I had to get from my home in New Brighton to an appointment in Brooklyn Center and I didn’t have a car. Fortunately, yesterday was a gorgeous spring day and the prospect of being outside my little glass and steel box for the journey was both energizing and worrisome.
My concern had to do with the natural and man-made obstacles.
When I make this trip by car, it requires less than fifteen minutes of high speed travel on a busy Interstate Highway (694) and State Highway (100) and is as charmless as any metropolitan errand you’re likely to run, with the exception of the expansive view you get of beautiful Fridley as you head west over the hill just past Silver Lake Road. What you might also notice if you could spend some time studying that view is the Mississippi River and several major north-south thoroughfares running on either side of it – University Avenue to the east and I-94 to the west. Another barrier to east-west progress: the massive rail yards that stretch for miles from 694 south to 26th Street in Minneapolis. Looking at all those tracks on the map, I was reminded of a biology textbook close-up of the fibers of a major muscle. Figuring out how to get my little out-of-tune bicycle over all of that was daunting. At the very least I expected a harrowing ride with a close up view of a lot of stuff I’d rather not see.
But guess what? It was fun!
The first revelation was that Google maps has a bicycle icon in the “get directions” window that instantly plotted my trip for two wheels instead of four, giving me a bike-friendly path through the thicket. The eight mile trip I expected to take on busy, unfriendly streets became one that was largely taken on bike paths through some beautiful and interesting scenery. It really didn’t bother me that one-way, the journey took an hour.
Columbia Golf Course offers one of the more vertical rounds of golf you’ll play in the Twin Cities. The bike path around it also has some hills, so expect wind in your hair on the down slope and aching thighs going up. It was sunny and peaceful there yesterday afternoon with all the signs of summer on the way, including sunbathers, dogs and Frisbees.
Ah, the smell of creosote in the April sunshine! I love trains, especially when I can cross over or under them. This bridge was right alongside the golf course and reminded me that wood was once the only thing we had to hold up trains at crossings like this. It takes a lot of bracing to make this work!
The interesting railing on this bridge was a surprising and welcome flourish, especially since it was in such an industrial area. With all the obstacles, I saw that this trip was quickly becoming a bridge tour, and I was happy to not be worrying about dodging the semi-trailers down below.
The next bridge took me over the larger section of rail yards and was a relic – rusty iron and, on the walkway at least, crumbling concrete. Fortunately the rubble in the cars below came from elsewhere. At least I hope it did. One or two more loads of cement removed from this structure and there’d be nothing left to hold it up. The signs said “Walk Bikes Across Bridge” and I obeyed because I’m a habitual rule follower and I didn’t want to topple over the edge.
On the east side of the river I entered North Mississippi Regional Park, which I had never visited before. You can’t see it from the freeway but it stretches from the Camden Bridge up to I-694, and was the most surprising revelation of the trip. There’s a lot to see in here. I’ll be back!
It doesn’t get as much publicity as Minnehaha, but Shingle Creek runs through northwest Minneapolis and gives the neighborhood its name. It has a waterfall too. You can get close from the bike path, and then follow it down to the Mississippi.
When have you enjoyed the journey more than the destination?
Trail Baboon 
A few years back, friends and I took a weekend trip to southwest Minnesota. We used New Prague as our leaping-off point and took day trips west and south from there – visited the petroglyphs in Jeffers, Walnut Grove and the divit that was the Ingalls sod house on Plum Creek (waded in the creek), and truly enjoyed driving the backroads. In one of the small towns we passed through (may have been on the way back from Walnut Grove to New Prague), we came across a nun, in full habit, out for a walk. She was alone, and seemed somewhat out-of-place in a not-quite-out-of-place way. We wondered if, perhaps, she was a “free range nun”…which, being a little punchy from all our driving that day, made us laugh more than we should have – and it still makes us giggle. (I’m sure that there is a handbasket somewhere with my name on it waiting to take me on my journey to the flames below…)
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(Should I worry that I’m first on this morning?…Or are you all out enjoying the journey?)
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“Free-range nun” is a good one! She was probably in the habit of walking for exercise.
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She was in her habit walking for exercise!
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A divine way to get your exercise in!
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Although the souls of her shoes probably get holy.
