Living Our Dream

Duluth, MN Part III: Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center

Superior, WI - Events of Wednesday, July 6, 2011

The Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center is a free museum operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It is located at the foot of the Duluth Lift Bridge about two or three blocks from where we parked for the Vista Fleet cruise and the SS William A. Irivn. Since our $3 parking fee was good for all day, we decided to walk over there to check the visitor center out.

It was mid afternoon, and we were hungry. The 2011 Zeller Foodie Tour was in for a treat, because there was a Triple D restaurant on the way to the museum called Northern Waters Smokehaus. The Smokehaus is located in the DeWitt-Seitz Marketplace. The building was built in 1909 for the DeWitt-Seitz Company, which was a furniture and mattress manufacturer. The building was renovated in 1985 and now contains upscale retail and office space and numerous restaurants.

We wound our way past several other restaurants and a couple of gift shops and made our way to the Northern Waters Smokehaus.

Northern Waters Smokehaus specializes in smoked meats and fish, which they sell by the pound.

The Smokehaus also sells sandwiches, and they have a few tables on a deck outside the building, a few stools inside the shop and two small tables in the hallway. The sandwich featured on Triple D was the Pastrami Mommy, which is made from their own bison pastrami, topped with provolone, sweet Italian peppers and greens. The sandwich is made with pumpernickel bread and served with mustard and mayo. We decided to order a Pastrami Mommy and a Cajun Finn (to the left in the photo below) to share. A Cajun Finn is smoked salmon with Cajun spices, green-onion cream cheese, roasted red peppers, sweet Italian peppers and lettuce on ciabatta stirata bread.

Our favorite by far was the Cajun Finn. The salmon had a nice, smokey flavor. The sweetness of the roasted red peppers complimented the slight tartness of the pickled Italian peppers. The pastrami was good, but Paul thought they went a little overboard with the Dijon-style mustard because the strong flavor of the mustard overpowered everything else on the sandwich.

With our bellies full, we walked the last block or so the Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center. The visitor center is located in a small park along the Duluth Canal.

Inside, there are numerous displays relating to shipping on the Great Lakes. The photo below is a two-cylinder piston steam engine from a tug boat. This engine is almost two stories tall, which is typical for a vertical piston steam engine. Later steam turbine engines such as the ones in the William A. Irvin were much more compact.

Iron ore was probably the most important commodity to the early development of the Twin Ports of Duluth and Superior. High-grade iron ore (the two piles in the center of the photo below) contains 50 to 60% iron. The high grade ore that the United States relied on so heavily for World war II was just about mined out by the end of  the war. Lower grade ore called taconite containing only about 25 to 30% iron became the new source for iron.

In the 1950s, a method was developed to concentrate the taconite ore to about 65% iron and form it into round pellets about ½ inch in diameter (the pile to the left in the rear in the next photo). The pellets are more economical to ship because the ore is more concentrated, and the round shape makes the pellets easier to handle. Then in the 1980s, a further enhancement was made by adding 1 to 10% limestone to the pellets depending on customer specifications. The pellets with limestone added (the pile to the far right) are called flux taconite or sweet taconite. The addition of limestone increases the efficiency of the blast furnace.

The display in the next photo showed the location of various ports and locks around the Great Lakes.

The visitor center has many scale models of ships including the one of a Canadian freighter pictured below.

We've spoken several times about the Edmund Fitzgerald. She was the freighter that went down in a storm on Lake Superior in 1975 with all 29 hands lost. A few days after the sinking, the wreck of the Fitzgerald was discovered in over 500 feet of water near Whitefish Bay by Navy aircraft using magnetic detection equipment. There were several later manned and unmanned submersible dives to the site. The visitor center has a scale model that depicts how the Fitzgerald is lying on the bottom. The ship broke in two, and the stern is upside down.

As we walked back to the car after seeing the Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center, we saw something that reminded us why we would have a hard time calling this area home. All the fire hydrants in this whole area, not just the ones in suburban areas, but also those in the city, have 6-foot reflective markers so the hydrants can be located when it snows. Yikes!

There's lots more to see in Duluth-Superior, so stay tuned.

