On Wednesday afternoon, we arrived at our beloved cabin we rent on Lake Superior, two days/nights after the full moon. I always love to see the full moon over Lake Superior but we do not plan our trips around it…however, a lot of times the dates do work out and we’ve seen the moon rise over the lake many times…I love it!
Since the full moon was only two nights ago we planned our campfire on the rocks to coincide with the moonrise. And…at precisely, 8:01 pm, as posted on the meteorological site predicting sunrises and sunsets, moonrise and moonsets, it, indeed, rose.
Almost full moon September 22, 2021
However, the unique thing about this evening’s moon rise was we saw it rise two times! It came over the horizon at 8:01 and was gorgeous, a huge orange ball…we saw it come up in its entirety.
However, there was a low cloud in the sky, on the horizon, and the moon went behind that cloud and we could not see it for a few minutes…then lo and behold, we saw it rise again over the cloud for a second moonrise, and this time the moon shone bright and white.
The moon over Lake Superior, September 22, 2021.
What a gift. What a blessing. What an amazing time to be sitting on the rocks on Lake Superior, in front of a campfire, watching the moonrise, twice!
We attended a wedding reception at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum this week.
What a lovely place for the special event. It was held outside in one of the picnic shelters with beautiful scenery all around. We were also invited to come early and enjoy the September gardens in bloom at the arboretum.
There was much color, everywhere. There were vibrant, annual gardens, as well as rich, colorful dahlias.
I was surprised to see many showy, rose bushes still in full bloom. I stopped to smell them!
It’s always fun to see a few, unusual plants in bloom.
It was a wonderful afternoon, celebrating two lives joined together in marriage, and celebrating Minnesota’s finest blossoms and the upcoming fall season.
There is a lot of public art in Lanesboro, Minnesota, starting as soon as you enter town, in the parking lot close to the downtown area.
One of several haikus posted in the general parking lot in Lanesboro.
On each lamp post in the parking lot is a plaque with haikus posted for people to enjoy. The haikus are responses to the Lanesboro Arts Poetry Series. What a fun way to welcome people to town.
The plaque reads: 1893 Chicago Bridge Co.
We walked away from the parking lot toward town on a path that led us over the Root River on an historic bridge, now a pedestrian bridge, built in 1893. The bridge leads you to a side street in town. And there, on the side of a brick building, is a wonderful public art display of four mosaic panels.
1 of 4 mosaic panels.
The bike trail and rolling hills and farm fields near Lanesboro.
Mosaics have always intrigued me. I’m fascinated to see images and pictures created from small, colorful tiles, or stones and other such elements (in this case some pieces of mirrors).
2 of 4 mosaic panels. An eagle over land and river, a big-wheel trike in the foreground, and flowers.
These panels were the results of an Artist in Residence project in 2017. The artist, Bailey Aaland, involved the community in making these panels which, I think, adds a special touch.
The plaque explaining the mosaic public art pieces.
According to the artists plaque, she offered mosaic making sessions to community members, mirrors were donated by local residents to be used in the mural, and participants, working off Bailey’s outline, “helped shape the design throughout the creation process.”
3 of 4 mosaic panels. Tractors and bicycles on land, near river.
The results were four very creative, beautiful depictions of the surrounding areas of Lanesboro…the bike trail, the farm fields, the bluffs, the river.
4 of 4 mosaic panels. A bridge, fish, land and river.
It’s a wonderful display, showing off the area, and the collaborative work of the community, for the enjoyment of all people.
A mural in an empty space on Lanesboro’s main street.
Another public art piece in Lanesboro is on the main street, in an empty green space between buildings. It is a colorful, painted mural of the town’s name, providing a photo op for many people. There are picnic tables in this area too, offering space for people to gather together to gather to visit, eat or rest. During our overnight stay there was a community event held in this outdoor space.
Little Lending Art Cupboard:
on wheels…rolled out onto main street for folks to borrow art supplies.
To encourage art, instead of a “Little Free Library” there was a “Little Lending Art Cupboard” in this same community space. The cupboard is full of art supplies, and was on wheels so it could be set out during the day and taken in at night, or kept out of the rain, and moved around town to different locations I suppose. It encouraged people to “Take what you need, leave what you can. Because everyone needs a little art in their life!” The Art Cupboard was created by Girl Scout Troop 47985. What a great idea. I haven’t seen that before.
It was delightful to take in the variety of public art displays created with the intention of sharing them with the Lanesboro community and its many visitors.
As dusk turned to dark on a beautiful Minnesota summer evening, we were sitting outside, in the grandstand, of the Minnesota State Fair “listening to the music” of the Doobie Brothers. It was a great concert. Gary is my guest writer for this post.
