734 Down, None To Go
Wow. I gotta start posting here more frequently again. It's been a busy few weeks, particularly this past weekend as I took my annual September road trip to northern Minnesota. I stayed overnight in the logging town of Grand Rapids this year and visited an old neighbor buddy who now lives and works there. More importantly, this was THE trip in which I officially conquered the state of Minnesota.
The precise moment of conquer was Saturday afternoon at 1:07, when I drove through Millerville, a tiny burg of 110 people in Douglas County in west-central Minnesota. It was the last of 20 Minnesota communities that I had not yet visited after years of Minnesota road-tripping. A journey that unofficially began in 1998 finally came to a close 734 towns and nearly 10 years later.
The greatest drama came earlier in the day, however, as I finally got the nerve to drive through the one town that I've been putting off for years due to its reputation....and that town is Red Lake, the Indian reservation community recently infamous for the worst school shooting massacre since Columbine two years ago. The community of Red Lake is about 15 miles into the reservation.....a reservation widely considered the most hostile in the country towards outsiders, so much so that the old tribal chief required visitors to have passports when they entered the reservation. The setting is beautiful, with windy roads travelling through the lush pine forests of northern Minnesota and occasional overlooks of Red Lake itself (Lower Red Lake anyway), the largest lake in the state besides Lake Superior. And although the communities on the reservation didn't look quite as harsh on a sunny Saturday morning before 9 a.m., they nonetheless posed a sharp contrast to the beauty of the land and served as a constant reminder that I was "the enemy" in this territory and would be well-advised to drive on out of there as quickly as possible. After a little over 20 miles of navigating the reservation, I made my escape and breathed a huge sigh of relief to have passed on through under the radar of local unfriendlies or the corrupt tribal police, particularly after listening to numerous horror stories from my friend the night before.
Even with all 734 Minnesota communities behind me, I still plan to make annual pilgrimages up to northern Minnesota every September. The fall colors are already evident up there by mid-September and there's just something about that crisp late summer air in the northern Minnesota woods. I wouldn't want to live there given my preference for wide open spaces, but I never pass up an opportunity to visit.
The precise moment of conquer was Saturday afternoon at 1:07, when I drove through Millerville, a tiny burg of 110 people in Douglas County in west-central Minnesota. It was the last of 20 Minnesota communities that I had not yet visited after years of Minnesota road-tripping. A journey that unofficially began in 1998 finally came to a close 734 towns and nearly 10 years later.
The greatest drama came earlier in the day, however, as I finally got the nerve to drive through the one town that I've been putting off for years due to its reputation....and that town is Red Lake, the Indian reservation community recently infamous for the worst school shooting massacre since Columbine two years ago. The community of Red Lake is about 15 miles into the reservation.....a reservation widely considered the most hostile in the country towards outsiders, so much so that the old tribal chief required visitors to have passports when they entered the reservation. The setting is beautiful, with windy roads travelling through the lush pine forests of northern Minnesota and occasional overlooks of Red Lake itself (Lower Red Lake anyway), the largest lake in the state besides Lake Superior. And although the communities on the reservation didn't look quite as harsh on a sunny Saturday morning before 9 a.m., they nonetheless posed a sharp contrast to the beauty of the land and served as a constant reminder that I was "the enemy" in this territory and would be well-advised to drive on out of there as quickly as possible. After a little over 20 miles of navigating the reservation, I made my escape and breathed a huge sigh of relief to have passed on through under the radar of local unfriendlies or the corrupt tribal police, particularly after listening to numerous horror stories from my friend the night before.
Even with all 734 Minnesota communities behind me, I still plan to make annual pilgrimages up to northern Minnesota every September. The fall colors are already evident up there by mid-September and there's just something about that crisp late summer air in the northern Minnesota woods. I wouldn't want to live there given my preference for wide open spaces, but I never pass up an opportunity to visit.
posted by Mark at 9:07 PM
7 Comments:
I'd love to visit Minnesota someday and see as much of it as I can. I also plan to see all of California's communities, though it will take me much more than 9 years to see all 2,000+ of them. But it should still be fun anyway.
Sara, I think you'd enjoy Minnesota. There's a broad spectrum of scenery. Farms in the south and west.....river valley bluffs in the southeast....and dense woods in the northern half of the state. Good luck in seeing all of California's communities. You're right that it's no small task. My strategy was to take a lot of carefully crafted two and three-day road trips where I would consciously touch towns and stretches of road that I had not travelled previously. You'd be surprised how many towns you can knock off when you do it that way.
I implore you to start with the state of Texas and try to get to every town there. :)
By the way, I plan to install that program you mentioned this weekend. I should have some free time on my hands finally.
I plan to see as much of Texas as I can, which will likely take longer than in California simply because there's more land to cover, though I have a big head start here since I've seen just about every corner of the state, while in California, I haven't yet been north of L.A.
I have explored a lot of Texas. I would love to explore California and Minnesota. However, I am fine in my homestate, just need to move to KC.
Mark, if you ever move to MO, the KC-metro area (on both sides) is better then the Stl-Metro.
James, I live in Iowa now and have visited some of the rural counties about an hour north and east of Kansas City. Pretty redneck up in those parts as it is in the southern counties of Iowa, but there are also alot of Amish in the countryside. Just out of curiosity, why do you like the Kansas City area more than St. Louis?
Well, the northwestern Missouri counties really aren't part of KC-Area. I like the KC Area for several reasons.
First, on both sides of the state line, many of the cities are rated as among the best to live in the US.
Second, I like the urban-atmosphere of the city itself, yet it is not densely populated.
Third, the metro area as a whole is pretty diverse, compared to the mainly white states of Kansas and Missouri
Fourth, the metro area is a bit safer then the St Louis area.
Fifth, My visits to KC have been funner then St Louis
Sixth, most of my friends like KC better
Even I like KC better, though I haven't yet seen St.L and I've seen KC.
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