Maine or Bust! - Part II

We somewhat reluctantly pulled away from Rapid City, while promising ourselves we'd be back to explore this area more thoroughly at some point in the future,  and began our Eastward trek in earnest; first day was a nearly 400 mile haul straight East on I90 through the southern part of South Dakota to Sioux Falls. Somewhat surprisingly, to me at least, the landscape along the way was not as barren as, say, the wastelands of West Texas; but still not exactly the most stimulating drive we'd ever been on.

We had just an overnight in Sioux Falls, as we would all the way until a slightly longer stay-over in Niagara Falls a week or so later; and were soon off to, heading straight North now, Fargo, North Dakota.  I had pre-conceived notions about this city, based mostly on the scenes from one of my favorite cult films of the same name ("Yah, you betcha that dead body is frozen stiff, Ey?"); but really we saw little of Fargo itself, basically taking a right turn at the East edge of town and heading into Minnesota. Off the freeway now, we wound our way North and East into the "lake country" of this big state, taking a side trip into Itasca State Park, containing the headwaters of the Mississippi River, before arriving at our next night stay-over in nearby Bemidji.  The side-trip to the Mississipi headwaters was well worth it; here you could walk over this soon-to-be mighty river on a log bridge. 

 

 

It was amazing, really, to imagine this placid little stream developing, on its meandering course, into the wide, mighty river that would ultimately empty into the Gulf of Mexico near New Orleans.  Bemidji, quiet little town that it is in Northern Minnesota, is the first town through which the Mississipi flows; and it flows North from Lake Itasca in the aforementioned State Park of the same name, if you can believe it, to reach Bemidji, before turning South for it's long trek to the Gulf. 

From Bemidji the next morning we shot up on a Northeasterly route toward Ontario, Canada.  All along the way we were apparently in "Moose Country"... the numerous road signs reminded us of such... but no sightings in Minnesota or any of the other areas to follow (so far).  We crossed the border at International Falls, Minnesota/Ontario, the border crossing, itself, a rather odd zig-zagging journey along and over railroad tracks and industrial sites on the US side, over the international bridge ($10 American for a 100 yard crossing on this toll bridge!) to more of the same on the Canadian side.  We pulled up to the only Canadian customs window open at the time, through a slot barely wide enough to squeeze our truck and trailer, greeted there by a very friendly, and probably bored, customs agent, who passed us through in short order, and we  were off into the vast wilds of Ontario.  This was on Friday, the 13th of September, and surprisingly nothing really bizarre or bad happened to us on this day.