Minneapolis - St. Paul, MN Part III Minnesota History Center

Woodbury, MN - Events of Thursday, June 30, 2011

From the Hill House, we went a few blocks to the Minnesota History Center. Like the Hill House, the history center is operated by the Minnesota Historical Society. As we explained previously, the historical society gets more than half its funding from the state. Therefore, since state funding was going to be cut off at midnight July 1 due to the budget crisis, the Minnesota History Center was scheduled to close, too.

The Minnesota History Center was completed in 1992, and it has facilities for concerts and performances, meetings, conferences, weddings, dinners and more. It also houses a library and serves as the headquarters of the Minnesota Historical Society.

In the artium at the museum entrance is a replica of Charles Lindgergh's first airplane. Although Lindbergh was born in Detroit, he grew up in Little Falls, MN, so Minnesota claims him as their own.

The museum features several semi-permanent and temporary exhibits. One of the temporary exhibits is "Underwear: A Brief History." The exhibit is sponsored by Munsingwear, which is a division of Perry Ellis International. Munsingwear is a manufacturer of underwear and sportswear, and is based in Minneapolis.

In the late 1800s, most underwear was wool. By the late 1800s, people's lifestyles were changing as were clothing styles. People wanted undergarments that were more comfortable and better-fitting. In 1898, George Munsing was awarded a patent for a method that allowed him to create a rib-knit fabric that sheathed wool fibers in comfortable silk. The photo below shows an early knitting machine that would have been used to knit the fabric.

Another exhibit at the history center is "MN 150," which is a list of 150 people, places or things from Minnesota that have had an effect on the nation and the world. The list was released in 2008 and was selected by a committee from thousands of nominations.

One of the things that made the list was Greyhound Lines. Greyhound was founded in northern Minnesota around 1914.

Another familiar item on the MN 150 list is our old friend Spam. Click here to read about our 2009 visit to the Spam Museum in Austin, MN.

As we learned at the Runestone Museum a few days prior, the snowmobile was invented in Minnesota. Therefore, it was no surprise the snowmobile also made the list. Shown below is the first Polaris snowmobile manufactured in 1956.

Speaking of the Runestone Museum, the Kensington Runestone also made the list, as did things like iron ore, Tonka Trucks, and wheat. Famous people from Minnesota who are on the list include Bob Dylan (singer, songwriter), Garrison Kiellor (humorist - Lake Wobegone Days), Seymour Cray (inventor of world's first supercomputer), Prince (singer), F. Scott Fitzgerald (writer), James J. Hill (railroad magnate - we told about our visit to his mansion in our last post before the one about our 5th anniversary) and Charles Lindbergh (flyer). Places on the list include the Mayo Clinic, Split rock Lighthouse and Itasca State Park (location of the headwaters of the Mississippi river). To see the entire MN 150 list, click here.

For Margery, some of the more interesting things Minnesota is known for is the first Center for Victims of Torture founded in 1985 providing physical and psychological services directly to torture victims and their families. Sister Ellizabeth Kenny who developed a program of massage and exercises to rehabilitate polio victims that is still used today. South Mall, the nation's first indoor mall was developed in 1956. By the mid-1990's, there were more than 25,000 enclosed  malls in the U.S. In 1918, Walter Deubener designed the brown paper shopping bag with two handles for people to carry home groceries from his small grocery stand.

As we made our way around the museum, we noticed some of the display cases were empty. They had removed items of value and locked them away in anticipation of the impending shutdown. We also kept running into a work crew that was covering some of the larger displays with plastic to protect against a mishap like a water leak that might occur while the museum was closed.

One of the most unique displays we have ever seen was called "Open House: If These Walls Could Talk." It picked an address and followed the stories of the 50 or so people who lived in that house over the years. We entered the exhibit through the recreated facade of the house.

Margery is reading about the first residents of the house, the Shumachers, who were German immigrants. They moved into the house in 1888.

When the Schumachers moved out in 1906, the house was converted to a duplex, and renters moved in. In the 1920s, the house became a triplex with different residents on each floor. There were photos and written stories about many of the residents. For more recent residents, there were recordings and videos.

