Friday, July 27, 2007

Northwest/Central Minnesota Road-trip

I left home at 9:15AM on Monday, July 23, 2007. I picked up my travel partner and we were on the road by 10:00AM. We arrived in Sauk Centre, MN at noon. The Bear Trap was closed being it was Monday, so we ate at McDonalds. We also toured the location of my parents’ (former) cabin. After a brief stop at Fleet Supply, we continued on to Detroit Lakes.

We got gas and went to the Tamarac National Wildlife Refuge. It was 97 degrees Fahrenheit, with high humidity. As an added “bonus,” the deerflies were out in numbers that were greater than I ever remember. I had camped in this refuge when I was eleven-years-old, with my Boy Scout troop 500 (on a canoe trip). I remember it being ruggedly beautiful, and full of old Indian burial mounds and houses.

On this day, we limited our outdoor activities and opted for the auto tour. Several hundred deerflies accompanied the car as we drove along.

We returned to Detroit Lakes, MN and got a room at the Budget Host Motel. We ate at Country Kitchen and shopped at Pamida.

On Tuesday, July 24, we enjoyed a complimentary Continental breakfast and were on the road by 9:30AM. We shopped at the Ben Franklin and the Antique Mall, to satisfy my companion’s desire to… shop.

We arrived in Thief River Falls, MN and got gas and ate at Taco John’s. We then went to the Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge. We spent a few minutes on the overlook deck, before going to the visitor center to borrow the key to let us climb the fire watch tower. That was 100 feet high, and gave a fantastic view. The wind was very strong up there, and after returning to the ground, we took the auto tour of the refuge.

We returned to our trip and drove to Roseau, and then Warroad. We continued on the smaller roads in an attempt to locate the Zippel Bay Resort. The signs for the resort were missing the closer we got. We surmised that it might be in the state park, but we were not interested in purchasing the $25 state park sticker.

We found lodging at Morris Point Lakeview Lodge, but upon viewing our cabin decided that with no air conditioner, no fan and temperatures in the upper 90’s F, we would cancel and continue on. We ended up finding the Lakeroad Lodge on Hwy 8 and Hwy 172, just off of Wheeler’s Point, near the Canadian border. This motel had a fish cleaning facility and nice rooms with AC.

We ate at the Border View Lodge near the public access. I will be kind and simply give it a rating of 4 out of a possible 10 stars. Don’t go there if you’re in a hurry, and we did want to fish before dark. We fished at the public access using artificial lures. We had a couple of “bites,” but no luck catching any.

The next morning (Wednesday, July 25), we went fishing at 6:00AM, again at the public access (from the docks). By 6:30AM the bait store opened and we purchased some fatheads. We eventually caught several small, Smallmouth bass. These we returned back into Lake of the Woods. Eventually, I caught a small (but not too small) Northern Pike which we kept. I made use of the fish cleaning facilities at the motel and then we cleaned up and left at 10:30AM. We followed “The Avenue of Pines Scenic Byway” on Hwy 46 to Baudette, MN.

Once in Baudette, we got gas and ate at the Northlake Café. We shopped along the way, and also visited the Cut Foot Sioux Visitor Center in the Chippewa National Forest. It was a long, tiring day by the time we arrived in Grand Rapids, MN.

We toured the city and eventually settled on a room overlooking Forest Lake, at the Forest Lake Motel. We shopped at a few stores and then had an excellent dinner next-door to our motel at the Forest Lake Restaurant. After dinner, we went fishing for sunfish off of the Forest Lake Fishing Pier. There was an abundance of small Bluegills, but we had enough of that by the time dark came and the wax worms ran out.

On Thursday, July 26, we left Grand Rapids at 10:30AM, and stopped at several stores and gift shops along the way. We drove through the Savannah State Forest, and stopped at the Rice Lake National Wildlife Refuge. The flies were bad again, and a storm was looming in the distance. We took the (9 mile) auto tour and saw many interesting things, including, huge, linear Indian burial mounds and a Red-tail hawk close up. The storm and rain arrived halfway through the auto tour, which made driving on the narrow dirt roads more interesting.


We left the refuge and drove through the Solana State Forest through a lot of rain. We stopped along Knife Lake at The Crow’s Nest, for gas and something to eat. Our trip home followed Hwy 65, which presented us with a detour. Road construction was, as always in the summer, a part of the trip.

We arrived back home after 7:00PM, and the trip meter read 965 miles.

Kevin J. Curtis

http://www.fws.gov/midwest/Tamarac/

http://www.fws.gov/midwest/Agassiz/

http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/forests/chippewa/

http://www.fws.gov/midwest/RiceLake/

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