Upper Mississippi Misadventures

Posted On August 8, 2020

Minnesota is the bridge between the eastern and western states, or feels that way, and the Mississippi River is their great divider, and the past week was spent largely tracing the latter back to its source in the northern remotes of the former. Cornfields predominated, but were interspersed with gorgeous sunflowers, and the great lakes replaced with the many small “kettle-pot” ones left in this glacial moraine.

A full week ago, and I mean a week lived to the fullest, we were in Kenosha, Wisconsin, visiting with Pete and Robyn, who were generous with their time and showed us around their newly adopted home located midway between their Milwaukee and Chicago workplaces.

Now we are in Bismarck, North Dakota and are most definitely in the western US, resting up after a day spent trying to control an out-of-control campfire, and getting the van out of a ditch.

I better start with this last bit: we slept in the amazing Sheyenne National Grasslands last night (August 6) surrounded by nothing except prairie grasses, roaming cows and their guard dogs, meadowlarks, and houseflies. This area isn’t a park or recreation area in any sense, and you have to open and close rancher’s barbed-wire fences to drive into this remote area of rolling hills.

Nick lit a small fire in the only wind-sheltered spot we could find: next to a fallen and rotting cottonwood, and woke up to find that the fire had jumped onto the bark, and then spread into the core of the 6′ circumference-tree!

The humidity was quite high, with a misty rain trying to find us, so Nick considered just leaving it. But Karyssa, otherwise known as our frontal lobe, thought we had better try to mitigate the damage.

We used our van’s small fire-extinguisher, then the few gallons of water we had on hand, and finally drove into town to a resident’s outdoor hose to fill our two 5-gallon water jugs, TWICE, whilst tearing away layer after layer of smoldering wood. This fruitless exercise was delayed by a Canadian Pacific train that chose to stop exactly in our way, in the middle of freakin’ nowhere! The high plains wind had turned the cottonwood into dry tinder, apparently and we ended up filthy, stinky, and exhausted, and…well, schooled; lesson learned.

Then it was Karyssa’s turn to recreate a Griswold’s disaster (not even a half mile from our last), by backing into a roadside ditch when simply trying to turn around on a narrow county road. We disassembled the dog’s cage to give some grip to our front-wheels on our front-wheel-drive van, but it was no use.

As Nick started the walk to town, a local in his own truck spotted us from a nearby road, and immediately came to our aid. Then another local, a friend of his, appeared and knew better than anyone else how to wrap a chain around the van’s frame, and in no time we were made whole. (No one will pass you broke dick on the side of the road out here, as the consequences for doing so can be dire, but we thanked them without ever learning their names.)

So this was a day, but the entire week was crazed, and Karyssa thinks this is what people must mean when they say that life is meant to be lived.

Going back to July 30, we followed the Monomenee River, which separates Michigan and Wisconsin, down to a spot we found on iOverlander. It was a peaceful and remote spot where we were surrounded by trees and close to the Peneme Falls – more rapids than falls. Getting there required driving downhill on a dirt road that had some sketchy sandy spots along the way. We managed the road alright that night.

But the next day, (perhaps because we were going uphill or because Karyssa, being inexperienced in this terrain) we got stuck. It took a good 10 or so minutes of Karyssa rocking the van back and forth before she was able to find a spot that was stable enough for our tires to get enough traction.

But then she started to slow down!! Nick yelled from the outside (where he was trying to direct), “Keep going! Don’t stop!” Karyssa chuckled and shook her head at herself before putting her foot back on the gas to keep the van moving until it was on more solid ground. It was quite the adventure – though nothing compared to later ones.

We were amazed to learn of the significance of wee little Portage, a tiny town we stopped at almost accidentally. It is located where a fort was built to protect the narrowest land bridge between the great lakes, via the tiny Fox river, and the freaking Gulf of Mexico, via the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers!

Early French explorers Marquette and some other dude were led here by Native Americans and only had to portage their canoes 1.2 miles to link the great watersheds of the country for the first time.

Later we headed to Devil’s Lake State Park as we were dilly-dallying in order to make sure we were taking Wisconsin slow. It was a sweet spot, with trails that rose a couple hundred feet above the lake. The return hike was a trail among gorgeous baraboo quartzite – a unique pink and white rock that escaped the glacial scraping all around this deep lake.