"Weather Permitting" was yet another exhibit. It featured many leisure-time activities Minnesotans enjoy. We again ran into a 1950s Larson Falls Flyer Runabout. See the water skis behind the boat? Did you know water skiing was invented in Minnesota? Go figure. Paul thought for sure water skiing started in Florida.

Another part of the "Weather Permitting" display was a theater that looked like a basement storm shelter where visitors could watch a video about tornadoes. There was also a demo of wind power where you could aim a blower to see how many whirligigs you could get spinning.

Our favorite exhibit was "Minnesota's Greatest Generation" that told the story of many of Minnesota's WWII veterans.

We especially liked the simulated flight of a plane carrying paratroopers. They projected videos of the men telling their stories on the inside wall of a section of fuselage. There was simulated anti-aircraft fire, and you could see flashes outside the plane's windows. You could also feel the vibrations of the shells exploding through the benches on which we were sitting.

Paul had to try his hand at the display that demonstrated the urgency of the war effort back home. As the shell casings passed by on the conveyor belt, the operator had to insert a simulated powder charge and a projectile. There was a timer so you could see if you could maintain the required pace.

The "Minnesota's Greatest Generation" exhibit ended up with a nostalgic look back at the post-war 1950s with things like the scene below with an aluminum Christmas tree...

...and a 1955 Ford Customline.

There was also a soda fountain where you could see what it was like to be a soda jerk. By the way, the reason they were called soda jerks is because of the way they would push and pull or jerk the handle of the soda dispenser back and forth to get the flow of the soda just right to make the right amount of froth.

When we finished touring the Minnesota History Center, we still had time to make our third and final stop of the day. We'll tell you where that was in our next post.

Alexandria, MN Part III: Minnesota Lakes Maritime Museum

Miltona, MN

Minnesota is called "land of 10,000 lakes." Actually, it has over 11,800 lakes that are 10 or more acres in size. With all those lakes, boating and fishing are popular passtimes.

Right around the corner from the Runestone Museum in Alexandria is the Minnesota Lakes Maritime Museum. Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, there were many exclusive resorts and private fishing clubs on Minnesota's lakes. The goal of the Minnesota Lakes Maritime Museum is to preserve as much of the history of the resorts and boating as possible.

The design of the exterior of the museum building is inspired by the hotel at the Geneva Beach Resort that was built on the southern shore of Lake Geneva in the late 1800s. Lake Geneva is one of several lakes near Alexandria.

All those lakes in Minnesota attract many waterfowl, and hunting was, and still is, a popular fall activity. One area of the museum had an exhibit of duck boats. Most of the boats on display date from the early 1900s. Some are wood, some are aluminum, and some are galvanized steel.

Alongside the duck boats was a large display of decoys like the mallard duck in the next photo.

Another area was filled with outboard motor boats. The one pictured below is a 16' Dee Wite runabout. Although the boat is an outboard, the motor is mounted under a cowl to make the boat look an inboard.

Speaking of outboard motors, the museum has dozens of antique motors on display.

Production of fiberglass boats began in the 1950s. Larson Boat Works was a well-known Minnesota boat company that started out building wooden boats, then switched to sleek-looking fiberglass boats in the 1950s. The 1955 Falls Flyer shown below was named after Little Falls, MN where the company was located. The Larson Boat name is now owned by Genmar Holdings, Inc.

Another fiberglass outboard at the museum is a 1958 Glass Slipper. Notice how the automobile has influenced this boat. The Glass Slipper has recessed headlights, 1957 Chevrolet turquoise color...

... and simulated tail lights a la 1956-57 Ford Thunderbird. Of course, it also has tail fins.

Large yachts frequently have tenders or launches to service the yacht and to ferry passengers from the yacht to the dock. The Minnesota Lakes Maritime Museum has several wooden launches from the late 1800s and early 1900s including the 1894 tender Dungeness in the next photo. From 1894 to 1900, the tender and the 120-foot yacht of the same name belonged to Andrew Carnegie who started Carnegie Steel Co. in Pittsburgh. Carnegie Steel later merged with several other steel companies to become U. S. Steel.

And what would boating be without fishing? There was a whole room full of antique fishing lures.