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thats the kind of meat the catholic priest could have on friday. nun
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Uffda!
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Good morning to all:
I’m wondering, like Anna, why there aren’t more early comments. I guess Babooners are an independent group that doesn’t always do what one might expect. Maybe there are a lot of the regulars who have drifted off on a trip in their heads and will be back later to write about it.
I like all the pictures and the description of the bike trip, Dale. I actually don’t see as much when I’m on a bike as I do when driving, but I don’t do much biking. On almost any car trip I see some interesting things along the road.
We traveled across N. dakota and Montana for the first time last summer. It was partly by Interstate highway which limits what you can see. Even on the Interstate I could see what this county is like with the pot hole lakes and odd shaped hills in N. Dakota. The hills, I learned, are buttes which have distinctive shapes because they are eroded hills of a type of heavy soil or rock that we don’t have in Minnesota. I think Renne can tell us if my understanding of how buttes are formed is correct.
In Montana we took some roads that were more like back roads and saw lots of antelopes.
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Yes Jim, it is my understaning that the rocks/dirt that make up the buttes are harder than the surrounding rocks/dirt that eventually erodes, leaving the distinctive butte formations. There was no glaciation out here, so the land forms are due to erosion. There are some pretty weird shaped rocks in the badlands as a result. It is nice to hear some lauds for ND today. It takes a special eye to see the beauty that exists out here.
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I’m glad you like my comment, Renne. I like country with a lot of open sky like N. Dakota. Too much of the land has been turned into crop or heavily grazed land like in Minnesota, but you can still sort of imagine the wide open prairie that was once there and see remaining features like the pot holes and buttes.
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Loved being out there when my daughter and husband lived there. But I would not list getting there as fitting Dale’s topic today.
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Morning–
Every visit to the Dentist is that way.
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Ditto.
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Morning all…. up early to walk pooches and then distracted by crabby teenager!
Teenager and I both love to travel and have many journey stories but I’ll stick w/ just one this morning. Several years ago, when my parents moved to their teeny condo, I inherited three pieces of furniture that I needed to get from St. Louis to Minneapolis. Rather than expensive one-way airfare, child and I opted to take the train to St. Louis and then the rental truck back. Once you let go of the “I could be there by now” feeling, the train was a great adventure. Child and I had a map and lots of little stickers; every single town that we went through got a sticker on the map. The seats were big and easy to relax in and I got some good reading time in when not gazing out the windows. Child found some friends with a collection of Barbie dolls who thought her collection of stuffed animals was a perfect match. Who knew that Barbie and Ken were such intrepid unicorn riders! Except for the bathrooms, which were less than desirable, it was a fabulous trip and somebday I’d like to go out west on the train as well.
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On our Honeymoon we flew out to Seattle and then rode the train back. It was long and slow and not too many good memories but several bad ones unfortunately. (We went through the mountains at night so didn’t get to see much of them.)
The bathroom toilet overflowed one leg of the trip soaking most of the carpet of that car. And then a guy got on in Fargo who didn’t stop talking until we got to M/SP.
If I’m remembering right, the train stopped in Fargo at about 2AM and we were impressed with the number of people that were out waiting for the train.
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If I am remembering correctly, that is the ONLY train there is, so you get on at 2am or not at all.
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VS, we took a trip to Seattle on the train in the summer of ’07. It was a wonderful experience as long as you’re not on a tight schedule. Mechanical problems delayed the return departure and we had to wait at the station for a long time. But once on board, it was smooth sailing. The key for that long a journey is to get a place in the sleeping car. It’s much more expensive but oh, so worth it.
Our car attendant made mimosas and came around with them on Sunday morning as we watched North Dakota roll by, playing Scrabble, reading and watching the scenery. Great trip!
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always wanted to do tht trip that and the canadian rockies train ride.
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Rise and Shine Baboons:
Most trips are about the journey, less about the destination, with the exception of Ben’s trip to the dentist. The information, the sights, my own thoughts about stuff always surprise me when I am out of my comfort zone. That is why I travel.
