Red Wing and Duluth, Minnesota

When I woke up this morning, everything in my campsite except the inside of my tent and myself was still wet from last night's rain, so instead of preparing my usual breakfast of juice and oatmeal, I packed up my wet gear and decided to have breakfast on the road. Not too far along, I stopped in the little town of Red Wing. On the main street there were a number of chairs set up by the curb, and on two of them an elderly lady and gentleman were sitting. I went over to ask them for a recommendation of a good place for breakfast and they suggested two places nearby. I also asked them why they were sitting there at the street corner at about 9:30 on a Sunday morning. They explained to me that there was to be a parade in about an hour or so. They had come early to make sure they got good seats, and I guess just to watch people going by (of which there were very few).

I headed off in one of the directions they had suggested and stopped in at Bev's Cafe. They were very busy and the lady who was the hostess was also serving as a waitress and as the cashier, so I had to wait several minutes until she could find time to seat me.   The restaurant was full of local people just chatting away. One woman was standing and holding a wood carving of a slightly larger-than-life pilated woodpecker on a piece of driftwood and telling a man sitting at a nearby booth how she came to acquire this treasure. They then swapped a few stories of great buys they had made at flea markets. At another booth a Latino couple was sitting with an English speaking friend. The two Latinos spoke to each other in Spanish and there were also exchanges among the three in English. Once the man tried to say something in Spanish, but I don't think he did very well.

I finally was shown to a seat and the busy but still cheerful hostess/waitress/cashier took my order for a Taco Egg Special, which consisted of two scrambled eggs and homefries that were mixed with all of the fixings that normally go into a taco, the hamburger meat, the vegetables and the sauce. It was different and quite good. As I paid my bill, I asked, "Are you Bev?" I thought she might be since she was working so hard.
"Oh no," she answered, "and Bev isn't here any more either. She left a few months ago. Shiela owns the restaurant now."
"So where's Shiela?"
"She's back working in the kitchen."
So much change. Factories close, restaurants change hands, but a cafe with a good breakfast goes on, well, maybe not forever, but at least for a good while.

 My next stop was at Hastings. Hastings seems to be a town with big aspirations. About eight miles from the center of the town I passed a dirt road labeled 230th Street. Between this street sign and the town were about eight miles of mostly corn fields. I think it's going to take a long time for Hastings to expand to 230th Street. Even Manhattan doesn't have a 230th Street. Maybe Beijing has a 230the St.; maybe not. But I suppose it's always good to plan ahead. Actually, I later saw a couple other towns with similar street numbers. Perhaps all of Minnesota is preparing for a big population explosion once California sinks into the Pacific and Manhattan becomes an underwater island because of global warming.

Minneapolis was my next stop and it should have been easy with my GPS to get there by passing thru Duluth. Unfortunately almost all of the entrances to I94 in Duluth were closed for road work, and my GPS had a really hard time until the little lady inside her finally found an alternate route to get us to Minneapolis. My itinerary called for making the rounds of several scenic sites in Minneapolis. My GPS found the first one, a large park, but the next two I had to find pretty much on my own by checking the directions in my itinerary and asking people on the street. The first two were just large parks and since the temperature was at least 95 degrees, I just drove around them and moved on. The third site, Minnehaha Park and Waterfall had a garden and a waterfall, so I eventually found it and walked through the garden to the waterfall. The waterfall was no Niagra Falls, but it was at least three stories high and about 20 feet wide and I was glad that I had persevered to come see it. The whole experience was like orienteering, where you are given a map and then go thru the woods following the map to find flags at various locations.

My final stop for the day was back to Duluth to my friend Richard's former house. He still owns it but rents it out to  people with the understanding that friends of his could stay there for a night or two. He had called his renters, Pavel and Jane,to  let them know I would be coming. When I arrived, they weren't home, so I just took the opportunity to spread out my tent and ground cloth in the back yard and let them dry. When Pavel and Jane did finally arrive, they turned out to be a lovely and very welcoming couple. They put me on the third floor, which was one of the few air-conditioned areas in the house, offered me full use of the kitchen and also of an extra computer in an otherwise unoccupied room. Pavel was a musician originally from Czechoslavakia and Gabon in Africa and she was an American whom he met here. We had a very pleasant time together swapping life stories. Then they went out for a couple hours and I had a chance to catch up some on my blogging.

The attic room where I was lodged was interesting in that if I stood in the center I could stand up straight but at other places I had to bend down to various degrees to avoid bumping my head. It took me a while to get the hang of it. The area had originally been occupied by Richard and Anna's daughter, who was now away at college. It's most interesting feature was the "ladies toilet" in the bathroom. It was situated in a very low part of the room, so that if a gentleman (in this case, that would be me) needed to urinate, he would have to do it from a deep crouch or else sit down like a lady.

Signs for the day: In Bev's Cafe, not to be outdone by the water skiing sign in the previous community : " Red Wing is the birthplace of ski jumping in the U.S." Well, it may not be all that much, but I suppose it's something.
In the bathroom of my space in the attic: "Brush your teeth" The sign was attached to a picture of a shark with it's mouth open.