South Minnesota
Bicycling in bluff country
In southeast Minnesota, the Root River Trail brought swarms of tourists.
It was a sunny day in southeastern Minnesota, and everywhere I looked, there were Babes.
Babes bombing along bike trails, Babes prowling the shops of Lanesboro, Babes laughing over white wine in the inn where I was
staying.
They were the Fat Bottom Girls Cycle Club from Des Moines, also known as Babes on Bikes, and they were having a swell time riding the smooth, scenic trails of the Root River Valley.
Rah Rah Rochester
The quiet medical giant may be sterile, but it's also engaging.
In Rochester, a tourist from the Twin Cities is a novelty.
Tourists from anywhere are a novelty, though patients and medical professionals come from around the world.
“This week, I had customers from Guatemala, Panama and India in just a few hours,’’ said Kathy Barnes, a
fourth-grade teacher who works part-time at the apparel shop Collections.
Drama on the Prairie Coteau
At Minnesota's Blue Mounds, the shifting beauty of the prairie has a showcase.
In the land of 10,000 lakes, prairie often is dismissed as, well, dull.
But in the farthest corner of Minnesota, a dramatic patch of terrain offers more spectacle than an Imax show.
I stood atop Blue Mounds one afternoon in June, watching as bolts of lightening rocketed earthward from a leaden, wraparound
sky.
Little sod house on the prairie
A re-created pioneer home shows that life on the frontier wasn't quite as romantic as we think it was.
Sometimes, it comes as a shock to tourists, especially those who grew up watching the TV show "Little House on the Prairie,'' that life on the frontier wasn't all that fun.
Twenty miles east of Walnut Grove, Stan McCone tells it as it was. A farmer, he'd heard stories about the early sod houses. None remained, so he decided to build one of his own, using an old sod cutter.
"There were 13 sod houses in this neighborhood, and those are just the ones we know about,'' he says. "But with all those, there's zero recollection of them, and I know why — because of all the buried children alongside them. They had such hardship.''
Written in stone
In southwest Minnesota, the Jeffers Petroglyphs tell a dramatic but mysterious story.
In the middle of farm fields, on a slab of the same Sioux quartzite that pops out of the sod farther west at Pipestone and Blue Mound, the story of an ancient people is written with nearly 2,000 characters.
They’re dramatic characters — serpents of the underworld, and thunderbirds who shoot lightening bolts from their eyes.
There are buffalos and stick figures and atlatls, a spear-throwing device, but no bow and arrows, which began to replace the atlatl 1,000 years ago.
Little pageants on the prairie
A scrappy pioneer family is brought to life each year in two towns that played a prominent role in the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder.
It's morning in the Little Town on the Prairie, and we're thumbing through the guest book at the Prairie House Manor B&B.
"I can't believe we are in the 'Little Town' where Laura grew up,'' one woman writes. "This is truly a dream come true,'' writes another.
So many little girls, so many dreams. When Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her nine books about growing up on the American frontier of the 1870s and 1880s, she had no idea her idealized portrait of pioneer life would be such powerful medicine to so many.
Cave country
In southeast Minnesota, scratch the surface for a glimpse of splendor.
Under the cornstalks of Fillmore County, an unusual sculpture garden sits in shadow.
Stalagmite topiaries line walkways, alongside pale-green flowstone as translucent as Chinese jade. Stalactite statuettes dangle in artistic arrays.
They’re obviously created by a Pollock of rock, a Van Gogh of stone. Yet their genius relies not on the medium — water, applied one drop at a time — but on eons worth of time.
A German Mardi Gras
At New Ulm's Bock Fest, the good times roll in on a tide of beer.
Oh, the joy of being German.
There's no question that Germans know how to have a good time. After all, they've given the world Oktoberfest, half-gallon steins and "The Little Chicken Dance.''
And what else? Beer, of course, the enjoyment of which is a God-given right to Germans; their adage "Hopfen und Malz, Gott erhalts'' roughly translates as "Malt and hops, to God, are tops.''
Pipestone homage
For centuries, its quarries have been a sacred spot.
It's easy to see why the Plains Indians saw the Great Spirit at work in a far corner of Minnesota.
Amid an ocean of tall grass, a fractured pile of hard red rock suddenly erupts from the sod. It's Sioux quartzite, once sand at the edge of a red ocean, cooked and pressed into marble-like stone over a billion years. Beneath the quartzite is a thin seam of a softer stone, a red, hardened clay that's barely harder than a fingernail.
This is pipestone, mined for centuries by people of many tribes, who carved into effigies and pipes called calumets, whose
smoke carried messages to the Great Spirit.
