Lake Benton to Lake Pepin
Shortly after crossing into Minnesota, huge white windmills appeared in the fields, and Lake Benton announced that it was the Windpower Capital of the Midwest. Lake Benton High also boasted that it had been 9-man football champion in '73 and '74. Now, that's resting on your laurels.
The fields continued to get flatter and greener, with the corn higher, and the road still passed many small lakes. I reached Tracy, which was the end of the railroad line when the Ingalls moved to Dakota Territory. The Wilder Inn looked nice, but was full for the night. The clerk graciously called ahead to the Lamberton Motel, which did have a room. Over the phone, the owner told me it would be $38, so I was expecting a dump, but when I walked into my room in the little strip motel, it felt like a 4-star resort. The room was beautifully decorated in a northern woods hunting motif. The queen bed was on a four-poster frame of rustic but artistic wood (the kind that uses branches with the bark still on) and had a quilt-like cover and matching sham pillows. Moose and bear and pine silhouettes were incorporated into the lamp shades, the throw pillows on a bench by the wall, and the backs of the chairs on either side of the table in the window, and there was a wood moose statue on the TV stand. An arm chair and mirror were both made with rustic wood frames matching the bedstead. The phone was made to look like one of the old wall-mounted phones with the hand set hanging on a hook on the side and two bells above the circular dial pad (the "finger holes" were actually push buttons). The area in front of the motel was grassed, and a small park with lots of trees was on the other side of the road, between the road and the train tracks.
Train rumbles woke me early the next day. I did my morning meditation on the lawn while a tug pushed and pulled cars along the track. (The motel was kitty-corner to the huge grain elevator, so it was a busy spot on the rail line.) The tug would start up, and a wave would run along the line of cars -- clack, clack, clack, clack. Then the tug would stop and the wave of clacks would run the other way.
After checking out, I tried unsuccessfully to locate the Lamberton Cafe (the business section was only 2 blocks long -- how could it hide?) and decided to drive back west to Walnut Grove without breakfast. Walnut Grove is the town near the Ingalls farm that is portrayed in "On the Banks of Plum Creek". There I found breakfast at Nellie's Cafe. The menu listed prices for: 1 egg and toast; 1 egg, toast and potato; 1 egg, toast and meat; 2 eggs and toast; 2 eggs, toast and potato; and 2 eggs, toast and meat. There was no option for eggs, toast, meat and potato. Atkins dieters take note -- a safe vacation spot! While eating two eggs, toast, patty sausage and hot chocolate, I chatted with David, who had left this area at 17 and gone to work for Smuckers in Ohio for 59 years. His wife, whom he had met at Smuckers, died last year, and he moved back to Walnut Grove to live with his daughter. He told me stories of his service in WWII, and of the incomparable bond between a soldier and his buddy. He also told me of friends who had developed cancer or heart disease and had died soon after going off "the program" (more vegetables and less meat and potatoes). He was staying on the program due to his colon cancer for which he had had surgery in June. He left to mow the lawn before the day got too hot. Having strength to mow the lawn only a few weeks after major surgery -- what a marvel our modern medicine is.
Then it was time for the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum in Walnut Grove. It was stuffed with more facts and figures about Laura, Ma, Pa, Mary, Carrie, Grace, Almanzo, the Olesons, the Johnsons, Nellie Owens (Olson in the book) and Walnut Grove in the 1880's than you can shake a stick at. Native prairie flowers had been planted at the museum and were blooming in a dazzling proliferation of yellows, blues and pinks.
A mile and a half north of Walnut Grove is the farm that originally was the Ingalls homestead, setting of the L.I.W. book, "On the Banks of Plum Creek". The current owners -- the Gordons -- are kind enough to have a road through their corn and soybean fields to Plum Creek and a walk with signs pointing out the sites of the dugout house, the spring, the plum thickets, and other landmarks mentioned in the book. Plum Creek was a very pretty, shallow, cool, clear stream peacefully meandering through a lane of trees and bushes. The Gordons have converted several acres back to native prairie, also much in bloom, and plan to do more.
