ship, the Hjemkomst, (which means homecoming in Norwegian,) sits as the star attraction at the Heritage-Hjemkomst Interpretive Center, in Moorhead, Minnesota.
Elsewhere in the center, there’s another example of the same principle in action, if somewhat less dramatically carried out.
In 1997, a man named Gary Paulson got the idea to carve a stave church, a perfect copy of the Hopperstad Stave Church in Vik, Norway. Again, a pretty big project that begins in the mind of a single man.
We got a guided tour of the inside of the church, which was like taking a trip back in time, about a thousand years or so. On the tour, we learned that when the King of Norway converted to Catholicism, so did the rest of the country, at least on the surface. Later, when another King converted to Lutheranism, so did all his subjects. It’s good to be king.
The outside of the church is dark and foreboding, and it doesn’t look like any kind of architecture I’ve ever seen in America. It’s an odd combination of Viking, with dragons, and Catholic, with crosses. The inside of the church is light and airy, with pine wood everywhere.
As we left the center, a very nice woman told us they were serving lutefisk in the cafeteria that day. I am an adventurous eater, but Dawn preferred food she could recognize, so off we went.
We crossed the North River, and just like that, I accomplished a lifetime goal. On the west side of the North River was North Dakota. On the fiftieth day of our trip, I was finally in North Dakota. I’ve now been to every state in the union. Dawn and I commented on that when we were in the car, but didn’t think much more about it.
We went to the Visitor’s Center in Fargo, though, and two very cool things happened.
First, we saw the real star of the movie Fargo. No, not Steve Buscemi or Frances McDormand, but the wood chipper that is featured in the unfo
rgettable final minutes of the movie. Dawn got into the spirit of things by pretending to push a leg down into the chipper while wearing an authentic Fargo hat.
What Dawn often contemplates doing to me
We were happy enough with that, but just as we were leaving, we heard another man come in and say, “North Dakota is my 50th state!”
It was like he was the millionth customer at a supermarket, or something. They smiled and shook his hand, took his picture, gave him a certificate, and a commemorative T-shirt. I waited until the excitement had died down, then told them the same thing, and the celebration started all over again. I got my picture up on their website, and a t-shirt that says, “You saved the best for last!”
Apparently, North Dakota is the last state for a lot of people who attempt to hit them all, so they have a lot of fun with it. I get that, and applaud them for their sense of humor. Let’s face it—North Dakota is a little bit out of the way.
If you’re going to visit all fifty states, I recommend making North Dakota your last one, and doing it in Fargo.
We spent the rest of the day driving, doing some backtracking. One of the things Dawn really wanted to see Walnut Grove, Minnesota. She is a nut about the Little House on the Prairie books and television show. We had read about a Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove, which is where the series was set, so we drove a few hours south-southeast.
We didn’t make it all the way to Walnut Grove before darkness overtook us, so we stopped for the night in Canby, Minnesota.
I think it must be bird-hunting season in Canby, because the door of the Canby Inn & Suites had a handwritten sign that read: Hunters. Please do not clean your birds in the bathroom in your room. It makes a mess that our maids don’t want to clean up. We made a mental note that we would not clean any pheasant or grouse while we stayed there.
Day Fifty-One
We’ve hit a number of famous authors' homes and museums on our trip. All of them—Hemingway, Twain, Poe, Stephen King – were for me. It was only fair that we balance the scales a little and visit one of Dawn’s favorites as well.
Most days, we’ve planned something and in the end, it turned out so much better, so much cooler than what we had intended. The turtle rescue in the Florida Keys, and visiting Boot Hill in Pioche, Nevada spring to mind.
Our visit to Walnut Grove, Minnesota, was not that. Of course, Walnut Grove, circa 2016, looks nothing like Walnut Grove of the nineteenth century. We didn’t expect that. The city fathers make a few nods to the source of their fame by naming streets, “Ingalls Ave,” etc. There is also a cafe called Nellie’s Cafe, but more on that later.
We found The Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum to be underwhelming. There is a very attractive, hand-painted sign out front, but everything kind of went downhill from there. When the highlight of your museum is the sign, that isn’t, pardon the expression, a good sign. Sorry.
The museum itself has a number of buildings, but only one of them really has anything to do with Laura Ingalls Wilder. For a place called The Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum and Information Center, that’s disappointing. The building that has the Laura Ingalls memorabilia had some nice pictures, of the real people who were played by Michael Landon, et al, in the television series. Just for the record, Pa Ingalls didn’t look a thing like Michael Landon. I have a hunch that seventies hairstyle Michael Landon wore throughout the series might have gotten him run out of the real Walnut Grove in that era.
I watched Little House when I was a kid, so at that time, Karen Grassle, who played Ma Ingalls, looked like an old lady to me. I haven’t seen an episode of the show in decades now, so I was surprised when I saw her picture in the museum and realized that she was young on the show, and attractive. How our own perspective changes the things we see.
Much of the museum was a timeline of Laura Ingalls and her family’s lives. Unfortunately, a lot of it looked more like what you would expect to find at a kid’s science fair, as opposed to a legitimate museum. A lot of things were just cutouts of photos or information, pasted onto what looked to me like poster board.