The Minnesota State Fair water tower and Midway Ferris Wheel.
Back in 1970 a few musicians living near San Jose, California formed a band calling themselves the Doobie Brothers. They ultimately became a very popular band, and I had a few of their early albums. When they announced their plans for a 50th Anniversary Tour I was excited to learn one of the venues was at the Minnesota State Fair. We decided to go (along with several friends) and bought our tickets for the 2020 concert. Then along came the pandemic and the State Fair was cancelled… but fortunately the Doobie Brothers were rescheduled for the 2021 fair.
This past week we went to their two-hour long concert and it was fabulous. The energy they exuded was impressive given their ages…most are in their 70’s. It was obvious they were having a good time.
Patrick Simmons
The band consisted of two founding members on lead guitars and vocals (Johnston and Simmons), and another long-time member, who joined the band in 1979, played guitar/fiddle/harmonica. Complimenting them were five others: a bass guitarist, keyboardist, saxophonist, percussionist and a drummer. The guitar performances, whether solo or all three guitars in synchronous melody, were awesome. The dual percussion and talented keyboard musicians made for an incredible display of talent. The saxophone player was outstanding. Add to that…harmonizing vocals. It all made for a great show.
Some of their more well-known songs include: Takin’ it to the Streets, China Grove, Black Water, Jesus is Just Alright, and Listen to the Music. However, even the songs we did not know were enjoyable to listen to because of their incredible talent.
We were delighted to have the opportunity to attend this event. The end is near for classic rock band tours with any founding members, because most of them are now in their 70’s and 80’s.
On another note, we hadn’t been to the state fair for many years (12+) it was nice to go when the numbers were down…the streets were not too crowded and we didn’t have to stand in long lines for food.
It was a perfect evening for an outdoor concert, and a side benefit was our view from the grandstand of the midway Ferris Wheel with its changing light display.
The Habberstad House Bed & Breakfast in Lanesboro, Minnesota is a charming, historic B&B. We had a delightful weekend there, eating breakfasts…and in the Lanesboro area, riding bikes…antique shopping…attending plays…walking…eating pie and ice cream, and other delicious food.
The historic Habberstad House Bed and Breakfast.
The beautiful Habberstad House where we stayed, was built in 1897, by Mr. Habberstad who was a banker. He and Mr. Scanlan partnered together to bring a bank to Lanesboro. One man was catholic and the other was protestant, an unusual business partnership back in the day. The Scanlan House is another historic Bed and Breakfast in Lanesboro, built by Mr. Scanlan…two blocks away from Mr. Habberstad’s house.
A side view of the Habberstad House.
Besides being a residential home for a couple different families over the years, the Habberstad House’s history includes being a nursing home for a short period, and also a hospital. Our room had previously been the maternity ward, or birth center, where babies were born.
We stayed two nights at the B&B. Our Innkeepers thought of every little detail and the B&B is top-rated on Trip Advisor for 2021. The house has five rooms to rent, plus a carriage house over the garage.
The gardens in front of the Carriage House.
The rooms were well-appointed and clean and each had a private bathroom. The house is so pretty, and well-maintained. The inside parlors were inviting, as was the large outdoor front porch, with rocking chairs and a swing!
A view from the second floor porch.
There were colorful gardens with a fountain on the side of the house, including benches – to sit and enjoy the flowers.
Gardens at the B&B.
I always like a whimsical touch.
The Innkeeper, Elaine, was welcoming, informative and engaging. And a fabulous cook.
The first morning’s breakfast. photo by ta
The breakfasts were amazing…tasty and colorful and huge portions. Each morning the first course was a fruit compote, followed by a full plate of eggs, meat, fruit or veges. The food was presented in an appetizing way, besides being delicious. We had good breakfast-mates too, and therefore good conversation each morning around the dining room table. Our breakfasts lingered for one to one and a half hours. What a luxury.
The Habberstad House B&B.
It had been awhile since we stayed at a B&B, but this delightful experience reminded us how special they are. Elaine, our hostess, alerted us to several other B&B’s in the surrounding areas. I’m ready to try others for sure, but we’d also come back to the Habberstad House. They set the bar high.
We enjoyed another bike ride on a rail to trail system…the Root River Trail, formerly the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. We started our ride at the trailhead in Lanesboro.
It’s an easy-going trail that winds along the Root River and offers a lot of shade and a lot of views of the Root River. The river was flowing swiftly because of recent rains in the area – a welcome sight after seeing many signs of drought lately.
