Riders Block XI

DAY 11

Land O’ Lakes, WI to Grand Forks, ND

430 miles

 

I wake up and immediately can tell that I am sick.  I use the bathroom a few times and fall back to sleep in between before my alarm clock goes off at eight thirty.  Chris and Dave and I eat a big breakfast together and I am holding it together, using the bathroom at fifteen-minute intervals at this point.  Dave lets me drive his ATV down their road and out onto the snowmobile trails and I go about twenty-five to thirty miles an hour down the gravel path.  The ride is exhilarating and I begin to understand why someone would want to drive cross-country on a motorcycle.

I say goodbye to Chris and Dave, who have a six hour drive of their own back to their place in Ingleside, and head off west on route 2.  The road brings me back up into the UP because of the sloping border between the two states and it is over an hour again before I am back in Wisconsin, this time by the far northern coast of the state.  The northern woods is nothing but wilderness with a few dipping hills and when I look in my side mirror and see no cars at all I suddenly become aware of how alone I am.  As I drive through thick forests and tiny houses I see signs for oncoming towns with names like Birch, Odana, Ino, Iron River and Maple and underneath each name, the welcoming signs say Unincorporated.  A couple of the towns are on an Indian Reservation, so this makes sense, but others are outside of it and still the towns are not officially a part of the union.  I am not sure what this means for their credibility when it comes to wanting something from the government or what it means when it comes time to pay the tax man, but I had never seen signs before explicitly telling a traveler that they were not in an officially-sanction township.

Lake Superior in Wisconsin is dark blue and this probably has something to do with the storm clouds overhead.  It rains on and off and I stop at the lake near Asheville but the water is cold and the temperature outside is colder so I give up on swimming in the world’s largest fresh water lake one last time.  Near Superior, WI and Duluth, MN, which are on the lake, separated by the St. Louis Bay and connected by the Bong Memorial Bridge, the view of the water is beautiful but the coast is covered with smoke stacks and coal chutes.  After I pass into the land of ten thousand lakes, the clouds break apart and the scorching heat returns and I have to pull over and quickly put sunscreen all over the left side of my body.

Northern Minnesota looks like what I assume Siberia looks like.  The road is flat and straight and is surrounded by dense, forests of gnarled pine trees.  In some areas where it looks as if the forest has been cleared for timber, there are small seedlings climbing their way towards the sky, interspersed with gray, dead skeletons.  In the air above the woods eagles and hawks circle the road looking for something to eat.  I stop in Grand Rapids after having stopped many other times just to use local bathrooms, coming out of each one feeling sicker and more drained than before.  I pass over the Mississippi, which is merely a tiny, marshy-looking river at this point, winding through boggy wetlands, and know that it is only a few miles from here where the headwaters of the great river have their origin.  I find a nice café called Brewed Awakenings and have espresso and a sandwich.  I feel enormously better after the caffeine and food intake and hit the road with a renewed sense of adventure.  

There is roadwork all over route 2 and I am convinced that every major road (and by major I mean any state and county route you can think of) in the country is being Obama-ed as part of the stimulus package.  I spend endless amounts of time driving down one lane highway or taking ridiculous detours through the woods that I curse the ARRA and everything that it stands for (but not really).  Most of the towns I pass are built entirely on route 2 and surrounded by woods.  I pass through dense forests of white birch trees and eventually come to Cass Lake.  I walk down by the water and over a pedestrian bridge that sits over the calm waters that are filled with lily pads and long green reeds.  I watch an eagle swoop down into the lake and pluck a fish out of the water like he was grabbing a potato chip out of a bag and then fly away.  The sun moves in and out of the clouds and the breeze gusts and dies accordingly.  After Bemidji, the forests begin to disappear and if there are trees, they are in small clusters miles away or in a single file line, used to mark the edge of someone’s property.  Farms begin to dominate the landscape, growing mostly hay and soy.  A field of sunflowers is dazzling in the sunlight, looking like a field of gold nuggets, as if they can by grown by farmers instead of extracted by miners.

The long flat road finally leads me to Grand Forks just over the border in North Dakota.  I drive around downtown Grand Forks and even East Grand Forks, MN for thirty minutes and fail to find a place to stay.  Finally I come to a hotel whose lobby looks like someone’s living room because the caretakers are folding towels and watching television.  One of their children has drawn all over his face with markers.  I drive downtown and walk through the park and over the bridge and have a quick meal then return to the hotel room, exhausted from the long drive and the myriad of stomach issues I have been facing all day.  I watch soon-to-be-MLB-superstar Bryce Harper strike out in the All American High School Baseball Tournament (which ends in a tie after only ten innings!) and then go to bed.