Stockholm WI, VRBO Guest Book

 2/18/22

    This morning I had here the most incredible event, it was singular, remarkable, miraculous.

    I was having my tea at the small table in the kitchen whilst watching a small furry bunny scratching. for food under the bird feeder when, suddenly and explosively. the little fellow was gone! But not before I could identify the author of his rapid and unexpected exit.

    Glacies Serpentis!!! I was astonished but, clearly, I could make the identification in the instant through myriad details including the angularity of the jaws and the prominent "Black Diamond" marking on the flared hood of the beast. An incontrovertible insignia of this specie.

    Amazing to witness this incredible creature so far form its (Previously to today) accepted habitat.

    "Snow Snakes," as the 18th century voyageurs, in the far north, named them, are rarely witnessed south of Hudson Bay.

    And given the fact that they are top predators, they are extremely rare. Too many of them in any one place quickly exhausts the supply of furry little bunnies etc.

    They can be up to a meter in length and are nearly completely white, save for the black diamond visible with the occipital flare as mentioned above. Thus are difficult to see, especially with overhead limb shadows on the snows.

    So what explains its materialization here in the valley of the Mississippi?

    The last documented U.S. sighting of a specimen was in1891 near Watersmeet, Upper Peninsula of Michigan. (A sighting I might add, by a bonafide observer. Also, in the 19th century several credible reports were logged by surveyors and copper prospectors on the Keweenaw Peninsula.

    From the aforementioned Watersmeet it is not a great distance to the headwaters of the Chippewa River, and not far distant from this farm is that river's confluence with Mississippi.

    Glacies Serpentis are powerful swimmers. Legion must be the number of unfortunate mother hen ducks whose anguish was felt when looking back at her followers had witnessed the seeming vaporization one of the tiny fuzzy ducklings.

    So it is not out of the question to think that one of those noble creatures could descend the Chippewa and, likewise, ascend the Mississippi, and, hence the Bogus Creek here in back of this place.

    Interestingly they are impossible to maintain in captivity. Artificial snow (i.e. Man-made, manufactured snow,) does not sustain the creature. Notwithstanding the fact that it is a big hassle to keep all those tiny furry bunnies on hand in miniature cages.

    I sat the rest of the day at the end of that little table but, apparently, this morning's was the last of the little bunnies.

    Still, I possess the ultimate honor of making my credentialed report am anxious to make that report to my fellow colleagues upon my return to The Institute.

    I am going to tell old Barney in #330 to put this in his pipe and smoke it, the way he goes on about hunting elephants in South America and all that tripe about the Elephant Graveyard down there he discovered and so forth.

    And Marv, too, in #355 blowing all the time about designing that blasted doohickey for time travels! What good is it if it only transports a fellow back no more than 33 seconds? 

    Needs work Marty.

    Eat your heart out now that I have Glacies Serpentis to report.

 

BLUE HERON LODGING LOG

Lancaster, WI

9/15/21 2330

 

I had the most incredible, no, singular experience in my 66 years of life last night. It was on the dock, by the slip, on the beach.

But first I must say, the accommodations here have been generous and fine. Our family has relished the deck, the view and our time together.

The location here affords the curious mind with opportunities for discovery, for instance the Driftless Center just upstream and the Effigy Mounds National Monument downstream witch bring me back to last night.

I was restless, not falling to sleep as per usual. A waxing gibbous moon was approaching the bluff here behind. I took the opportunity to shuffle sown to the river.

There I sat. The silence was near deafening. The stars above infinite. I reflected upon those of us who came before.

The waters were still – it was if the entire valley had paused – as if it were about to take a breath   - to inhale – inspire.

I, too, paused – it was a divisional moment. Proceeding forward with the next breath, the next sound, the next sensation, would be separated, aloof, to all those that proceeded.

Then the next tick, the next swing of the pendulum, the serene, somnolent surface of the mighty river began to ripple, to riffle, to be disturbed. The was no atmospheric explanation for this phenomenon - the air, the temperature, the barometric influences, and perhaps, time itself, were suspended just then.

As I watched, the river, excited then, began to fibrillate – to convulse and to slowly bulge as if it were buckling under submarine forces extreme.

A majestic form. primitive in aspect, but yet modern in hydrodynamic design, arose. A long neck extending, almond eye to the side – clearly not a hunter then - and an immense zeppelin body emerging with water rivuleting off, cascading, effervescing about the huge creature’s flanks.  It towered there above me, glistening, its enormity bejeweled in the last filaments of the moon as it sank behind the bluff.