Chris-Craft is one of the best known names in boats. They are famous for the mahogany-hulled powerboats they produced from the 1920s through the 1950s. The photo below shows an example of a Chris-Craft inboard powerboat from the 1940s.

Fiberglass overtook production of wooden boats, and Chris-Craft built its last mahogany-hulled boat in 1971.

Garfield Wood was a legendary powerboat racer in the 1910s and 1920s. In 1916, he set a his first of many speed records by going almost 75 mph on the Detroit River. At that time, Gar Wood also became involved with the Chris Smith Boat Co., which started building racing boats under Wood's direction. In 1923, Chris Smith broke away from Gar Wood to form Chris-Craft Boats and concentrate on building production boats rather than racing boats.

Gar Wood started his own company to build high-quality, high-performance boats. The next photo shows a 1947 Gar Wood 19'-6 Commodore Deluxe Runabout named Victory.

The wood and gleaming chrome on the Victory is amazing.

The museum also demonstrated Minnesotans don't stop their activities on the lake when winter comes. They just haul out their iceboats and keep right on sailing.

Even though the lighting was a little dim and some of the boats were a little close together making them hard to see, and even though we're not boaters, we still enjoyed our visit to the Minnesota Lakes Maritime Museum. Admission is only $6 ($5 for seniors over 65), so it's definitely worth a stop.

The next day, we made our way to our next destination in Minneapolis - St. Paul, MN. We'll have more information about our adventures in Minneapolis - St. Paul in the next several posts.

Alexandria, MN Part I: Runestone Museum

Woodbury, MN

It was a relatively short travel day from the campground at Jackpot Junction Casino to our next destination in Minnesota. Still, Margery had time to make these observations about the southwest quadrant of Minnesota as we drove into the state:

1.  There is lots of beautiful, rolling-prairie farmland.

2.  There are corn fields for as far as the eye can see, but knee high by the 4th of July will not happen this year - one foot high is more like it.

3.  The land of 10,000 lakes had many more in cornfields.

4.  John Deere dealers are everywhere.

5.  There are more Dairy Queens here than in Louisiana.

6.  The vast majority of homes and farms are meticulously maintained.

7.  We saw no mobile home parks.

8.  Many, many homes had RVs parked on the property.

9.  There are numerous small towns (under 500) that have grain elevators as their major structure. 

We had an uneventful drive of about 2½ hours, and we arrived at Lazy Days Campground in Miltona, MN shortly after noon. Miltona is a small town about 30 minutes north of Alexandria, MN; and the campground is about 5 miles outside town, so it is really out in the sticks.

Lazy Days has very large sites, some of which are pull-throughs. The sites have full hookups - some with 30 amps, and some with 50 amps. The sites with 50 amps have only 50 amps. There is also free Wi-fi. The next photo shows our pull-through site at Lazy Days Campground.

And the next photo is a view of some of the sites behind us. The campground was about half full when we arrived on the weekend.

In addition to a heated pool, Lazy Days has lots for kids to do. There is a playground, a BMX bicycle dirt track, they had a wagon with some hay bales on it hooked up to a golf cart for hay rides, and their lawn mower was hooked to a train made out of plastic barrels.

The campground was nice and quiet. There was no interstate noise, and we only heard a few, fairly distant trains.

After relaxing Sunday afternoon watching the NASCAR race, we headed into Alexandria on Monday. Our first stop was the Runestone Museum, which is the home of the mysterious Kensington Runestone. On our way into the museum, we had to stop for a tourist photo with Big Ole, which is a 28-foor fiberglass statue of a Viking. The statue was made for the 1964-65 New York Worlds Fair.

Everyone always wonders what Scotsmen wear under their kilts, and Paul was also curious about what Vikings wear under their little skirts. Now he knows.

When we stopped in the museum gift shop to pay our admission, Paul couldn't resist trying on a Viking helmet.

   

The Kensington Runestone is a gray stone about 36 inches long, 16 inches wide, and about 6 inches thick that contains runic inscriptions on the face and on one side.

The next photo was taken from a slide show at the museum and has better lighting to show the runic lettering more clearly.