There are several other Laura Ingalls Wilder museums in South Dakota and Missouri, and I have a hunch they got all the cool stuff. My recommendation is, if you are driving directly through Walnut Grove, Minnesota, it’s worth a stop. Dawn and I both agreed if we knew what it was yesterday, though, we wouldn’t have backtracked to see it.
There were several other buildings in the museum, but they didn’t have anything to do with Little House. It was a little like going to the Baseball Hall of Fame, then finding several buildings of information about soccer.
When we were done seeing the entire museum, it was noon, and the aforementioned Nelly’s Cafe beckoned. It looked modest on the outside, but we never judge a book by its cover. When we went in, we found that the sad and worn exterior was the best kept part of the cafe. The walls were paneled like the interior of a mid-sixties trailer, and the carpet was old and blotched with stains. We tried to ignore that and did our best to finish our lunch, which was, at best, entirely forgettable. Our waitress highly recommended the homemade chili, which tasted remarkably like Hormel’s canned chili to my palate.
We put Walnut Grove out of our mind, and turned west, toward home.
We crossed the state line into South Dakota, adding a new state to Dawn’s scorecard. We broke one of our own rules, and gave up on the small highways for a time. In South Dakota, those highways are scarce, and I-90 is smooth, fast, and beautiful.
We debated whether to hit the Mitchell Corn Palace on the way by, but as we so often have on this trip, we thought, When will we be back in Mitchell, South Dakota again? So, we swung by the Corn Palace, which bills itself as The World’s Only Corn Palace. I can’t prove that claim wrong, although there used to be a number of crop palaces scattered around the Midwest. These days, I don’t think there’s a lot of competition for the crown.
Mitchell Corn Palace
Mitchell is proud of its corn. Their town mascot is Cornelius, an ear of corn. Their local radio station is KORN. You get the picture. The Corn Palace itself is a multipurpose venue that hosts all kind of entertainment – plays, concerts, etc. The exterior of the corn palace is changed every year, with a new theme. This year’s theme is Rock of Ages. The Corn Palace uses actual ears of corn to build massive murals on the outside walls. This year, the theme dictated that there be corn-y pictures of Willy Nelson, and Elvis Presley.
We didn’t spend too much time at the Corn Palace. Once you’ve taken in the murals, and peeked inside and looked at the history of corn, there’s not much left to do. In short order, we were on the road again.
We stopped in Murdo, South Dakota, for the night. If we’re going to eat dinner out, we always ask the desk clerk what they recommend. We’ve learned there must be two types of desk clerks: the type that tell you the truth, and the type that get a kickback of some sort.
Tonight, our front desk savant directed us toward a place called Prairie Pizza. I have to say, Prairie Pizza is a little weird.
How so, you ask, very reasonably? Here are a few of the ways: I asked for jalapenos on my half of our pizza, just like I always do. The owner looked at me slightly askew and said they didn’t have any. “Oh, run out?” I asked. “Nope. They’re not very popular around here.” Especially when you refuse to supply them, I thought, but did not say.
Also, they only make pizzas in one size at Prairie Pizza: 15″. You want a personal, or small pizza? Take a hike, bub. We make fifteen inchers at Prairie Pizza. I knew it was a bad sign when I saw one of the owners eating a Subway sandwich when we came in.
Finally, and weirdest of all, when the pizza arrived, the owner told us the crust was a little different. It had sugar and cinnamon in it and on it. “That way you’ve got dessert and dinner all together,” the owner said. Which is fine, as far as it goes, but I happen to like pizza crust, and having my dinner and my dessert separate.
That’s just the kind of day it was on the road in Walnut Grove
, Minnesota, and Murdo, South Dakota.
Day Fifty-Two
We’ve seen any number of oddities on this trip, but as we were pulling out of the parking lot of the motel, I saw one of the oddest. We stayed in a place called Range Country Lodging, in Murdo. It was a very nice place—clean room, friendly people, lots of animal heads on the wall to let you know you were in South Dakota. Aside from the referral to Prairie Pizza, we give it an A.
As we were leaving, though, I noticed something strange in the far corner of the parking lot. There were what looked like four pieces of modern art, with a logo across the top. Closer examination revealed them to be Tesla charging stations. This seemed incongruent, at best. As I mentioned, Range Country Lodging seemed to cater to hunters of all stripes. I saw a lot of pickup trucks in the parking lot, but not a single Tesla. Why in the world would they need not one or two, but four Tesla charging stations to service their motel? Perhaps an international Tesla Fan Club holds their annual convention in Murdo. I suppose it will remain one of life’s little mysteries for me.
We spent a second day in South Dakota, which is likely more than many people will spend in their lifetime. If you’ve never driven across South Dakota, I will fill you in: the scenery has a definite rugged beauty, but it doesn’t change a lot. Once you enter the badlands, it looks like one huge open space, broken up by plateaus and a few canyons. Impressive at first, but it does grow stale after a few hundred miles.
Our adventure today started at the Badlands National Park. Just before we got to the park entrance, we saw a little community of prairie dogs. You might remember when we found prairie dogs in Lubbock, Texas. Dawn is crazy over the little furballs, so when we saw more, of course we stopped. These were pretty tame. Tame enough, in fact, to eat trail mix right out of Dawn’s hand. Several people commented on our blog at the time that Dawn was lucky she didn’t get nipped by the little guys, but she never even came close. I think she fed a whole tribe of them, until we ran out of trail mix.