Then slowly, with majestical grace, it reentered the waters, a long bifurcated tail the last of it to be seen as it again enveloped itself below the dark, and strangely, once more undisturbed surface.

I sat there in silence. Eventually a puff of breeze disturbed the air, caressed the river.

Naturally I kept this incident to myself lest my lunacy be confirmed.

However, I feel now compelled to report it. Earlier today, at a visit to the Effigy Mounds National Monument, while viewing from the deck of the wooded overlook on the Pickerel Loop, I looked down and, to my astonishment, saw depicted there, in perfect form, scale, and proportion, a mound in the exact image of the creature I witnessed here last night.

Hurriedly I sought the guide for explanation and read there the following:
               “Spirit Fish Mounds like the one you see before here are thought to be fanciful depictions of a mystical, mythological nature representing a spiritual entity. The form surely was of significance to the early residents of the valley for mounds of this exact style, shape and whimsy are rendered in numerous sites along the Mississippi…” etc.

Fanciful? Mystical? Whimsy? Don’t be deceived by our own quaint notions of reality.

Guestbook entry Mainstreet Wabasha MN, 9/6/24

 

Entry to guestbook, VRBO Mainstreet Wabasha, MN

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Friday, September 6, 2024, 0116 AM

 

My goodness! So excited are we!

Yes, this is a comfortable place in every aspect. Yes. Yes. But a truly remarkable event has just now occurred which we must now relate.

We were sitting on a bench below the great bridge. All quiet, dark, could even see The Milky Way. Lovely.

Oh, what I must add is that we have been up and down the valley –searching for clues against, each of ours, vague and arguable, ancestries. Courthouses, churches, newspapers and so forth as far down as Dubuque, for heaven’s sake. Yes. Yes.

But little kernels gathered therein manifested themselves to our eyes, unbidden, here on the river banks tonight. 

It began - in the peculiar silence that can accompany this valley in the night – with, a ripple.

A ripple! Yes! Yes!

And she emerged through the petite contractions like a god manifesting to us!

A brilliant instant in the light reflected from the bridge above,

She arced out of the depths slowly and majestic. Yes!

Looking directly at us as if we were complicit in a singular crime! Yes. Yes. We were.

She exposed marvelous throat and breasts and yes, an umbilicus, a naval, waving her hands with grace unpossessed by our ambulatory brethren, she skulled the waters at our feet for a moment or two.

We were then projected backwards, necessarily, to our studies in the dim and dusty libraries.

Rumor, inference, odd and ends, suggestions – even Mark Twain in his riverboat captain days, references, yes, yes. Not up here but further downstream –say, Lansing Iowa, maybe McGregor…we have, as well, captured references to the legendary apparition.

Just such little kernels, such self-conscious tidings…

Twain refers to these notions in “Life on the Mississippi” but he is not alone.

This river holds magic!

She lounged back in the ripples. Her red lips, blonde hair in the currents, her long arms graceful.

She blew us a playful kiss and said something we could not understand –but, we live in Duluth MN – it clearly sounded Finnish in cadence and tongue, and she arced backwards then down to the depths. Her long bifurcated tail slapped the surface with final authority,

Yes! Yes! Surely this must be the water’s princess –told of by Twain, settlers, and natives alike. The only, the legendary, Birgitta.
               And we were all there for that one incomparable moment.

The circle of ripples fanned out and the slap of her tail echoed against the bridge.

There was a flash down there in the depths.

And she was gone.

Yes! Yes!

                                                                                          -Jeff Smith, Duluth, MN 

Wild Turkey Motorcylce Gang Ride Reports

  

12/2/24  1325

We lost a Wild Turkey brother yesterday. Johnny O passed.

Here's to Johnny O.

Tonite, or right now, raise a glass, spare a thought....

 

 

8/15/24

Duluth, MN

                                                            WILD TURKEY RIDE REPORT

Yesterday I took a ride. Left here, across the bridge to Wisco. Eventually to US 2, heading East. US 2. They named the even ones from N to S back in the day. This one must start near to the E coast (John any US 2 sightings back east?) and it goes all the way to Seattle, I think. MN has no #4 or 6 to my knowledge. Probably petered out before here. #8 struggled through our previous hometown before calling it quits, as far as I know, in MPLS.  But #10,12 and 14 still shoot across this state. Maybe 16 too – or just S of the border.