Another exception is my trip to San Francisco where you cannot get a bad meal. Lou and I were on our way to the restaurant after checking in to our hotel. The place we went was 2 blocks down the street. It was a superb and affordable little cafe. And on the journey, during which I was not looking upward, a pigeon pooped down my neck. I learned all kinds of things about myself that I really did not want to know during that little trip. But because of that I’ll always remember the walk and the cafe!
Anna, don’t worry on WEdnesdays if you are first. I go to the gym on Wed morning, so if the blog hasn’t posted when I leave, I check in when I get home. It is democratic blogging.
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Speaking of birds, on Sunday we had a trip in which a normal humdrum journey to a wonderful destination was fun. As we drove up 169 to church in St. Peter, we saw a flock of 100 or so big white birds, which had to be snow geese, riding the thermals along the river bluffs. Had to do a littler study to learn this, but they do fly along this route, among others. Also, they fly from the Gulf of Mexico to far northern Canada without stopping, so they have to be using thermals along the way. Also learned they are so overpopulated that they are destroying their nesting grounds.
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Steady on like the honkers…
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Dale, you rode right through my wife’s childhood haunt, Camden Park. She grew up a block north of Camden, and for a long time her mother lived in a senior high rise at the end of Victory Drive right by the park. So my kids think of Camden Park as a major part of their childhood.
Having biked to work for years, I always preferred that journey to the destination.
My wife used to ride/fly with me when I had consulting/training jobs in Michigan, Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, Connecticut, North Carolina, and elsewhere. The jobs were an excellent excuse for fun trips. Fortunately I could take off days before and after, especially since trainings in schools are so often done on Friday or Monday.
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When I was a kid my parents would plan family trips around business trips my dad had to take – often driving to and from the destination. I remember more about the road to Seattle than actually being there, and way more about the roads and stops between here and Boston than Boston itself. I remember catching fireflies in Ohio, the sound of my mothers sharp intake of breath when my brother was driving (he had a fresh new learner’s permit on the trip East and drove a lot of the non-city driving), a farm in Vermont near where our ancestors settled for awhile when our country was still new (and possibly still colonies), standing on a corner in Cambridge, MA where a founding mother in the family had her house (on Margaret and Bliss Streets, we’re pretty sure they were named after her)…actually being in Boston? Nah…
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a gracious good morning to You All
me too – journey rather than destination. although yesterday we took the long way home from Duluth through Jay Cooke State Park to see the river – HOLEY MOLEY!!! didn’t see any white-water rafters out there yesterday – the water was ALL white – and deep and fast. no hint of that big gorge that one usually peeks down to see the river below. filled right up over the top. was amazing, even though i wanted to get home, was really glad we went that way.
i’m pretty much going to be late from now on – milking newbies takes a lot of squeezes. i lost count at 900 on Kona monday. decided not to count any more, just focus on the journey rather than the destination. much more pleasant.
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I love that ride. If we lived in Blackhoof, we would take that route often.
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Isn’t that beautiful? The road itself might be the worst-maintained highway in MN, but that might keep the riff raff out. Gorgeous trip.
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Are goat milkers prone to carpal tunnel syndrome? Think beautiful thoughts and take care of your hands and wrists!
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A nice surprise from yesterday that I would have missed if I would have been paying attention to the destination rather than the journey (walking home from school with Daughter and Barney the Hound): a black-crowned night heron hanging out by Minnehaha Creek. Beautiful bird. Surprised to see a heron so close to 50th street and a heavily trafficked set of parkways and footpaths.
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I used to take Joel, when he was Daughter’s age, to play by M’haha Creek just a little farther west, Anna – Xerxes area. Great memories, and we would see some interesting wildlife.
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After a week of deer hunting, I traveled by train (on the Empire Builder, no less!) from Havre, Montana, to Saint Paul. I had a terrible head cold, which made everything seem trippy and bizarre.
When a young cowboy reeking of cheap shaving lotion took the seat next to mine, I fled to the observation car. I think I had a drink or two and fell asleep. I woke up in the middle of the night to find we were traveling through a fairyland. It had snowed heavily that day, and now the world was covered with a deep and unblemished blanket of whiteness . . . with not even a mouse track on it. It was a moonless night, and the snow almost glowed with blue light from the stars.