The runic alphabet was used by Germanic people, which includes Scandinavians, from about 100 AD until they adopted the Latin alphabet around 1100 AD. Many Nordic hunters and adventurers set up stones with runic inscriptions as a way of saying, "I was here." About 3,000 of them have been found in Scandinavia.

In 1898, Olof Ohman supposedly found the flat stone entangled in the roots of a tree he was clearing from his farm near Kensington, Minnesota, which is about 15 miles southwest of Alexandria.

The translation of the inscription tells the story about 6 Goths and 22 Norwegians who were on an expedition from Newfoundland to the west. The stone is dated 1362. If authentic, the stone suggests Scandinavians were in Minnesota 130 years before Columbus landed in the New World.

The stone has been a source of controversy since it was first discovered. Experts were quick to label the stone a hoax, but others who studied it declared it was quite possibly authentic. Studies indicate weathering of the inscription is consistent with an age of about 500 years. Another argument in favor of authenticity is the fact Olof Ohman wasn't well enough educated to have known about the runic alphabet to have accurately created a fake stone.

It is widely accepted that Vikings had landed in Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland around 1000 AD, but how did Viking explorers make it all the way to inland Minnesota? Some say they sailed through Hudson Strait to the north of Newfoundland and then south through Hudson Bay. There are several rivers and there are many, many lakes that lie in depressions created by glaciers during the Ice Age. A couple of wet years could have linked many of the lakes together, especially during the spring thaw.

In one location along the route, there are three boulders with triangular holes cut into the rock that are identical to holes in Norway that were created by chisels rather than drills. The holes were used to fasten anchor pins for boats.

Several relics such as the axe head below and an iron striker (right rear) that was used to create sparks for fire starting have been found in Minnesota. These implements are the same as Norse implements of the 1300s found in Scandinavia. These relics have not been found anyhere else in North America indicating they were probably not brought by immigrant settlers.

There are still many nay-sayers who maintain the stone is fake, but there is also a lot of evidence that says it could be real. It's an interesting debate that will probably never be settled.

The Runestone Museum also has several other exhibits relating to Minnesota history. In addition to an exhibit of Native American artifacts, they also have a display of animals and birds of Minnesota.

The Runestone Museum has another room with several exhibits that depict life in Minnesota in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Outside the museum is a reconstruction of Fort Alexandria. We'll tell you about the fort in our next post.

Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum

Morton, MN

Laura Ingalls Wilder was the author who wrote the novel Little House on the Prairie on which the TV series of the same name was based. The series ran for 9 seasons in the 1970s to the early 1980s. Paul was always in his woodworking shop after dinner in those days so he never got to see any of the programs; but Margery and our daughter, Lora, never missed an episode.

The book is based on real life experiences of Laura Ingalls Wilder as a member of a pioneer family in the late 1800s in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Since we were passing near there, Margery wanted to stop at the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum.

We normally don't sightsee on a travel day, but this time was one of the few exceptions. Since Walnut Grove is only about a two-hour drive from Sioux Falls, the plan was to get a fairly early start, pull into the campground at Plum Creek Park near Walnut Grove, unhook the toad and drive back into town to visit the museum. We then planned to spend the night at Plum Creek Park before moving on to our next stop.

Not only was this one of those rare occasions when we went sightseeing on a travel day, it was also one of those times we didn't make reservations. Big mistake. We pulled into Plum Creek Park before noon figuring we wouldn't have a problem getting a site that early in the day in a small town, but the campground was all booked up. What we didn't account for was the fact most of the sites were taken by seasonals. On top of that, some sites were closed because they were too waterlogged from recent rains. The few sites that remained had all been reserved since it was the start of the weekend.

We drove back into town to the museum and found a place to park the motor home with the toad still hooked up. Before we went into the museum, Margery checked her list of campground possibilities and found Jackpot Junction Casino about an hour down the road had a full-hookup campground. She got no answer when she called to check on site availability, so she left a message.

Then we went into the museum.

The Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove has several buildings from late 1800s that represent the period that Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about in Little House on the Prairie and some of her other books.

The 1898 depot has a room with displays and photos relating to the Ingalls and Wilder families. The Ingalls family arrived in Walnut Grove in 1874. The family consisted of Charles and Caroline Ingalls...