As many of you have, I suppose, rode on this highway 2 across N Dakota. I did across most of Montana.

Turned Right, S, at Iron River, on a nice county road, not bad, and right after it squeezes between two lakes watched for a road Jack showed me once. A true gift. Scenic Road it is called. Once we explored an offshoot which was rewarding too. At any rate this road is a challenge but offers. It creases through hills and under a canopy of hardwoods with each tiny break in those trees revealing lakes. Little roads lead to cabins and resorts that invite for a beer. And it is billiard table smooth like all Wisco backroads. In MN this and the rest, would all be gravel. Some of it was freshly surfaced even. The road comes out just shy of the Delta Diner. Down SE from there on the Delta Drummond Road. Marvelous. Smooth with sweepers, elevations changes and inviting straights. I opened her up.

About 2 years ago Jack and Our Most Perfect Leader, Al (Not A.I.) took this same ride. That was a good day. I think it was the time a big bird flew up and almost hit Jack in the head near Moquah. He did a super quick reflex Ninja Turtle head retraction telescoping. That was funny.

From Drummond SE on Owen Lake Road which is wonderful. Hills and valleys and blind curves of changing radii. It is a challenge. It is dense, acorns at the apex sometimes. There are no views except the winding road ahead. Sometimes just a blank wall of trees with no hint of which direction it will demand. A road like that is, without doubt is fully the most “in the moment” experiences I ever have.

Owen Lake is long and well hidden. And meant to stay that way. From what I have heard it is exclusive. My buddy Steve used to have a place on it and his neighbors across the bay were Johnson Wax Heirs. I think there is some Frank Loyd Wright going on back in there too. Johnson Wax had him design their headquarters. I have never seen the lake.

Steve told me once he rented some snowmobiles in Cable and his son and he came up for a weekend. It was 5 below inside the cabin. It was 15 outside. They opened the windows etc. and fired the furnace. Capturing the free 20 degrees.

The Owen Lake Road passes through a mysterious golf course. In the middle of nowhere. Beautiful. I have never seen anyone, anyone, on the course. Strange

First time I rode out in these wilds I was lost on a Sportster cutting across from Clam Lake. Getting low on fuel. I knew I was lost when I rode by, heading west, the same tavern in the woods. Twice.

Lunched at Garmisch USA, there’s one in Germany too, my biker buddy Bob had been to that one in Germany. Sat eating a Rueben at the same corner table as the 3 of us that day and watching the lake. Wisco has “Flowages”. Huge lakes or chains of them. A result, I think, of dams. Most likely WPA? This is the Namekagen Flowage. The view is beautiful. The lodge is spectacular, huge logs, 1925 or so. Where did the $ come from? Where the guests so far out there in the sticks? Similarly, blasting N from there toward Grandview one rides the lakeshores and across the spine of Anderson Island, the fabulous lake homes surely are not Duluth money. Must be Twin Cities or, Chicago? Crossed the N Wisco great divide thereafter. Hit a stretch of nasty tar snakes, still damp. Wildly slippery, (Can’t Wisco ever stop improving their roads?)

Was thinking about Jack and how on rides like this how we’d stop and crack open the side bags and have a sandwich. Or two. Sometimes shave. Maybe shave twice. And then we would hear it and on the far horizon see a speck and in many minutes Al (OMPL) would catch up and we would strike out again.

N to Mason and a left there. Proceed on a recently paved County Rd with long sweepers and terrific views, now in agriculture country. Keg Bales Marching in place across the fields.

At Ino, Hwy 2 West towards Duluth again.

That last ride, though, we carried on to Cornucopia, the most northern town in the state on Forest Road 236. A guy on a stool next to me (Barstool that is.) once told me about that one and 131 in far S Wisco which is terrific too. 

That day we took 236 to that same bar in Corni and had a beer there. It was then Jack told us he had something wrong in his abdomen. Some pain. More tests scheduled in the next week. Vague, but sounded ominous.

(We would take one more ride, I think, after that to Kettle Falls where no sooner had we got off our bikes then a fellow across the street, in a thunderous percussion, pulled over a building with a big truck. Got out brushed off his hands and went into the house. For lunch I suppose.)

We stopped along Wisco #13 where we split the trail that day. We had some good laughs there on the shoulder.

I wonder how much Jack already knew then.