We rode the most popular section of the trail (and beyond) on Saturday morning. It was busy but not crowded. However, when we arrived at the town of Whalen, known for its wonderful pie shop, there were lots of people congregated along the trail. Of course we stopped too, for pie, even though we had eaten a fabulous, and substantial, breakfast at the B&B we were staying at in Lanesboro. The pie was yummy!
A portion of the Root River Trail.
It was humid, but we felt the cool breeze from biking. On our way back it did start to rain, but just lightly, and we were ok with that since most of our state needs rain. It didn’t “dampen” our spirits.
I was intrigued to see this placard along the trail featuring part of a poem, “The Ghost Tree Speaks” by Richard J. Dorer. It “spoke to me”. I like trees, nature, words.
Back home I looked online for the poem and found it is also a book title, so I believe the placard is an excerpt from the poem. I also found this quote by the author Richard J. Doer:
“The charred body of a burned tree, a ghost tree, stands in a blackened swath in Minnesota’s wilderness forest. Through the years the tree watched seasons pass, and with them generations of animals and men–Indians, voyageurs, pioneers, timber-cruisers. Finally, a moment of man’s carelessness with a match denied the tree the fulfilling destiny of being a ship’s mast, a sheltering house, or a sturdy floor. Eventually he will fall and Mother Earth will take him back in her embrace.”
It was another great trail ride, with an interesting twist.
We like to getaway and ride different bike trails. There are so many to choose from. This year we went to Pequot Lakes in northern Minnesota. Our first stop was in Crosby, Minnesota to ride our bicycles on the Cuyuna Trail System. These trails are well-known for mountain biking, but there is a nice paved trail to ride also.
Huntington Mine Lake is along one of the Cuyuna Trails.
The trail goes past old iron ore mine pits, which are now beautiful lakes, with no development on them. The mountain bike trails go through the woods, and a bicycle with special tires is needed. The mountain bike paths are red dirt, from the iron in the soil.
A photo of our group at Huntington Mine Lake.
After our trail ride we continued to drive north to Pequot Lakes, our destination. We planned to ride our bikes the next day on the Paul Bunyan trail, one of the longest bike trails in the state. The Paul Bunyan Trail used to be the Burlington-Northern railway tracks.
At the Paul Bunyan trailhead in Pequot Lakes.
We rode a small portion of the trail. The weather was hot and humid, but the portion of the trail we rode was shaded and scenic, with surrounding lakes. We’re grateful for the many wonderful trails that have been created on old railway lines.
Above the tree line on the fire tower in Pequot Lakes. I’m in the red shirt.
The third morning we decided to hike in Paul M. Theide Fire Tower Park. The DNR recently acquired this land to create this park to protect the historic fire tower there. The small park is lovely with a nice picnic pavilion and a few trails that lead to the fire tower. The tower, built in 1935, is accessible to climb if one is so inclined. I learned this is the second tower to be built on this site. The first was a wooden structure built in 1927. The current tower is in excellent shape (no carvings in the wooden steps). I climbed up four flights (of eight) and was already above the tree line and could see for miles. Unfortunately, I left my camera down at the bottom.
Climbing up the historic fire tower.
Climbing the tower brought back memories of vacationing with my parents and friends in cabins on Rainy Lake in the 1960’s. There was a fire tower within walking distance of the resort where we stayed. We would climb the tower every year, several times during the week. I do remember some of us kids carving our names in the wooden steps. Whoops.
Several years later we went up to see the resort at the end of the road, Highway 11 East out of International Falls, and the fire tower was fenced in and locked up. I learned it’s called the Black Bay Fire Tower, or Rainy Lake Fire Tower, and it was built in 1939. I couldn’t find much more information online about this tower.
The historic fire tower in Paul M. Thiede park.
There is another accessible fire tower in Itasca State Park which we have climbed a few times; once with our two sons when they were younger, and a few times over the years when we’ve camped in the state park.
A few dozen fire towers remain in Minnesota. At one time there were 120-150 in the early to mid 1900’s. At that time there were about 5,000 fire towers throughout the United States. A majority of the “second generation” fire towers were built by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) in the 1930’s. These towers were built of galvanized steel and included steps. Earlier towers were made of wood and used ladders to access the cab. As airplanes and modern technology took over the task of spotting wildfires, many towers were taken out of service.
I’m grateful for organizations that have insight and resources to re-purpose railway lines and preserve fire towers.
When driving around rural Minnesota one tends to see a variety of quaint, charming, and small, usually white, wooden churches dotting the countryside. Recently, on a Sunday afternoon drive in southern MN, we came across an unusual country church. But, it was the name of the “area” that first caught our attention…Litomysl.
