North through Minnesota

After leaving Iowa, I drove north through Minnesota.  It was never my intention to spend a lot of time there, but I did see a couple of things -- or tried to, at any rate.

Heading towards Minneapolis (which has bad traffic, by the way), I stopped in a small town to see the William W. Mayo house, of Mayo Clinic fame.  It's just a little old house, but could have been a nice way to break up the drive.  But it was closed, due to the state government's shutdown.  I read a few days later that Minnesotans were running out of alcohol too; I guess people must buy it from government-own facilities or something.  Hehe.

Closed!

So that was a bust.  I also stopped in Mankato, because a good friend of mine used to live there and practice law.  Now maybe I just drove through the wrong parts of town, because Mankato looked nothing like what I imagined my pal would want to live in.  The first half -- more than half, actually -- was on giant strip mall.  It just went on and on... and I can't imagine my pal liking that at all.  As I was heading out of town, I stopped for a while on this really hippy retail street.  Crystal shops, yoga studios, healthy shake stores, etc.  I liked that street, at least, especially its used book store, but can't imagine my friend there either.  So Mankato was kind of a bust, too, as I just wanted to get out of there.

Ah well, I covered quite a bit of distance in the car that day, despite the stops, and spent a nice night camping south of Duluth.  Not the most interesting of days, I guess, but I knew I'd have days like this when I started on the trip.  And outside of Minneapolis and a little bit Mankato, the roads in Minnesota were a pleasure to drive.  Open and very little traffic.  In fact, there were stretches in southern Minnesota were I could drive for several minutes without seeing another car.  Several minutes doesn't sound like a lot, until you think about the last time you drove anywhere and didn't see another car for 5 minutes.  It just doesn't happen in most places.