Snowshoeing in Minnesota
In the land of lakes, it's easy to get off the beaten path.
There are many good reasons to go off trail, and the chance to see moose definitely is one of them.
When we were at Bear Head Lake near Ely one January, we hiked first along a lakeside ski trail that was so packed we didn't
need snowshoes.
But then the ranger mentioned she'd seen moose tracks in fresh snow near the park entrance, and we decided to go moose-tracking. Strapping on our snowshoes, we plunged from the road into deep woods.
The belle of bluff country
In southeast Minnesota, tiny Lanesboro pulls in the tourists.
In an isolated bluff-country valley, reached only by small, winding roads, lies one of Minnesota's favorite getaways.
There are no condo resorts here, no wine bars and — heaven forbid — no national franchises. The aroma of
manure hangs over downtown on Wednesdays and Fridays, when livestock auctions are held.
Only 750 people live here, and they can't afford to advertise much, so most visitors come via word of mouth.
Amish country
In a corner of Minnesota, folks are different, yet not so different.
In southeast Minnesota, some of the locals stand out a bit.
They travel in horse-drawn buggies, they dress only in dark colors and they speak an archaic German dialect. In their homes and workshops, they refuse to use electricity, natural gas or plumbing, all of which would literally connect them to the outside world.
They're Old Order Amish, direct descendants of a Swiss religious group that believed Martin Luther and other Reformation leaders didn't go far enough in returning the church to strict Scripture.
Oronoco's Gold Rush
In August, treasure hunters converge on a southern Minnesota village.
Every August, the tiny southeast Minnesota town of Oronoco becomes the mother lode.
Tents full of carved armoires and sideboards pop up along the town's narrow streets. Yards sprout crates of antique lunch boxes and duck decoys.
The church ladies bake pies, the VFW folks flip pancakes and firefighters put hot dogs on the grill. Then the people come, stampeding through the streets like sheep to salt.
In the land of Norwegians
Old World traditions come with a wink in the bluff-country burg of Spring Grove.
At first, the southeast Minnesota town of Spring Grove looks like any other town.
There’s a café, an antiques store and a park full of statues. But Spring Grove isn’t ordinary. It’s full of Norwegians.
In the park, two bronze men appear to be squabbling; they’re characters in a nationally syndicated comic strip written by a Spring Grove man 50 years before Neil Simon came up with “The Odd Couple.’’
Bluff-country byways
In fall, Minnesota's southeast corner yields a cornucopia of treats and scenery.
At harvest time, Minnesota's bluff country overflows with beauty.
Fat pumpkins await buyers at farmers' markets. Golden clumps of wildflowers line bicycle trails. From buggies, the Amish sell homemade baskets, bumbleberry jam and apple butter.
There's an abundance of everything, including tourists.
All eyes on Wabasha
Eagles are drawn to this Mississippi River town, along with flocks of binocular-toting visitors.
Along the Mississippi River, the fortunes of Wabasha have risen right along with the once-endangered bald eagle.
Eagles reappeared slowly after DDT was banned in 1972, and one of the first places they could be seen was in this Minnesota town, just downriver from the mouth of the Chippewa River, which kept water open in winter so eagles could fish.
The city built a deck downtown and staffed it with spotting scopes and volunteers from November through March. Then it started a makeshift eagle center behind an empty storefront. In 2007, it opened the National Eagle Center in a handsome brick building on the river banks.
Afloat in Winona
Beneath the surface, a Minnesota river town moves fast.
For a river town that has everything going for it, Winona is a little hard for a tourist to get to know.
Those who venture off U.S. 61 find a downtown that's long, spread out and a little forlorn on weekends. To find its Mississippi riverfront, they have to cut across train tracks and around a concrete levee wall.
For 50 years, a paddlewheeler sat atop the riverbank, serving as museum, event center and gathering spot. The Julius C.
Wilkie was only a replica of a steamboat, but it served as city icon and festival namesake, so when the rotting
structure was demolished in 2008, it left a dent in the city's identity.
Scrappy Northfield
As outlaws discovered, this Minnesota college town is small but rarely sleepy.
Northfield always has been shaped by newcomers.
First the Yankees came to town, then the Norwegians. Each started a college, and the Yankees built mills, whose flour won international prizes as the Minneapolis mill were just getting started.
Missourians arrived in 1876 for a brief but memorable visit; the violent bank raid by the James-Younger Gang is called "the seven minutes that shook Northfield.''
Where the Germans are
In southern Minnesota, New Ulm hangs on to a colorful heritage.