Following the arrow directing us to Litomysl, we turned off the “main” rural road and there stood a beautiful, stone church.
Holy Trinity Church
It was picturesque and well kept, with a parsonage next door and even a school a bit farther east of the parsonage. How curious! There was one farm across the road and that was it. There were no other buildings in sight, only cornfields. The church, parsonage, school and one farm made up the current “unincorporated community” of Litomysl. We didn’t even know how to pronounce the name, or what nationality it would be.
Beautiful stone work.
We enjoyed looking around the church yard, and taking pictures and wondering about the history. We concluded it must have replaced an earlier church, and that was, indeed, what happened. Once back home, we got on the internet and found some information.
Litomysl is a town in former Czechoslovakia. When Bohemian descendants arrived in Minnesota, near this present day Holy Trinity Church, they named their new settlement Litomysl.
The people originally built a small, wooden church in 1878 and it was called Slovanik Bohemian Church.
In 1884 they changed the name to The Church of the Most Holy Trinity.
Beautiful sign in the church yard.
In 1898 the parish got its first resident pastor, and a parsonage was built next to the church.
A lovely parsonage, incorporating a stone entry,
The stone church is unique because it was made of stone donated by the parishioners, using their own field stones. Each family would donate 6 loads of field rock for the building of the church. Stone masons were hired to build the church. It was finished in 1941.
In 1957 the church built a school and named it St. Isidore School. St. Isidore is the patron saint of farmers. The school closed in 2015.
Flower pots maintained by the current congregation.
Surprisingly, the parish is very active to this day. It seems so remote, standing alone in the cornfields, but people come from the surrounding communities. There was a poster taped to the door announcing their annual summer festival, every July. It might be fun to attend sometime.
A beautiful display of colorful flowers growing in a tree stump on the church property.
Recently, I wrote about front porches that included a photo of my neighbor’s lovely front porch with surrounding flowerpots. Earlier this spring, she noticed a corn sprout peeking out of the soil in one of her flowerpots. She feeds the squirrels, and finds some kernels fall to the ground and sprout, so she pulls them out of the grass. But, when she noticed a sprout in her flowerpot she decided, just for fun, to let it grow to see if an ear would grow off the lone stalk. I told her I was curious too, and to let me know.
She called me over the other night to show me. Indeed, not only one, but two ears were growing on the lone stalk in her flowerpot. One ear was growing strong, but the other, not so much.
There was a major street renovation in our town recently. The intersection by the high school and middle school was transformed into a round-about, and four tunnels were added for pedestrians and bicyclists to use to avoid crossing the busy intersection. In the beginning, I wondered how much sense it made since it was costly. But now that it is completed, and working smoothly, I do like the results.
A future section of the Mill Towns State Trail will run through one of the tunnels.
To top it off, the city included monies for a public art display in the tunnels. There were bids for the job… muralists (artist’s self-identifier) had to submit their work and be chosen. For this public art display, Adam Tuman was the chosen artist.
The muralist: Adam Turman.
We have seen his work before. Several years ago, our son hired Adam to paint a beautiful mural on the outside wall of his office building in Uptown, Minneapolis. The mural included scenes of the uptown area (where the office is located) and signs of technology (the business).
Mural of the Uptown area on our son’s office building, in Uptown.
Another section of the cityscape view on the office building.
I also saw an exhibit of Adam Turman’s artwork at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona, MN.
Now, here he is in Northfield, painting beautiful, illustrated works to highlight our town and its surrounding area.
Bridge over the Cannon River in downtown Northfield.
The other day we went to see how the tunnels were progressing and Adam was working. We introduced ourselves and struck up a conversation with him. Adam was very friendly and engaging and we were so glad to meet him. Of course, he remembered doing the mural for our son. We are thrilled Adam was chosen to do this public art display in Northfield. He has almost completed his work on the four tunnels.
Ruins of an old mill in Dundas, MN.
The colors are vibrant.
Bright colors.
The themes so apropos to our area.
Hidden Falls in Nerstrand Big Woods State Park.
The painting so artistically appealing.
Prairie cone flowers.
I love the added touch; a bee.
You get a sense of being a part of something big as you walk through the tunnels.
This woodpecker scene is still a work in progress.
There will be 16 scenes representing four sections when he is through with this project: Cannon River, Nerstrand Big Woods, Prairie, and Oak Savannah.
Kayaks on the Cannon.
An up-close snipit.
Trout Lilies.
A barred owl.
A chickadee.
Adam Turman does amazing work, and it is definitely worth a trip to see these tunnels in Northfield.