The next day (August 1), we stopped by Pete’s and Robyn’s and got a tour of Kenosha, WI and got to catch up on each other’s lives. Leaving the next day was done with torn minds and heavy hearts. It seems that anytime we leave people we know, it is with a huge reluctance attached to it. Even though we see each other all day, everyday, and there are strangers at gas stations and towns and along the road, there is a feeling of isolation to vanlife. Alas, we can’t spend an eternity hanging out with friends and family as there is still too much to see and do!

After Pete and Robyn’s, we swung by Milwaukee’s riverfront, and then, from out of the blue, an old friend of Nick’s near beautiful Madison, Wisconsin. Brian Katz, of Katz’s saxs, fame, saw that we were in Michigan. While we haven’t seen each other in 17 years, he kindly invited us into his home and fed us delicious leftovers of homemade food. Vanlife food leaves much to be desired, at least thus far. Brian was a very young neighbour of mine when I lived on an Olive Road “commune” and the first thing he did on our arrival was dig up classic pics of Hannah and Molly as wee ones in that idyllic setting. Now he’s kicking butt and taking names as he cleans and repairs saxophones and the like for the rich and famous, and for area schools. Thanks a million, Brian!

Then we took the Frank Lloyd Wright trail west from Madison, Hwy 14 along the Wisconsin River. There we stopped by his famous Taliesin in Spring Green, WI in order to feed Nick’s FLW fixation, only to find out that his niece, Pete’s eldest daughter, once lived and worked there.

Though he designed three different buildings in this small town, and spent part of his youth in the area, drive accross the country and you’ll see his influence everywhere. The Talieisin, which is Welsh for the brow of a hill, is beautifully set into a limestone escarpment or bluff, almost a mesa, but with trees and grasses, which is characteristic of the the Wisconsin Dells area. It also features the yellow limestone which the Wisconsin and Missisippi rivers have carved out in this bucolic part of the world.

Vernon County is also the place where you’ll find “the end of Black Hawk’s trail,” a sad series of monuments and markers where, in 1832, white settlers displaced, chased and finally massacred a band of Sac and Mesquakie Indians who only wanted peace. Women and children were among the skeleton remains discovered some 20 years later.

A week prior to this we stumbled upon the equally dismal story of “The 13” of Hannahville, Michigan, where jealous European fur traders allegedly included a chicken pox scab in a box of gifts to the Potawatomi community, almost wiping them out.

Without details, it’s hard to know what to make of these ugly narratives, but you have to think we Americans have a lot to answer for. (And while we’re at it, can we just say this: would it kill you, white man, to wear a f-ing mask? Few people wear them up here in small town and rural america, and while it’s not mandated, it’s not hard.)

The night of the 3rd found us at a beautiful yet commonplace roadside scenic overlook above the Mississippi River just south of La Crosse; we had it all to ourselves and had the best sunset of the trip so far, and there we finished another wild day. Bald eagles soared above and below us! The river is actually a mile-wide bottom-land here, only a few feet deep except for the 9′ channel the feds maintain. We toured their “Lock and Dam # 9” just downriver, and saw them in operation, even chatting with a young deckhand as he slowly drifted by. We’re used to the river where it’s so big that such locks and dams aren’t needed, but here they enable navigation and trade in a huge and hugely efficient manner. Clyde Wolfe: where you at?

A childhood memory of Karyssa’s brought us to the Mall of America. Apparently, her best friend in the 3rd grade was a Minnesota native. He had told her all about the MoA when they were younger and said he’d bring her to see it when he left Navarre to visit family. Of course, K’s mom wasn’t about to allow her 9-year-old go off with a family to the opposite side of the country. But it was a sweet gesture, and it stuck with her enough for this to be a must see spot. Her childhood self was satisfied by seeing the numerous floors, amusement park, and aquarium that the mall housed, as promised.

The next couple of nights were spent in out-of-the-way parking spots discovered via I-Overlander, namely: Shorewood on Lake Minnetonka near Minneapolis and then on Chippewa tribal land on Lake Winnibigoshish off of Rt 46 northwest of Grand Rapids. We were treated with some river otters, skirting a dam right in front of us as we chatted with Hannah and Molly in some other super adorbs town.

But speaking of tribal land, we were saddened to see some of the stereotypes of our Native American brothers and sisters confirmed yesterday in Fargo, as three cop cars dominated a drunk scene downtown. Craziness, as Prior trips to Pine Ridge and other rezzes in the southwest paint a sad picture, though the number of casinos up here may point to a brighter future. Fargo will be remembered for our first taste of walleye…delicious fish.

We feel like we did North Country justice, but there is so much we had to pass up, including the Boundary Waters, but we’re approaching dinosaur country, and who doesn’t have an inner kid who wants to hunt for dinos?