There was traveling done this weekend, and things were observed about Minnesota. More specifically, about the neverending, beautiful, creepylittletownwithkitschygiftshop, skier-covered, snowy, freaking freezing, Really Northern Bits of it. But first, since the destination was Grand Marais, home of the famed, bumper-stickered Sven and Ole's Pizza, let us begin with some jokes about those gentlemen. (and lena too)
Ole and Lena have just gotten married. They are taking a honeymoon to Minneapolis. Ole is feeling a little frisky, and puts his hand on Lena's knee. She says "Oh Ole, you can go a leetle furder now if ya vant to."
So they drove to Duluth.
Sven and Ole are on a train. They have brought bananas as a snack. Just as Sven takes a bite, the train enters a tunnel. Sven yells to Ole "DON'T EAT IT OLE! I TOOK ONE BITE AND WENT BLIND!"
dumbness expressed. very good. Now, since this is an observational blog, observations be in order.
Driving. Driving. Driving. then you sense this odd change in the landscape, and come over this hill, and see a town built on iron ore and a hill, called Duluth. It is deserving of its own post, so we won't go into details. Behind it stretches Ze Very Beeg Water, a.k.a. Lake Superior. It outstrips the horizon, stormy and ancient and huge. It rarely freezes, except around the edges, where there are unearthly chunks of icicles. You realize that this place has not significantly changed for thousands of years. The bigness of it takes your illusions of significance and civilization and pulls them out your ears. It's a good feeling. One day, I should like to see a winter storm roll off of it. Don't know when that will happen, since being there for longer than a weekend make this little city kid go bonkers.
We roll on, till Canada is within reach. Here we stop. For a weekend, I wake up to the sun's glory on the water, weird, cold-loving buddies, no internet whatsoever, and the barest traces of phone service. The temperature lives happily below zero. We go swimming one night (Not in the lake, we ain't that dumb.) Leaving, the car will not go up the hill. Silas tries three times, running starts. No luck. It is so cold our hair froze in the thirty-second dash to the car. We are not wearing coats. Get out, dash to top of hill, pray he makes it, he does, get in, unable to feel fingers.
Just allow me two sentences about Grand Marais. It feels like the end of the world, like if you sailed far enough out you'd get to Aslan's country. We see grungy little Sven and Ole's, and a bait shop with a terrifying bass model the size of our car leaping out of the sign, and The World's Best Donuts with cutouts of fat Vikings in the front yard, the sort you put your head in while Mum takes a picture.
Driving back, pooped out. Stop in tiny town called Barnum. There is a picture of a dog with painted nails in the women's bathroom. It freaked me out. We then encounter mini-marts with raunchy restrooms and Scandinavian employees, and finally the names on the signs and highways are familiar to our tired eyes, and then the dancing skyline appears, friendly Minneapolis beckoning with buses and hippie-punk corners and snotty suburbs and home.