I was in a quandary whether to continue east to Pepin, Wisconsin, site of the book, "Little House in the Big Woods", or turn north to the Detroit Lakes area. I decided the first thing was to try and post what is now the previous entry. I've realized that my best bet for reliable wireless is a public library, and my best bet for a public library is a county seat. So I went up to the county seat of Redwood Falls, an attractive little town on the Redwood River near its confluence with the Minnesota River. On the way I stopped at the Wayside Park in Vesta, home of the nation's first electric co-op. The library did not have wireless but did have a desktop with DSL, so that I at least could get email. (Without the long explanation of why, I need wireless to post my blogs.) It was then nearly 5 pm, and I was quite tired from not much sleep the night before, and decided the Lamberton Motel had been so nice, I'd just go back. Thus, I spent the day simply making a circle through Redwood County.
The motel owner provided directions to the Lamberton Cafe; turns out it had been hiding by having no sign other than a banner saying "Restaurant" on a building that didn't particularly look to be a going concern. And it wasn't going that night -- closed Monday and Tuesday evenings -- so I procured bing cherries, Swiss cheese and Triscuits at the grocery. I peered in the window of the corner bakery across the street and saw a case of pastries. In the morning I returned for a donut and a small Danish which cost me all of 30 cents! Well, frankly, they weren't worth more, being rather dry and stale, but they were good enough with left over bing cherries to make breakfast out on the motel lawn. In the park across the street, tiered on a high dead limb of one of the trees, were about 10 vultures, perfectly framed by the green parts of the trees and the blue sky. Three of them opened their wings and just sat there spreadwinged for several minutes before they all flew away (probably because of all the pictures I was taking).
I chose east to Pepin and continued on the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway. Not far down the road were signs encouraging a stop at the Sod House on the Prairie. It is a farm where the owner has built a sod house, just like the million or so that used to dot the prairie -- clever construction by pioneers faced with no timber. The property also has a dugout, a little log cabin fitted like a trapper's home, and 10 acres of native prairie grasses and flowers. The sod house is a B & B, and the hosts provide calico dresses and bonnets, band collar shirts, and high top shoes in a variety of sizes so that you can dress like a settler during your stay if you wish. Looked like a lot of fun on a pleasant summer day such as I had -- warm, but not hot, and the prairie very still except for the chatting of tiny wrens clinging to tall grass stems. See www.sodhouse.org for pictures and info.
I wended my way to Redwing, MN (as in Redwing shoes and Redwing pottery) on minor roads through beautiful farmland -- huge fields of intensely green corn and soybeans broken by knots of farmhouses, barns, silos, and trees. All the business districts now were real business districts, and many towns were nicely dinged up with parks, flower baskets on main street, nice community centers, etc. In New Ulm -- where the names of stores and the beer garden music on Main Street affirmed the Germanic connection -- the public library had wireless. In New Prague, a huge, decorative edifice was the Church of St. Wenceslas, and the library sported a sculpture donated by Milos Vlcek of Brno, Czech Republic, in gratitude for the hospitality shown his son Lukas during his Rotary Club exchange year. All across South Dakota and Minnesota, town names have declared the diverse homelands of former immigrants, and American patriotism has been prominently on display, with flags along main streets and "We support our troops" signs in yards.
Wednesday I awoke early and went down to Colville Park by the Mississippi River. The barge captains were up early, too, just beginning the process of hooking up the tugs to the chains of barges. Boat hulls were reflected in the smooth water of the marina. The day started sunny, but clouds quickly washed the sky a flat gray. Back at the motel, the weather forecasters were showing storms moving east across mid-Minnesota, with severe weather warnings for the Twin Cities, so I hustled onto the road, hoping to stay ahead of the rain. I crossed the Mississippi on Route 63, then turned south onto the Great River Road that soon is following the shore of Lake Pepin -- a widening of the Mississippi created by the Chippewa dumping a natural dam of glacial debris into the riverbed. You could tell it would be just a gorgeous drive on a sunny day, but everything was muted and hazy that day. The radio was broadcasting a severe weather warning for several counties in MN and two counties in WI. Oh joy! One of them was Pepin County -- the county I was in! Fortunately, the rain waited until I had driven 7 miles off the main road, into the site of the Little House in the Big Woods, where Laura Ingalls Wilder was born. A replica log cabin has been built there, its three small rooms and loft looking manorial compared to a claim shanty. The LIW museum in Pepin was closed and so, with a clap of thunder, burst of lightening, and sheet of rain, my tour of Laura Ingalls Wilder locations and lore was done, for this trip anyway.
