Saint Mary Lake

Our timing was fortuitous.  A few more days and Logan Pass would close for the season - earlier this year than usual due to lots of construction.  Even one more day and we would have been stuck with smoky skies. But as it was, we had blue skies and the construction delay was minimal.

We didn't spend much time in the park - just long enough to drive over the Going To Sun Road and make a few stops along the way.  On our short hike down to Baring Falls, M led the way, making noise to scare away the bears.  It worked - no bears!

Fort Benton

In the 1860s and 1870s, this is where the riverboats on the Missouri stopped and unloaded all the people and stuff headed farther west.  It was a busy place.  Not so much anymore.

But the Grand Union Hotel was a great find, and it's dining room an even greater one.  The nicely restored hotel stands alone on the river bank, across the street from a long row of buildings that still bear some resemblance to the pictures on the historical signs of the 19th-century main street.  I couldn't help but wonder who else had stayed in our third floor room since the place opened in the early 1880s.

Montana

Okay, that's a pretty broad title for a post.  The middle of Montana might be more precise.  Or Highway 200.  We stayed at the Roughrider in Medora ND and had breakfast in the dining room (where D and I had breakfast after camping in Teddy Roosevelt National Park just a few months earlier - June 2012).  But while D and I had headed south from Wibaux towards Wyoming, M and I just kept going west, following Montana 200 through Circle and Jordan and Lewistown.  The pictures show the Judith Mountains, Square Butte, and M talking to Bev on the phone (I think that's the only way she survives her husband's fascination with long drives and wide open spaces - thanks, dear!).

All the way across the plains, the rolled hay kept making us think of something similar we saw in the pastry case at Hanisch's in Red Wing.

Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

Our final stop before hitting the road and a thousand miles of prairie was the Sculpture Garden.  The centerpiece is the Oldenburg/van Bruggen Spoonbridge and Cherry.  We wandered for 30 minutes and were just heading out when we got a call from D saying that he had gotten the final class he had wanted.  We were in Jamestown ND by the end of the evening.

Guthrie Theater

We hadn't really planned on visiting the Guthrie, but it looked inviting from the river with it's cool architecture and strange cantilevered projection.  There's no charge to wander through and the spaces are amazing!  It provides great views of the city and the river -- framed by interesting windows and rendered like paintings by the tinted glass.

Minneapolis

We drove up the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi and then through St. Paul.  We walked around the Macalester campus, then headed for Minneapolis where we explored the Stone Arch Bridge and St. Anthony Falls - the only significant natural falls on the Mississippi (although not so natural anymore).

Moondance Inn

The trip back was a chance to try out some different kinds of places - both to stay and to eat.  The Moondance is a beautiful restored mansion in Red Wing, complete with a pair of Puli's (dogs with black dreadlocks at both ends and in the middle, so orientation is a challenge) and a great breakfast. I'm not sure the decor of these old-style B&Bs is necessarily our style, but we enjoyed our stay.

Red Wing

I didn't know how long we would be needed in Northfield, so I hadn't wanted to plan a long day on Sunday.  Red Wing was close and seemed a nice place to spend the first night of our trip back - even though it was in the opposite direction as Seattle.  We checked out the river, which was much lower than when I visited in June (Red Wing: June 2012), explored some pottery stores, drove up to Sorin's Bluff in Memorial Park (I went back up early the next morning when the light was better), and found a fairly character-free dinner north of town.  We stopped at Hanisch's Bakery on the way out of town - if only we hadn't been so stuffed from breakfast at the Moondance.

Cowling Arboretum

We all stuffed ourselves at the Ole Store for brunch, then dropped D on campus.  M and I didn't have far to go (Red Wing is less than 40 miles away) and we needed to walk off the Eggs Benedict and the Stuffed French Toast so we wandered around the upper Arb. The forest was nice, but the prairie portion was what I enjoyed the most.

Carleton College

D and I left Northfield in the late afternoon of June 4th.  Now, three months later and with another 5000 miles on the car, we've returned with Mom to deliver him, his summer stuff, and his bike back to Carleton.

We helped him get moved into his new dorm and then M and I watched the reenactment at the Return of Jesse James Days.  Okay, now we've done that.  We weren't all that impressed - although clearly this show is a big part of this town's history (along with the foiled bank robbery it portrays). I suspect this is the kind of thing that reinforces right wing mythology and the peculiar notion held by some 21st-century suburbanites that we would all be safer if we carried guns!