After I made the decision to drive home and spend the rest of the year in New Hampshire, I just had to get myself there. The drive from where I was in Montana was over 2500 miles and took me through the upper Midwest, through several states that I had never been to before. Prior to this trip I had visited most parts of the country at least a little bit, but the Midwest was a big blank for me. I had never been to Minnesota at all, had only caught a connecting flight at the Detroit airport in Michigan, and had only driven through Indiana on the interstate without stopping. These were places I had to pass through anyway, and it was a place I had never been, so I turned it into a stop on my trip – the last one I would make before taking the rest of the year off.
North Dakota – theodore Roosevelt National Park
So I realize that North Dakota is not technically in the Midwest, but I did drive through and stop here on my way to the Midwest, and these photos don’t really fit anywhere else and I really wanted to share them. Theodore Roosevelt National Park is really pretty remote, although I will say not as remote as they like to think they are (some of the merch in their gift shop has phrases like “saved the best park for last” even though it’s about 2 hours from Bismarck, directly on a major interstate, and gets more visitors than parks like Petrified Forest, Denali, Carlsbad Caverns or the Channel Islands). The park itself is pretty in its vastness, the way other prairie and badlands places are pretty. I got reacquainted with buffalo after a couple of months without them and saw Teddy Roosevelt’s hunting cabin. But the best part of TRNP is the wild horses, packs of which just roam across the park. I don’t think I’ve ever seen actual wild horses before!
Minnesota
My first main stop in the (actual) Midwest was Minnesota, a place I knew virtually nothing about other than that there were a lot of lakes there. Turns out there are! (Although I would describe a lot of those lakes more as ponds.) When people found out I was in Minnesota the first thing everyone had to say was some reference to the accent, and although I would love to say that everyone I met sounded like Loretta from Drop Dead Gorgeous, as my tour of America without Americans continued I didn’t really speak to almost anyone while I was there.
Lake Itasca – Mississippi headwaters
My path through Minnesota took me past Lake Itasca State Park. It’s a place I probably wouldn’t have gone out of my way to get to, but was surprisingly satisfying to visit. I talk more about it (including a weak handmade meme) on my blog, but it was pretty cool to wrap up my trip by crossing the start of the Mississippi River eight months after my trip started by crossing the end of it.
Voyageurs National Park
The main draw for this part of Minnesota for me was Voyageurs National Park, a park that is best experienced on a boat. I took the Kettle Falls tour from Border Guide Service, a half day tour that visited all the main highlights on the lake. We got to see the Ellsworth Rock Gardens, IW Stevens Island, and the Kettle Falls Hotel. The hotel was built at the beginning of the 20th century as a hotel (and, uh, brothel) for lumberjacks working on the lake. The bar is fairly infamous and our tour guide had many stories of sketchy things that have happened there, including its later role as a hub for smugglers during Prohibition. This was the first national park tour I’ve ever been on that included a stop at the bar – and I got to take my beer to go.
Lake Superior & Tettegouche State Park
My drive from northern Minnesota to my next stop on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan took me around the western shoreline of Lake Superior, including a stop at a Minnesota state park, and stops along the way to look at several lighthouses.
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
My second stop in the upper Midwest was the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. One of the lesser known national park properties is here, the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Like Voyageurs, this is a park best experienced from a boat, so I took a tour from Pictured Rocks Cruises. It rained the whole time I was in Michigan, but I had the especially bad timing to buy tickets for this boat ride on the day with the worst weather, and consequently the lake was quite rough, and so was the ride. I spent most of the trip breathing deeply through the open window and looking at the horizon. Also a lot of the photos I took came out kind of dark, because I didn’t have the chance to be careful with my camera’s settings. I’ll eventually teach myself Photoshop and make them look better, but honestly the way they are now is probably more accurate. My advice for this tour: go, but take Dramamine.
Keweenaw Peninsula
I only had one whole day in Michigan where I wasn’t working, and I used that day off to take a day trip to the Keweenaw Peninsula. I ate a pasty and admired the fall foliage. I toured an abandoned copper mine. I bought jam from some monks. I looked at lighthouses. I drank brown beer. It rained on and off all day, but it ended up being a very pleasant day trip.
Grand Island
The last thing I did in Michigan on my way out of the state was to visit Grand Island, part of the National Forest, just off the coast of Lake Superior near the Pictured Rocks. I took my bike on the ferry and spent the morning riding around the island. I think the website undersold the ruggedness of the bike paths plus as I have mentioned it had been raining for several days straight by this time, so the bike trails were a little more muddy and tough going than I anticipated (I felt only a little silly to have my ridiculous little folding bicycle on the ferry with a half dozen professional looking mountain bikes – they had the right idea). Inadequate equipment aside, it was a nice farewell to Michigan.
Indiana Dunes National Park
My very last stop before getting back to New Hampshire was Indiana, at the Indiana Dunes. The dunes are a newly minted national park, having been upgraded from national lakeshore just last summer (only White Sands National Park is a “newer” national park than the Indiana Dunes). This was a very nice and relaxing last stop to end my whirlwind 2020, and it was just what I needed. I mostly just walked on the sand and did a lot of birdwatching – and watched a lot of really beautiful sunsets.
Alyson Gagne 