There are few towns more conspicuously American than New Ulm, Minn.
Laid out by the town founders, its wide streets follow an orderly grid toward downtown, where cars park at an angle in front of boxy brick businesses and meat-and-potatoes cafes.
There are softball games and Friday-night fish fries and many friendly people. It's the epitome of small-town America — and yet this is a town famous for being German.
Roaming in Red Wing
A scenic Mississippi River town is a magnet for tourists.
For many years, Red Wing has been Twin Citians’ favorite day-trip destination.
It’s adorable, with its brick storefronts, flowering planters hung from lampposts and rows of stately Victorian houses in three historic districts.
Sitting on a sharp elbow of the Mississippi, it’s a small town that still looks the part — it has a bakery, a barber shop, a homespun café — and it's the only Minnesota town on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's list of Distinctive Destinations.
Lodgings in Minnesota state parks
Surrounded by nature, a lucky few sleep in relative luxury.
If you don't have a cabin of your own, Minnesota has one you can borrow.
Some really are cabins, but others are houses, complete with two-car garages, like the one at Bear Head Lake State Park, previously occupied by the park manager. Some were private houses that have been renovated, like the Illgen Falls Cabin in Tettegouche State Park.
There's something for everyone in Itasca State Park: rooms in a historic lodge, classic cabins, motel-style rooms and
new suites with computer access. It doesn't have camper cabins, but you'll find those at 22 other Minnesota state
parks.
Posse on the prairie
In Madelia, the Jesse James Gang met its match — again.
In September 1876, a vicious gang of outlaws came up against some ordinary Minnesotans.
The outlaws came out on the short end. Twice.
The Civil War ended more than a decade before the James-Younger Gang rode into Minnesota. But it was far from over in Missouri, devastated by guerrilla warfare and still simmering with resentment.
Lodgings in Lanesboro
Welcome mats multiply as visitors descend on this southeast Minnesota hamlet.
Before the Root River State Trail was built, the only places to stay in Lanesboro were some small hunters' cabins near the city park.
That was before there was anything to do in the isolated village besides hunt and fish. Now Lanesboro is the recreational and
cultural capital of southeast Minnesota, with a brand-new theater, and arts center and 60 miles of paved bicycle
trails.
With visitors pouring in, Lanesboro also has become the bed-and-breakfast capital of the Minnesota, with more B&Bs than any other town, plus several inns.
Music on the Mississippi
In southeast Minnesota, an unusual medley of rural and small-town venues draws delighted audiences.
In southeast Minnesota, along the Mississippi and in its bluffs, fans of folk music and the blues will realize they're really
into country.
Country as in friendly and down-home. Country as in far from the bright lights and big city.
Out in the countryside, music sounds different. In an old general store in Oak Center, it's toasty warm, like late-afternoon
sunlight.
Escape to Eagle Bluff
A center near Lanesboro welcomes families for weekends filled with nature and good food.
It was a beautiful fall weekend in Lanesboro, and the streets of this picturesque town in Minnesota’s bluff country were packed with sightseers and bicycle tourists.
They were browsing in gift shops. They were sampling at the winery. They were bicycling on the Root River State Trail.
In fall, Lanesboro is the darling of day-trippers and weekenders. My children and I love it, too. They spent 15 minutes with me in the arts center, I spent 15 minutes with them in the Indian crafts shop, and then we went in-line skating on the paved trail, across the trestle bridge and along the limestone bluffs.
Bicycling in Minnesota
This state's long, paved trails draw eager riders from around the region.
For Minnesota bicyclists, there are two seasons: winter and trail construction.
That's a good thing, because bicycle tourists crave more trails and towns crave more bicycle tourists. That little ribbon of asphalt, they've discovered, can put them on the map.
"In our area, it seems one city after another is fighting for trails," says Stearns County parks director Chuck Wocken.
Brigadoon in bluff country
At Historic Forestville, visitors are transported back to 1899.
In Minnesota, people value their own history so much that the Minnesota Historical Society was founded nine years before the state itself.
No wonder the state's living-history sites are among the best in the nation.
At a fur post, logging camp and fort, tourists get a peek into the past, and schoolchildren learn their heritage at the feet
of lumberjacks, voyageurs, soldiers and farmers.
Dancing on the Yellow Medicine
In history-filled river valley, a wacipi celebrates Dakota culture.
For many people, the Minnesota River Valley is full of shadows.
In 1862, years of greed and misunderstanding erupted into a clash that cost settlers their lives, the Dakota their homeland
and a new state its innocence. Even today, the valley's lush peacefulness is undercut by anger and guilt.
