Monday, August 8th - - About 9:15 pm a Park Ranger drove through the campground at Copper Falls announcing over the loudspeaker that the National Weather Service had issued a severe storm warning effective until ten o'clock. High winds, hail, heavy rain and lightening were imminent. All campers were to take immediate shelter!
I saw people scurrying around their tents putting things away and heading towards their cars or trucks. Me? I was already sitting in Van Dora. Snug as a bug in a rug. I didn't see anyone leaving the area so I stayed put. Besides, where were we to go?
Within a few minutes after making the announcement, the rain came. Aside from a lot of lightening there was only the rain. No hail. No high winds. And it only lasted about an hour. And for that I was thankful. My thoughts went to that campground in Arkansas last year where flash floods went through the area and several people lost their lives. We had some warning, and I was ready to leave, if necessary. But the question came once again, where would we go?
Tuesday, August 9th - - It was cloudy and overcast this morning. It rained off and on all morning. I was traveling west on US 2 toward Minnesota. At Ashland, Wisconsin I picked up State Road 13 and followed it along the beautiful Lake Superior shoreline all the way to Superior-Duluth where I returned to US 2. By then the weather had cleared. The clouds were gone (mostly) and sunshine filled the skies as I traveled nearly three-fourths of the way across Minnesota. I would spend several days at Itasca State Park south of Bemidji.
Wednesday, August 10th - - Itasca is a huge State Park with a lodge, cabins, two campgrounds with more than 250 sites, more than 40 miles of hiking trails, a 5.8 mile paved biking trail, and numerous lakes within its 32,000 acres. The Park was established in 1891 to preserve remnant stands of virgin pine and to protect the basin around the source of the Mississippi River.
This little stream doesn't look like much, does it? However, it is the Mississippi River, flowing rather quickly just a few hundred feet from its source at the north end of Lake Itasca.
This sign proclaims “Here 1475 ft above the ocean the mighty Mississippi begins to flow on its winding way 2552 miles to the Gulf of Mexico.” My Mother and I visited New Orleans in the summer of .. and saw where the Mississippi flowed into the delta and into the Gulf. Like US Highway 41, I've traveled along portions of the Mississippi and now I've not only been at its end, I've seen its beginning. Rather cool, I think.
This is it. The headwaters of the Mississippi River. People are encouraged to “walk across the Mississippi” here, one of the few places accessible for the average person to do so.
The rocks were quite slippery. This man and his son nearly toppled into the water several times. I didn't attempt to walk across the rocks but there was a narrow log footbridge - perhaps 18 inches wide, so maybe not so narrow, but it seemed so when walking across it without handrails for assistance!
I walked a ways down the trail along the shore of the lake but little could be seen because of the trees. There were some interesting wild flowers though!
And this small, fluffy, milkweed type of plant.
After what seems like ages, beloved Patrizia has finally returned to me. This is my personal Bella Ciao bicycle that has undergone many customisations and served as the "Superba" prototype guineapig. Having spent months in various states of disassembly, she then endured a long stay at the rack-maker's workshop - all without a word of complaint. And now she is back, her slender curves enticing me with promises of a romantic Indian summer.
I am also reunited with the wonderful Ideale saddle I'd acquired in a trade some time ago. I had installed it on a vintage mixte I owned at the time, but after that bicycle was sold the saddle lived in my closet for over a year, waiting for the right moment to re-emerge. It looks and feels quite at home here.
Ideale was a French saddle manufacturer and the Model 6 is a wide, short-nosed women's saddle that was made some time in the '70s. Although some have drawn parallels between the vintage Ideale and contemporary Berthoud saddles, in my opinion they are nothing alike and Berthoud is not an Ideale remake.
Finally, I am reunited with the wooden grips I began to experiment with a few months back. I've decided to keep them on this bike, and they have been surprisingly comfortable. I thought that I might get blisters on my hands, but it hasn't happened. I am also happy to report that they haven't cracked or distorted despite plenty of humidity and temperature changes over the summer. I am not going to finish them with any kind of sealant, because I'd like to see what happens to them in the winter. Vintage collectors who are experienced with wooden grips have told me that if the grips are made "in the right way" they should not need any sealant and will be fine as they are. We'll see. While I'd be reluctant to recommend these for mainstream use, personally I love them.
Riding this particular bicycle always makes me realise how weird my tastes are. Responses to it have included "Ew, that colour!", "How can you ride with those things on the handlebars?" and "Is that a woman's army bike??" - all of which I've found oddly gratifying. Looking with fondness at her wooden grips, pukey powdercoat, trigger shifter and mottled 40 year old saddle makes me want to put my arm around Patrizia: "Looks like it's just you and me, babe."
Comparing the two images, the first thing I noticed was that the pitch of the roof is steeper in the old image (artistic license perhaps?), several of the chimney's have been removed, and the brick exterior has been painted. The porch has been extended to the full depth of the offset and a sloped roof replaces the railed deck. There is only one entrance off of the porch into the house. The door going into the south facing section has been removed. The second window above the porch was actually a door. It too has been removed as has the "front" door (the empty space below the 3rd upstairs window). Modern insulated windows have replaced the originals, and the decorative thing-a-ma-jigs above the windows are gone.
Cropped portion of the picture used in the 1876 atlas, shown in a previous post.
Looking southeast, showing the room that was added onto the southwest corner of the house and some of the out-buildings.