...and (left to right) Carrie, Mary and Laura.

The second room of the depot had photos from the TV series. Charles and Carrie Ingalls were played on TV by Michael Landon and Karen Grassle. Laura was played by Melissa Gilbert, and her older sister Mary was played by Melissa Sue Anderson. Twins Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush switched off playing the role of Laura's younger sister Carrie.

Although the series was based on the book and featured many of the same characters, it also expanded on the stories with new characters and fictional events. After all, the writers had to come up with enough stories to fill 9 seasons.

One of the more memorable characters from the TV series is Nellie Oleson who was the town brat. Nasty Nellie was played by Alison Arngrim. The next photo shows the real Nellie Owens. The TV Oleson family was based on the real life Owens family.

Margery really enjoyed seeing pictures not only of the real Ingalls family, but also the pictures of the actors when the program was being produced and what they look like now. Suffice it to say that grumpy Mrs. Oleson and bratty Nellie Oleson are very attractive in their own persona.

When the Ingalls family first arrived in Walnut Creek, Laura was 7. They built a dugout into the banks of Plum Creek as depicted by a display in another building called Heritage Lane.

Outside, the museum has an above-ground reconstruction of the dugout that is about the same size as the original.

The dugout had one room. You can see the sod that made up the front wall.

The museum also has a small chapel that was constructed as a 1983 high school shop class project. The chapel displays items from several local churches including an old pump organ.

An early settler's home was moved to the museum site to represent the type of home the Ingalls built after the dugout. The two-room house is furnished in the period of the late 1800s.

"Grandma's House" is an onion-domed, wood-frame house built around 1890, about 10 years after Laura and her family left Walnut Grove for the Dakota Territory. The house has no connection to Laura, but it still represents the period that she wrote about. There are several displays in Grandma's House depicting the history of Walnut Grove with photos, furnishings, and other memorabilia.

There is also a one-room school on the grounds that is similar to the one Laura would have attended and similar to the one where she later taught in the Dakota Territory.

Little House on the Prairie should be required viewing/reading for our young people today to help them learn about the importance and value of a strong, traditional family unit. The stories also provides valuable life lessons that make us laugh, cry, and think. The Waltons should also be required viewing for the same reasons. Unfortuantely, Margery thinks that too many of these lessons go untaught today.

After we finished up at the museum, we got back to the business of trying to find a place to stay. We had still not heard back from Jackpot Junction, so Margery called again and got the same recording. We then called Riverside Campground, which is located about half way between Walnut Grove and the casino. Unfortunately, Riverside Campground was closed because of flooding.

We still couldn't reach the casino campground by phone, but we didn't have much choice but to drive on because we could find nothing else near our route. If they didn't have any sites available when we got there, our fall-back plan was to call our next destination to see if we could come in a day early. That would make a long day of it, but we thought we could make it if we had to.

When we arrived at Jackpot Junction Casino, it turned out the west (new) section of their campground was all booked up for the weekend, but there were lots of sites left in the east (old) section, including two pull-throughs. We took one!

Most of the sites in the old section are back-ins, but they have 4 curb-side pull-throughs. Although not ideal because you're right on the campground road and the hookups are on the wrong side of the rig, we were happy to get ANY site, let alone a pull-through so we wouldn't have to unhook the car for a one-night stop. Not only that, but the sites in the old section are a bargain only $12 a night ($10 during the week).

 

The roads are paved, and the back-in sites in the old section are gravel with a little grass between. The next photo shows several of the curb-side pull-throughs on the left and some of the back-ins on the right.

Most of the sites in the new section are pull-throughs. Pads are paved and the sites are a little more spacious. Both sections have free Wi-fi, and the sites in the new section also include cable. Prices for sites in the new section are $15 during the week and $20 on the weekend.

The campground is located behind the casino away from traffic and truck parking; and other than a bit of a hum from the ventilation fans at the back of the building, the campground was pretty quiet. After a long day and a good night's rest, we continued on our way north in Minnesota. This time we had reservations, and we had what we hoped would be some interesting sightseeing in store. Stay tuned.