But on the first weekend of August, people of indigenous and European descent alike come to Upper Sioux Agency State Park to have a good time. At a wacipi, or powwow, the tradition of welcoming outsiders has held steady for many generations.
Little Crow lakes
West of the Twin Cities, easygoing Spicer and New London make a good beach getaway.
It’s a radical idea, but here goes: In Minnesota, you can go up to the lake by heading west.
These lakes not only are out west, they’re less than two hours from the Twin Cities, in a pocket of the state many overlook.
“It was a secret to me,’’ said Michele Stillinger, a former Twin Citian working as a naturalist at Sibley State Park. “I thought I wouldn’t find anything out here; I was very surprised.’’
Minnesota's environmental learning centers
A weekend at an ELC is fun for all ages, and a bargain to boot.
In Minnesota, a weekend at an environmental learning center is the best bargain you'll find anywhere.
There's more to do than at any luxury resort: yoga, high-ropes courses, climbing walls, ski trails, nature hikes, canoeing, skiing and snowshoeing on wooded campuses that include lakes and trails.
At Laurentian on the Iron Range, you can mush your own dog team. Near Lanesboro, Eagle Bluff is renowned for gourmet food and
wine.
Road trip: Southwest Minnesota
In the middle of prairie, blood-red rock splits the sod, holding meaning far beyond the picturesque.
In the southwest corner of the state, the prairie hardly looks like typical Minnesota vacation land.
Instead of lakes, fractured red quartzite erupts from the earth, and wind towers pop up on the horizon like giant black daisies. Herds of bison graze in fields, and yellow blooms cover prickly pear cactus.
This was the spiritual center of the universe for indigenous people on the prairie, and it exerts a pull on others, too.
Winona with snow
Snowstorms that blanket the southern woods bring skiers with them.
Skiers have a hard time figuring out Mother Nature.
It's supposed to snow across central and northern Minnesota and Wisconson, but in the last few years, many storms have veered to the south instead. It's odd, but what can you do? You have to go with the snow.
One year, at the end of February, my friend Becky and I were just about to make the long drive to the snowy Upper Peninsula of Michigan when the southeast Minnesota town of Winona got blanketed with 30 inches.
Ponies and putters
In the Minnesota River Valley, a state park makes golfing and horseback riding easy to afford.
Of all the fun things a person can do, riding a horse is not one of the cheapest. Unless you’re part of the country-club set, it’s an expensive hobby — kind of like golf.
But there’s one place where you can go on a trail ride and golf and stay overnight — for less than $100 per person.
My friend Debra knew about a Minnesota River Valley stables that offers scenic three-hour trail rides for $60. I knew about a guesthouse right on the golf course in Fort Ridgely State Park where five of us could sleep on the floor for $15 apiece.
River with a past
On the lush Minnesota, beautiful scenery comes with harsh history.
Around the world, people know Minnesota for its waters — source of the Mississippi, land of lakes.
But those are not the waters for which it's named. Those waters belong to a river whose cloudiness led the Dakota to call it "waters reflecting the skies" — the Minnesota.
It was more than a mile across at the end of the last ice age, when it drained glacial Lake Agassiz, the largest lake that ever existed. Today, it's small and sluggish, and farm runoff and erosion have increased its natural siltiness. But the Minnesota's broad valley, reaching from the South Dakota border to the Twin Cities, is beautiful.
Minnesota's scenic byways
Hit the road for a glimpse of state's most engaging spots.
The corner of Third Avenue and U.S. 2 in Grand Rapids doesn’t exactly look like the edge of the wilderness.
The Blandin Co. paper mill is across the highway, its flat roof studded by smokestacks that send plumes of white smoke into the air. Trucks rumble past, en route to North Dakota or Duluth.
But this is the beginning of the 47-mile Edge of the Wilderness scenic route, Minnesota’s first National Scenic Byway. Just 10 blocks from U.S. 2, it leaves the city center and begins to skirt McKinney Lake. Then it winds northward, past pristine forests, undeveloped lakes and the occasional quiet village.
The Gags of New Ulm
A family of artists puzzled neighbors but went on to great things.
New Ulm hasn't always understood the kind of people who color outside the lines.
That describes the entire family of Anton Gág, a German-Bohemian artist whose work can be seen at New Ulm's Cathedral of the Holy Trinity and the brewery of August Schell, who was his patron and sent him to art school in Chicago for six months. All seven children were creative, spending their days drawing, telling stories and building sets for plays.
"He didn't want the children to be like other children," says Mary Ann Zins of New Ulm.
© Beth Gauper, 2007 - 2012 all rights reserved
