Itasca State Park, Minnesota

August 29, 2023

We woke up early Saturday morning in time for sunrise, not necessarily to see the sunrise, but because we wanted an early start to the long-ish drive to Itasca State Park in Minnesota.

Sunrise over Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota

Sun gave way to fog as we made our way through the back roads of North Dakota, narrowly missing a deer when visibility was exceptionally low. Julie's reflexes weren't good enough to get a picture of the near catastrophe, but Rick's braking reflexes were good enough to at least prevent the catastrophe (but just barely)!

Imagine this scene except more fog, some tall corn, and two deer darting from the corn into the road.

It was a good thing we got an early start, because a few hours into our trip, the TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) indicated a slow leak in one of our tires. We pulled into a little town park, and Rick found a chunk of metal wedged into the tire. Initially, we thought of stopping at a place along our (very rural) route to get it fixed, but finding such a place that was open on the weekend proved to be pretty difficult. After pulling in to a couple of places that couldn't help us, we decided to just put on the spare and get the leaky tire fixed when we were closer to a more populated area.

By the time we entered Minnesota, the weather was mostly sunny and quite pleasant, and the rest of the trip went by without further incident.

The border town of Halsted seemed eerily empty

Still empty--does anyone live here?

One of the 10,000 lakes

We got set up at Itasca State Park just before dinner time. It felt nice to be back in a Midwestern forest again. 

Sunday started out rainy in the morning, turned sunny for a while, and then was cloudy for most of the rest of the day. We decided to take a walk along the shore of Lake Itasca to the visitor center and the historic lodge (a pretty flat 7.5 mile round trip).

The sumacs were already beginning their brilliant red fall foliage

Julie has declared this stop to be the very beginning of the fall season (We're hoping to "chase fall" this year from north to south)

We stopped in the Douglas Lodge restaurant for a mid-day snack Pie a la mode for Julie and a cup of Minnesota wild rice soup for Rick (What's wrong with that guy? 😉)

The view from the lodge

In case it's not obvious by now-- Julie has a thing for old lodges

On Tuesday, we rode our bikes along the excellent bike trails in the park (20 miles - also mostly flat).

The beach area

The headwaters of the Mississippi River

Everyone has to walk (or wade) across the Mississippi here 😉

Lake Itasca--the source of the Mississippi River

Behold the mighty Mississippi!

It's pretty big, but nothing like the big trees out west

Poor tree got unseated from its podium after a storm came through in the 90's, lopping its top off

Another "has-been"--this one was a red pine instead of a white pine

Not even alive anymore--so sad

Elk Lake

Not everyone agreed on where the Mississippi actually began

Lake Mary

We quite enjoyed our short stay at Itasca State Park. It was a very well maintained park with lots to see and pretty scenery. Perhaps we will return some day.

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