Everything is going northwest, including the water!

I had an interesting day today. Being born and raised in Wisconsin, the only thing I knew about Minnesota was their football team sucked and they are the Land of Ten Thousand Mosquitoes. Today I found out a little more (but the Vikings still suck).

I also found out something that would qualify as an "oddity", the kind I had hoped to unearth periodically on this journey. This story also ties in, by location, to the site of one of my boyhood stories that is periodically repeated. For this reason, I will be posting two entries today.

My morning started, after packing, with a brief side trip off route. I had planned to travel west out of IFalls but, after conferring with my local tour guide (a.k.a. motel owner), I thought it would be fun to see a couple of the local sites. The first one was never found, but the search led me to a little restaurant in Ranier, Mn.

Sorry about the crummy picture. I hadn't had a cup of coffee yet

The restaurant was Grandmas Pantry on the outside, but a sign inside said I was in Lenard's Cafe. Turned out that the business had just changed hands and therefore names.

The town of Ranier sits on the Rainy River which is fed from the Boundary Waters of Northern Minnesota and flows through International Falls on its way to Lake of the Woods on the Canadian border, eventually flowing through Lake Winnipeg, then north to the Hudson Bay. I had always assumed that the river flowed east and fed the headwaters of the Mississippi River.

Rainy River

When I returned to IFalls I quickly located the Smokey the Bear park.

There were two men there with a tape measure sizing up the iconic bear. I asked if he was being fitted with his winter coat but was told they were getting him a fishing net to replace (temporarily?) his shovel. 

I didn't see much else of interest in the park so I turned my front wheel to the west and let it roll... one tenth of a mile. There I stopped and took a picture to document the milestone.

14,000 miles and counting (I know it says 40000, but there is a missing "1" at the beginning and a decimal point at the right, between digits

I also found another form of transportation but probably can't add it to my list because it was welded to a bicycle rack as a piece of art

Another nice mural too

From here I spent my day traveling west along Minnesota highway 11. When I left I-Falls I had about a half tank of fuel and knowledge of a series of small communities along the way. My assumption was that most, if not all, of these would have a gas station. My assumption was incorrect.

Most of these villages were so small that they did not even have a roadside sign noting their existence. Many lacked buildings and more than one lacked houses, at least along the highway. I saw one that had a sign on each side of an intersection, and some of the intersections carried county highway designations, but within view of the highway was a "Dead End" sign. The assumption of gas stations in every town (and likely that of a chicken in every pot) was challenged. I watched as miles rolled by and the number on my "range gauge" dropped, and dropped. 

I had seen the name Baudette on a sign just west of I-Falls, followed by the number 56. My range gauge said I had 78 miles in the tank. Close, I thought, but it shouldn't come to that. It did.

Just as I was counting on finding Baudette around the next bend, The Girls told me to turn left. I stopped at the intersection, searching for a sign to tell me if Baudette was left or straight ahead. I had no gas to spare if I guessed wrong, as the gauge had just converted to the "low fuel" warning, meaning I was less than 10 miles from a hiking experience I had not planned for. And I had no idea if Baudette had a gas station. Was it to be another ghost town?

About 50 yards before the intersection I had spotted someone down the hillside that served as a ditch so I saw an opportunity to show my U-Turn prowess. I pulled up alongside the road, parked the bike, took my helmet off and yelled down to the old man who was pulling weeds below. He didn't hear me. Fine, I thought, a deaf mute! I walked further into the knee deep rough before he spotted me. End result was I needed to ignore The Girls and go 3 miles in to town where there as a station. Just in the 7 mile nick of time!

Full of (lower than desired octane) fuel, I headed west again, stopping eventually at the Nite Hawk Bar and Grill for lunch. It was here that I solved, perhaps, the mystery of Lake of the Woods, and found out about the factoid that is the subject of my next posting. The town of Roosevelt, by the way, is named after Teddy, who probably hunted and/or fished locally.

From Roosevelt I moved just down the road and found Warroad, Mn. where I gained access to my first view of Lake of the Woods (at least the first view in many decades).

The fact that you can not see the other side of the lake may lead one to believe it looks a lot like Lake Superior. The difference is that the Canadian border goes through... hmmm, maybe they are a lot alike! 

A few miles later I happened across the home of Polaris - Roseau, Mn.

Roseau is French for "town where they build upside down snowmobiles", I believe

They had a sign out front proclaiming the Polaris Experience Center which proved to be nothing more than a collection of Polaris machines that tell the story of their development through their current status as they enter the world of motorcycles (they started building Victory about 12 years ago, then about 5 years ago bought the rights to the name Indian, a well respected manufacturer that pre-dated Harley by a few years until their demise after WWII).

Indian is manufactured by Polaris and features fenders that mostly conceal the tires

On the road once more, I endured some serious saddle time until I finally crossed in to state number 30!

Welcome to North Dakota, you can almost see Montana on the horizon, 400 miles to the west 

Just across the border I picked up I-29, apparently a new Interstate highway that runs north to Canada. I say new because the exit signs had a number but no other identification. No highway numbers, town names, attractions or services. Or maybe there are none! How far is it to Montana?

I found my way to Cavalier, N.D., where no one knows who Lebron James is. The Cedar Inn is unique in that it has a motel, restaurant, bar, hardware store and liquor store all under one roof! At least there is no mortuary thrown into the mix!