The fields continued to get flatter and greener, with the corn higher, and the road still passed many small lakes. I reached Tracy, which was the end of the railroad line when the Ingalls moved to Dakota Territory. The Wilder Inn looked nice, but was full for the night. The clerk graciously called ahead to the Lamberton Motel, which did have a room. Over the phone, the owner told me it would be $38, so I was expecting a dump, but when I walked into my room in the little strip motel, it felt like a 4-star resort. The room was beautifully decorated in a northern woods hunting motif. The queen bed was on a four-poster frame of rustic but artistic wood (the kind that uses branches with the bark still on) and had a quilt-like cover and matching sham pillows. Moose and bear and pine silhouettes were incorporated into the lamp shades, the throw pillows on a bench by the wall, and the backs of the chairs on either side of the table in the window, and there was a wood moose statue on the TV stand. An arm chair and mirror were both made with rustic wood frames matching the bedstead. The phone was made to look like one of the old wall-mounted phones with the hand set hanging on a hook on the side and two bells above the circular dial pad (the "finger holes" were actually push buttons). The area in front of the motel was grassed, and a small park with lots of trees was on the other side of the road, between the road and the train tracks.
Train rumbles woke me early the next day. I did my morning meditation on the lawn while a tug pushed and pulled cars along the track. (The motel was kitty-corner to the huge grain elevator, so it was a busy spot on the rail line.) The tug would start up, and a wave would run along the line of cars -- clack, clack, clack, clack. Then the tug would stop and the wave of clacks would run the other way.
After checking out, I tried unsuccessfully to locate the Lamberton Cafe (the business section was only 2 blocks long -- how could it hide?) and decided to drive back west to Walnut Grove without breakfast. Walnut Grove is the town near the Ingalls farm that is portrayed in "On the Banks of Plum Creek". There I found breakfast at Nellie's Cafe. The menu listed prices for: 1 egg and toast; 1 egg, toast and potato; 1 egg, toast and meat; 2 eggs and toast; 2 eggs, toast and potato; and 2 eggs, toast and meat. There was no option for eggs, toast, meat and potato. Atkins dieters take note -- a safe vacation spot! While eating two eggs, toast, patty sausage and hot chocolate, I chatted with David, who had left this area at 17 and gone to work for Smuckers in Ohio for 59 years. His wife, whom he had met at Smuckers, died last year, and he moved back to Walnut Grove to live with his daughter. He told me stories of his service in WWII, and of the incomparable bond between a soldier and his buddy. He also told me of friends who had developed cancer or heart disease and had died soon after going off "the program" (more vegetables and less meat and potatoes). He was staying on the program due to his colon cancer for which he had had surgery in June. He left to mow the lawn before the day got too hot. Having strength to mow the lawn only a few weeks after major surgery -- what a marvel our modern medicine is.
Then it was time for the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum in Walnut Grove. It was stuffed with more facts and figures about Laura, Ma, Pa, Mary, Carrie, Grace, Almanzo, the Olesons, the Johnsons, Nellie Owens (Olson in the book) and Walnut Grove in the 1880's than you can shake a stick at. Native prairie flowers had been planted at the museum and were blooming in a dazzling proliferation of yellows, blues and pinks.
A mile and a half north of Walnut Grove is the farm that originally was the Ingalls homestead, setting of the L.I.W. book, "On the Banks of Plum Creek". The current owners -- the Gordons -- are kind enough to have a road through their corn and soybean fields to Plum Creek and a walk with signs pointing out the sites of the dugout house, the spring, the plum thickets, and other landmarks mentioned in the book. Plum Creek was a very pretty, shallow, cool, clear stream peacefully meandering through a lane of trees and bushes. The Gordons have converted several acres back to native prairie, also much in bloom, and plan to do more.