I get panicky when I cannot get public radio, and that was the case. I sat there in the dark, my mind whirling dizzily, as I stabbed buttons on my Walkman. And then I began to get a signal, the incredibly sweet sound of a voice and guitar. I diddled the controls of the Walkman without finding a way to make the signal better.
And then I saw the source of the music. A young man who looked like a refugee from a hippie commune was sitting cross-legged in the aisle of the observation car. He sang softly while strumming a dinged-up guitar. And he was serious about his music. From time to time he would flick his head to signal his girlfriend, sitting in front of him, to slip a cigarette in his mouth and light it. He was too busy playing to stop to light up. Nobody in the observation car seemed to object to his delicate midnight concert. It took me a moment to register that every song he performed had been written and recorded by Neil Young.
Then a tall young man who looked like Randy Quaid’s double stopped in front of the cross-legged singer. After listening for a few minutes, he smiled and put out his hands to ask for the guitar. He sat down, crossed his legs and began performing Neil Young songs while the first guy beat time. After about four songs, he relinquished the guitar.
Although we were “just” rolling through North Dakota wheatfields stretching to the horizon, the land outside the observation car was unearthly and as beautiful as the view from a spaceship. Everything was covered by this perfectly smooth coating of whipped cream that was royal blue under black skies ablaze with stars.
The guitar went back to the tall stranger. The girlfriend in granny glasses kept busy moving lit cigarettes around. More Neil Young. The train rumbled into the darkness, the wheels thunking rhythmically as they hit joints. More Neil Young. Thank god Neil Young has such a large repertoire! These guys both knew every song. The guitar moved again. More Neil Young.
Though I fought to stay awake, the cold was too much to fight. When I woke up there was no more Neil Young, and the two young men were gone. Bright white light replaced the blue moonglow of night, and then the Empire Builder began passing by rail yards and grain elevators of the little towns west of Minneapolis. I’ve rarely been so sorry to see a trip end.
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nice picture steve. great trip.
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Wow, Steve.
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my old hippy van was all about the trip. the destination was open for discussion. i made a decision not to take freeways and that cost some serious time getting across boring places like north dakota and had to be rethought but was great because of the great backroad stuff you run into.
thaks dale for the reminde about the bile path map i will use it for this summers trips with my daughters. i have accidentally punched that tab at the top of the map before and had to figure out wyhy it was gong to take me 3 days to get to eau claire. the routes always look more interesting than the interstate.
today the family vacations are often 24 hours drives to orlando where the kids sit in back with video games and movies taking the place of the scenery involved. we keep shooting to go through chatanooga in the daylight hours but it seems to be in an impossible spot. heading north or south it is always dark on our passing though the hill country there. the rest of that trip is a yawn.
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Sounds good, tim. You ever read the book that describes a long trip just like yours, Blue Highways? By William Least Heat Moon, who is an American Indian with a taste for philosophy.
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Good book, then the next one, then he slowly went ego nuts.
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I have also read Blue Highways and I think it is a very good book.
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yes i read it. heard him speak on mpr andwas less than impressed with him as a speaker. but blue highways was good.
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[Chuckle….] I’m giggling softly to myself about Tim’s “…bile map….”
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Ben, I think it would take a lot of gall to follow that bile map.
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Urf, urf, urf, urf!
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Dale, thanks so much for the info on the bicycle map link! I’m getting inspired from this to do a lot more biking this summer! And you were over in my stomping grounds…
Will read the rest and post later. Mine is another train story that I’ve probably already told here.
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Do come back. I don’t know your train stories!
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When my son was…oh, about 13, I posed the idea of taking a trip together to visit friends in New Mexico. My dream was to get in the car and drive, gazing at the scenery and spending some quality time with him. But his reaction was “why don’t we just fly, Dad? It’s a lot faster”…typical teenager. So I didn’t pursue it.
But last summer he (now 18) and I got tickets to the Winnipeg Folk Festival and DROVE. The festival (the “destiny”) is more than fabulous, but some of my favorite times were on the drive up to Canada and back…just getting to be with him, talk, laugh…”the journey.”
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Thanks for the comment, Mike. Sometimes it’s the traveling companions that make all the difference and the destination hardly matters. Though Canada in summer is enticing … The Winnipeg Folk Festival dates this year are July 6 – 10.
