GREAT RIVER ROAD

La Crosse, Wisconsin: “Best laid plans of mice and men . . .” - I had a friend, a football coach; once after losing a game we were supposed to have won he soberly observed, “Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear easts you” Robert Burns didn’t waste words either, making the same observation. Lake Itasca should have required two days at most but I made reservations for five. My best laid plan anticipated inclement weather so it worked this time. I just wanted one, sunny day and that’s what we got on the last day. This time, we ate the bear. 

Bemidji, Minnesota claims the title, “1st City On The Mississippi.” Driving into town from the south, you notice the lake on the right but not the unpretentious little bridge or the placid, backwater creek below. Still, you are some thirty miles downstream on the mighty ‘Mississip’. Another fifty miles to the east is Grand Rapids, Minnesota. A paper company has backed up a reservoir with a dam there. The river on the down side of the dam had grown respectably. Their claim was to the Navigable Headwaters of the Mississippi. 

One day of sunshine was all we got. South bound again, we had bluster and drizzle again. We stayed with a couple of teachers that night in Saint Cloud. Their little B&B had us sleeping on the hide-a-bed in the living room.  They had company and charged just enough to cover our breakfast. They were interesting and fun. Breakfast was great and we would stay with them again if passing this way.

By the time you get to the Twin Cities, the Mississippi has widened and its channel accommodates barge traffic. Traffic on the freeway doesn’t allow for river gazing but then concrete and steel have a way of making everything feel mundane. It’s not until you cross over into Wisconsin at Prescott that you get a feel for “The Great River Road”. At the end of the river bridge the road goes up a long, steep hill or you can turn to the south. Freedom Park is up on the bluff. According to the literature, this is where the Great River Road begins and you have this wonderful view, up and down the river, as wide as a football field is long with woods ashore and an island midstream. That morning we spent a couple of hours at the Minneapolis Art Institute Museum. In the Minnesota Room, I noticed a large oil painting from the 1860’s of a paddle wheel steamboat on the river.The artist was from Minnesota but the view was suspiciously similar to the view from Freedom Park, in Wisconsin. After negotiating 200 miles of wetlands and tributaries, the meandering little race had grown up with still another 2,000 miles to go.

The Great River Road is the network of highways that hug the river on either side, touted by the tourism industry in river cities all the way to the bird-foot delta at the end. The little hamlets might not offer anything more than a chance to stop for fuel and a view of the river but they tell a story without trying. I wondered how many times had flood water been up the walls of those buildings and how many times had those people put the pieces back and started over.  For dinner I had a batter fried, Walleye sandwich so big it would have taken a full loaf of bread to contain the fillet. Football was on the big screen but I can’t remember even who was playing. I wouldn’t be there again and it was river culture I was soaking up. 

It will take another day or so to reach Hannibal, Missouri where our Headwaters & Great River Road adventure will wrap up. I’m sure I will have some Mark Twain influences to write about and with a little luck, a fish fry at the local Methodist Church or put on by the Knights of Columbus.