I was in a quandary whether to continue east to Pepin, Wisconsin, site of the book, "Little House in the Big Woods", or turn north to the Detroit Lakes area. I decided the first thing was to try and post what is now the previous entry. I've realized that my best bet for reliable wireless is a public library, and my best bet for a public library is a county seat. So I went up to the county seat of Redwood Falls, an attractive little town on the Redwood River near its confluence with the Minnesota River. On the way I stopped at the Wayside Park in Vesta, home of the nation's first electric co-op. The library did not have wireless but did have a desktop with DSL, so that I at least could get email. (Without the long explanation of why, I need wireless to post my blogs.) It was then nearly 5 pm, and I was quite tired from not much sleep the night before, and decided the Lamberton Motel had been so nice, I'd just go back. Thus, I spent the day simply making a circle through Redwood County.
The motel owner provided directions to the Lamberton Cafe; turns out it had been hiding by having no sign other than a banner saying "Restaurant" on a building that didn't particularly look to be a going concern. And it wasn't going that night -- closed Monday and Tuesday evenings -- so I procured bing cherries, Swiss cheese and Triscuits at the grocery. I peered in the window of the corner bakery across the street and saw a case of pastries. In the morning I returned for a donut and a small Danish which cost me all of 30 cents! Well, frankly, they weren't worth more, being rather dry and stale, but they were good enough with left over bing cherries to make breakfast out on the motel lawn. In the park across the street, tiered on a high dead limb of one of the trees, were about 10 vultures, perfectly framed by the green parts of the trees and the blue sky. Three of them opened their wings and just sat there spreadwinged for several minutes before they all flew away (probably because of all the pictures I was taking).
I chose east to Pepin and continued on the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway. Not far down the road were signs encouraging a stop at the Sod House on the Prairie. It is a farm where the owner has built a sod house, just like the million or so that used to dot the prairie -- clever construction by pioneers faced with no timber. The property also has a dugout, a little log cabin fitted like a trapper's home, and 10 acres of native prairie grasses and flowers. The sod house is a B & B, and the hosts provide calico dresses and bonnets, band collar shirts, and high top shoes in a variety of sizes so that you can dress like a settler during your stay if you wish. Looked like a lot of fun on a pleasant summer day such as I had -- warm, but not hot, and the prairie very still except for the chatting of tiny wrens clinging to tall grass stems. See www.sodhouse.org for pictures and info.
I wended my way to Redwing, MN (as in Redwing shoes and Redwing pottery) on minor roads through beautiful farmland -- huge fields of intensely green corn and soybeans broken by knots of farmhouses, barns, silos, and trees. All the business districts now were real business districts, and many towns were nicely dinged up with parks, flower baskets on main street, nice community centers, etc. In New Ulm -- where the names of stores and the beer garden music on Main Street affirmed the Germanic connection -- the public library had wireless. In New Prague, a huge, decorative edifice was the Church of St. Wenceslas, and the library sported a sculpture donated by Milos Vlcek of Brno, Czech Republic, in gratitude for the hospitality shown his son Lukas during his Rotary Club exchange year. All across South Dakota and Minnesota, town names have declared the diverse homelands of former immigrants, and American patriotism has been prominently on display, with flags along main streets and "We support our troops" signs in yards.
Wednesday I awoke early and went down to Colville Park by the Mississippi River. The barge captains were up early, too, just beginning the process of hooking up the tugs to the chains of barges. Boat hulls were reflected in the smooth water of the marina. The day started sunny, but clouds quickly washed the sky a flat gray. Back at the motel, the weather forecasters were showing storms moving east across mid-Minnesota, with severe weather warnings for the Twin Cities, so I hustled onto the road, hoping to stay ahead of the rain. I crossed the Mississippi on Route 63, then turned south onto the Great River Road that soon is following the shore of Lake Pepin -- a widening of the Mississippi created by the Chippewa dumping a natural dam of glacial debris into the riverbed. You could tell it would be just a gorgeous drive on a sunny day, but everything was muted and hazy that day. The radio was broadcasting a severe weather warning for several counties in MN and two counties in WI. Oh joy! One of them was Pepin County -- the county I was in! Fortunately, the rain waited until I had driven 7 miles off the main road, into the site of the Little House in the Big Woods, where Laura Ingalls Wilder was born. A replica log cabin has been built there, its three small rooms and loft looking manorial compared to a claim shanty. The LIW museum in Pepin was closed and so, with a clap of thunder, burst of lightening, and sheet of rain, my tour of Laura Ingalls Wilder locations and lore was done, for this trip anyway.
posted by Annventurer | 11:10 AM
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