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love the winnepeg folk festival. always the weekend after the 4th of july. get a camp site arranged early thats the hot comodity.moxy fruvis years ago was my big discovery and the whole toronto acapella theme
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The teenager and I have just started hatching the plans for a road trip for this summer to North Carolina and then Florida and back. Anybody have any “must sees” between here and there?
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Chatanooga via paducha Kentucky is good with time off in Nashville
Ashville Kentucky is beautiful in the fall but I’ll bet its nice any time. Hilton head is nice but expensive and a little rodeo drivish.
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The Everglades isnveryncoolnif you have time and inkling. Camping is available.
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tim: you don’t mean Asheville, NC?
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yes i did
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Is it just me, or is TBB a little wonky today????
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yes
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For my 50th birthday, I asked for (and got) an Amtrak/Via Rail Pass (traveling in both countries was required) – mine was 30 days with (at that time) unlimited stops. The idea was basically to go around the perimeter of the USA, stopping to visit friends or relatives along the way. I planned a week-long stop in the Bay Area, and 3 day stops in Deming, NM; Folly Beach, NC; and outside Indianapolis. (I ran out of time and didn’t get to NYC.) The visits were great, too, but the train trip itself was exquisite.
I flew to Winnipeg to begin, headed west to Vancouver. I’d brought a whole load of books to read while traveling, some journals and colored marking pens… A couple of hours out of Winnepeg we were stopped by a picturesque grain elevator, and I tried sketching it. Hmm, I can draw a building that is recognizable (to me, anyway). Whenver we were stopped for a while, I’d sketch something with straight sides. Then I tried some wildflowers in a vacant lot, coloring them in with the marking pens… not quite right. By the time I got to my sister’s in Berkeley, I mailed most of the books home, found an art store for some colored pencils, and spent the rest of the train time drawing the trip. The journal paper was only lined on one side, and I have the written and visual parts of the journal, which was fortuitous because I ruined most of the film I’d taken. I can look back at the admittedly primitive drawings and remember lots about that train trip.
I did meet some interesting passengers: a particularly nice conductor on the Coach Starlight segment in California who made sure I got a double seat for sleeping, and a grandmother about my age acompanying her grandson home in Louisiana. She let me “borrow” him for some drawing sessions.
I’d do it again in a minute, but at this age I probably couldn’t sleep 2 nights in a row (which is the longest segment I was on the train) in coach.
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What a great trip, BiR! Thanks for sharing.
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great idea. i did that trip with the 22 year old when she graduated from school in florence and i thought we would train travel italy. she had other ideas and we saw venice viennia prauge budapest munich, lucern and what is the ski town in switzerland beautiful then back down to italy through the mountains via lake como nice nice nice . we knew we wanted to hit some nice spots but the details kind of presented themselves as we went and we folowed the vibes. it was very nice. our one sleeper car was not wonderful. locked up on the top bunk form 10pm until 7am with no access to anything. but woke up in vienna on sunday morning at 7 and hide time to throw the bags in a locker and catch the vienna boys choir do a sunday service so the ending was good. chinese trains are a whole nother story. very different.
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My favorite journey by far was the 1,400 mile bike trip from St. Paul to New Haven, CT for my 25th college reunion (in 2005). The trip will never, ever be matched. We had exhilarating and harrowing moments, lots of great scenery and best of all it renewed our theory “Y” viewpoint of people (inherently good). Peter was an incredible partner in travel and we often look back on that 23-day journey as the pinnacle of our bike touring “careers”.
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Sounds fabulous, June. I’ve done the MS trek across Minnesota a few times, but nothing as ambitious as yours. Was it just the two of you? Did you tent along the way?
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I’m no camper! We did “credit card camping”, staying in motels/B & B’s along the route. Guess the most wonderful stuff was wrapped up in the planning as well – I think I spent 60+ hours route planning, Googling and finding places to stay at the right mileage intervals. It was just the two of us, yes. I think back on it all the time!
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Great story June,thanks for sticking your head in. Thanks for being the person out there who believes in the good in people. We need you
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Thank you Tim – I do indeed believe in the inherent goodness of people. There were so many great folks along the way…that makes for the best memories!
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