We resume our broadcast on a March morning in Minnesota. My parents were slightly shocked at my semi spontaneous purchase but, after I explained a few things to them, they shrugged and were ok with it.
As I have mentioned, I didn’t have all of the free time on this trip but I did have this one day. It occurred to me to resume my search for a partner in crime, but something else was calling me. It was a call that I had been hearing for a while, but never quite answered.
Today, I would answer it.
About three hours and forty-five minutes North and West of my parents’ home lies Itasca State Park. Site of Lake Itasca and the headwaters of the Mississippi river. I had been there once, as a kid, but not since. Today, I had free. I had a brand new truck, a day off, a beautifully blue sky, and a balmy 45 degrees or so. So, after waking and hitting the gym, off I went.
The initial part of the drive was, well… typical. City streets and highways. Getting out on to I-94 west, however, was a game changer. I had been this way before. Been to St. Cloud before, been onto the prairie that lies west of the Twin Cities before. But not for a long time. It felt new. Like I was seeing familiar things for the first time. On the one hand, I-94 is just another interstate. On the other… it was like the express way to unlocking memories that I didn’t even know that I had.
About an hour into the drive I saw a sign. A sign that stirred something in me and that would alter my route home… but I’m getting ahead of myself.
I made the rest of the drive with a growing sense of excitement. It had been so long since I had been there. Would I even remember what it looked like? What it felt like? I turned off of the interstate and continued on back highways and county roads until I made it to the park.
Once I got there I was shocked. I didn’t remember any of this. What I remembered was trying to walk across the river and busting my ass. I remember my sister, who had made it across without incident, laughing at me and my mother, who obviously thought it was pretty damned funny also, trying half-heartedly to stop her from doing so.
Why was it to important for me to come? Why? Almost 4 hours of driving… for… what?
I found the visitors center and, like any northern Minnesota state park, it was open for snowmobiling and cross country skiing although the rapidly melting snow meant that the other park visitors were hiking along muddy trails. I entered and paid my $25 for a year access to all the MN state parks. I mean… I live in Virginia. Why wouldn’t I buy a year pass to the MN state parks? Right?
After sitting on the comfortable cabin style furniture and enjoying not being in the truck, I went outside and applied the sticker to the right side of my windshield. It was the second access decal attached. I had salvaged my 2017 Outer Banks Off Road Vehicle pass from Rogue and had already affixed it to the left side of my windshield.
I climbed back in and followed the signs to the river.
The weather was about 45 degrees or so and, like any true Viking and son of the north… I rolled the windows down. The air was so cool and crisp. It smelled of wet earth and pine trees, as if the air itself was somehow more… pure. I stopped at an overlook and saw the lake. Still covered in a rapidly melting roof of ice she was larger than I remembered. I didn’t stay long. I had other places to see.
I don’t recall the headwaters being such a big deal when I was there last, but it is a big deal now. The headwaters area has its own visitors center, gift shop, I believe even a restaurant, and bathrooms. There are poems carved into the walking pavers and sculpture and displays of the local flora and fauna. It is quite impressive.
The trail is about ¼ mile and was, of course, muddy. I didn’t care. The earth, wet as it was, felt… electric. It felt… amazing. Like for the moments I was here, all the weight of my life at the time was lifted from my shoulders.
I got there and saw that despite the presence of ice on Lake Itasca, the headwaters were flowing freely. I stood and remembered a hot summer day so many years ago.
The lake was covered in ice.
I didn’t have a change of clothes.
I was alone.
Hypothermia is a bitch.
Did I dare try to walk the stones?
Of course I did! How could I not?
I walked across once just to prove to myself and, maybe, to the river that I could. Why a childhood failure would weigh so heavily on me, I don’t know, but I needed somehow to prove that I could make it across.
The second trip was… a celebration. A celebration of being alive, of being in that place, of being OF that place. My home state is a glorious mix of lakes and rivers and cities. It is a state full of generally well meaning, generally well educated, generally decent hard working people. It is the state that revels in its own ridiculousness and, for the most part, is content to do so. It is a place that always surprises me with how much I miss it.
Finished with my time at the headwaters, I returned to town where, since I was hungry and there was a distinct lack of fast food restaurants, or any restaurants for that matter, I bought a loaf of bread, a ½ pound of ham, some cheese, and some mustard and made what must have been the world’s largest ham sandwich. I walked over and chatted with the purveyor of the local bookstore, then headed home.
But I couldn’t go home. Not just yet.
On the way back I passed that sign again. Annandale, it read. I got off. I hadn’t been to Annandale for years. But, for years, I spent almost every weekend there.
The summer I was born, my grandfather purchased a lake place on Lake Sylivia, just outside of Annandale. It was a magical place where a kid from the suburbs could learn to run the boat, swim, waterski, build a fire, and do all the things we used to encourage our boys to do. It was heaven on earth.
I was the early riser in the family. I would be up with the sun, which is quite early at such a northern latitude, and would wait, with what passed for childhood patience, until my grandfather woke up. He and I would go out front and put the flag up, then take my grandmother’s car into town to get a newspaper and a six-pack or two of caramel rolls. We would return to the cabin to find my grandmother awake and brewing coffee, the old fashioned way, on the stove, and I would have to “cultivate patience”, as grandpa said, until the rest of the family woke up. Grandma was very firm about family breakfasts; and she was not to be trifled with.
Breakfast complete, we kids would jump into our swimsuits and bolt for the lake. To this day, I cannot say for sure how it was that we didn’t kill ourselves running down the steep steps towards the water. Nights were spent with a fire in the fireplace and a cutthroat game of Uno or Trivial Pursuit on the table while grandpa watched Benny Hill; a show the rest of us never really understood. We didn’t have to. It wasn’t funny watching Benny Hill; it was funny watching grandpa watch Benny Hill.
I hadn’t been back in many years and my grandmother had sold the place about two or three years previous. I had been heartbroken. In truth, I still am. That chunk of land and water is as much a part of me as the blood that flows in my veins. That chunk of land and water gave me my soul.
I had to see it. How could I not?
But at the same time, I was terrified. What if the new owners had knocked it flat? What if they had built some monstrosity in its place?
They hadn’t.
They had painted her green and replaced the flagpole with a fire pit. They seemed to be less concerned about their possessions as they had left the grill and some small boats out all winter but, that’s not my lookout. I went down to the dock, down the same stairs that my sister, cousins and I had tried very hard to kill ourselves racing down. Even the one that I had poorly repaired when I was 15.
I cried. The emotion of being back here was too much… and I cried my fool face off for a few minutes. Then got control of myself and stood with awe. I didn’t stay all that long. The sun was going down and the wind was picking up and I no longer had access to the cabin. It was time to go.
I stopped at the grocery store, long since moved from it’s original location, and picked up some caramel rolls. They wouldn’t be as good as they had been sitting all day, but I had to have some.
I got home late that night and went to bed. My mother asked where I had been and I told her. She looked surprised, shocked even. Then she wanted to know everything. What did the place look like? Were the new owners taking care of it? Why did I want to go there? I answered her questions and headed off to bed. I had restored part of my soul. For the first time in years I felt like a Minnesotan again.
Now… if I only had a dog.
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