One of my goals for our visits to Minnesota these days is to actually visit a few of the local sites that I’ve grown up around but never seen before. Vermillion Falls is a nice little spot on the Vermillion River, which empties into the Mississippi. It’s about twenty minutes from where I grew up, and literally a minute off of a road that I’ve driven down a thousand times. It’s not exactly on anyone’s bucket list, but it still felt good to get out there and walk around the place after forty-odd years.
This little gem continues to wait patiently for us down in Mexico. Bottom paint is on. Prop gear is replaced. She’s ready to go. Just doesn’t have anyone to sail her yet. Interestingly (perhaps only to me), the draft on this boat is 4′ 5″, which is 3″ deeper than the Grand Banks.
Ouest catching the fish of the week, and her uncle Mike there to do the dirty work for her. This is a small catch-and-release only lake, so everything goes back in to grow bigger and fatter for the next season.
We’re just a few minutes from downtown Stillwater, one of the most popular tourist river towns in Minnesota.
I can’t remember the last time we were in Stillwater where the St. Croix river wasn’t overflowing into the park.
This used to be the only bridge to Wisconsin for many miles, which meant Stillwater was always a solid wall of traffic. They built a huge bridge up on the highway just out of town, and I have to admit that I figured that was going to be the end of this town. I, however, greatly underestimated the need for shops selling knitted sweaters for your dog, and t-shirts with catchy sayings like “Minnesconsin” on them.
The Washington County Fairgrounds are right down the street, so when we spotted a car show going on we decided to swing through. Our visit happened to coincide with a burnout competition. I figured by “burnout” they meant seeing how far a car could peel out as it took off on a straightaway. Silly me. A burnout competition isn’t so much a competition as it is a place for people to block their front wheels and stomp on their gas pedal. They don’t stop doing this until their tires explode, sending hot rubber flying through the air, and destroying any value their car once had. When I was a kid, my cousins, who lived well out in farm country, used to tease me for being the city slicker, and I guess I always felt like I was. So, I sometimes forget just how “un-city” the St. Paul suburbs are. This seemed to me like such a country thing to do. The people sitting downwind just sat there in the billowing smoke. Those that did move went and stood directly behind the car and just dodged the pieces of burning rubber that would come flying at them with each car’s explosion. Each and every one of them seemed to think this was as normal a thing as you could do on a Sunday afternoon.
After the first couple explosions we decided we would view the “festivities” from a distance.
Walking around this car show I think anyone who knows us would have been able to pick out this Jeepster as me and Ali’s favorite. This thing belongs on a cross-Africa road trip, I think. [filing this in the notes of Trips To Do]
11 Comments on “Minnesota Meandering”
“This little gem continues to wait patiently for us down in Mexico.”
Gem? No doubt! Little? Heh . . . hardly.
I don’t know. Twenty years later, with two big kids added to the mix, our catamaran has only grown by five feet in length and one foot in width. It may not be little, but it sure isn’t big by today’s standards, either.
Fair enough, Pat. I know that with your experience she will be the ideal vessel for recreating your round-the-world cruise with the kids there to experience it with you and Ali this time. That’s priceless! I imagine there will be times, though, like in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where you find yourself thinking she’s just way-too-small for the situation and other times, like in a tight harbor, that you feel like you’re trying to maneuver the USS Gerald R. Ford.
I can’t help thinking she’s about the size of three 40′ x 8′ shipping containers side-by-side-by-side. 🙂
I’m not sure if you’ve ever been on a 40′ cat before, but I can assure you the space inside does not equate to 3 shipping containers. I put my ’58 VW bus in a 20′ shipping container, yet I’m pretty sure I’d be hard pressed to find room for it in our boat. 🙂
Heh . . . for sure a 40′ cat won’t have the interior volume of three shipping containers! What I’m envisioning is the exterior dimensions of three shipping containers with their sides touching. Their footprint in that configuration is 40′ LOA x 24′ beam – approximately the same as your new catamaran. That’s a 960 sq.ft. area which, to me, is not small.
“Burnout” competition? LOVE it! Really great to see a small town that has found its groove and is surviving. Also nice to see U.S. flags everywhere. The real America is still out there if you dig for it a little. Wishing you fair winds!
Kuontry is what kuontry does! Regardless of continent! Goodonyas!
More pics of the new cat, please!
As soon as we get there we will. 🙂
The Grain Belt sign makes me a little nostalgic (notice I didn’t say homesick….I still remember the winter’s). Stillwater was on the way to tubing on the Apple river. Fair winds.
Stillwater still looks right out of central casting