Here’s to Jack.

192 miles yesterday.

She purred like a cat.

FCTTG

Official Wild Turkey 6/13/26 Ride Report

 

Decided to ride Friday but it was too windy, and in the usual N MN fashion the clear sky surrendered to low clouds with rare gaps and popcorn showers which would blast down huge drops and then decide to quit.

Yesterday was the same without the showers.

Hit the road about 1100.

My old buddy Milt Boisvin had told me about a place S of here where his dad would take him when he was a kid. A bridge in the woods over a gorge.

I tried to get there on my cycle a few yrs back but floods had washed out the bridges.

I have been looking at them on Google Maps and recently they looked fixed. So I went.

I worked with Milt RN years ago in downtown Mpls. He said he had changed his name after moving away. His last name was Drinkwine and back in the days of phone directories they would have to suffer all kinds of prank calls: “Do you drink wine?” What wine do you drink? Are you drunk right now? Etc.

So he changed it to The French.

He told me once that he spent his childhood in a little Wisco town called Foxboro. I remember looking it up on the map then…it was the deep sticks.

Must’ve been a lonely childhood out there.

Milt was turbo gay.

I would go back to his cubicle to talk with him about a patient and he would have all these cosmetics spread about in front of him and he’d be doing his nails etc.

After moving to Duluth I drove to Foxboro and took some photos and sent them to him.

A bonafide ghost town. Crumpled church. Broken empty store. The RR siding that gives the town its name was, and is, still active.

So I rode across that singular Minnesota/Oliver Wisconsin bridge where the vehicle roadway is suspended below the train tracks. Took a left in Oliver and went south on a very nice road that has whoop Dedoo hills. Went west to within inches of the Minnesota line and then south again. I tried to do this last year, but the road was closed for construction of those bridges I suppose. A beautiful road. Well, the bridges were done. But there was inexplicable stretches of gravel. Maybe a mile or so at a time when I got down there. Found the gorge and it was over the Nemadji River. Nemadji is Ojibwa for “River. that looks like diarrhea.”

It is full of clay. Which was handy for a company upstream that made pottery under that same name and I think it is valuable as vintage.

Anyway, I grit my teeth on those gravel stretches. Dumbfounded to find that on a Wisconsin County Road. The roads are much better than the secondary roads here in this state. I thought maybe it was just going to be one, then it was gonna be two and it turned out to be more, I don’t know how many. In good shape, but a lot of loose gravel and the bike is kind of squirrelly on it. And a lot of washboards. My bike does not dig on that stuff. But I found if I kind of let her have it, she would float along in a kind of dreamy, suspended sort of way. As expected instantly oncoming, traffic materialized, the raging Westwind helped a little bit, but cars gaining on me pushed me faster because I didn’t want them to pass.

Well, I got to Foxboro but there was nothing there. Nothing left at all. In fact, I knew I had gone through Foxboro when the road turned to gravel again at the Minnesota state line. It was right up against the state line back in the day. There was one house. Stately old house with a turret. I knew I would have to go a mile or two of inexplicable gravel to where Minnesota decided to stop paving. I navigated that and it as well was kind of entertaining. From there I blasted up through Holyoke. Jennifer Lange lives nearby that town, but I have promised not to divulge her exact address.

Glad to be on payment again, but the wind was still insufferable. Went up towards our most perfect leader’s stomping grounds, and went around some lakes there and was going to have lunch in Carlton, but I said fuck it and got on the interstate. Now that’s where my bike shines. Opened her up and went with the flow. I was beat by the time I got home.

Mel passed away a few years ago. Him and his partner both had cancers, aggressive shit. They lived in southern Edina on Nine Mile Creek, which flows, too,about a mile from where my grandkids live. When they were homebound there, K used to make foods and sweets, etc., and I would drop them off there  when we go visit the grandkids and they had a great place.

Milt was a Vietnam war veteran. 

One time I called him from up here and told him I had walked our dog through the Rose Garden and he said something like this:

“I used to love the rose garden! But then one night some guys chased me in there and beat me up for being, you know. They got me down on the ground and were kicking and stomping on me until one guy noticed my rosary in my hand and he said, “come on. Let’s let this guy be.”

He sold Mary K cosmetics and treated K very well. She would order from him right up until the end.

I remember having come to work sunburn from the boat or something and he lectured me on taking care of my skin and he said your skin is not going to be soft if you keep doing that. Well I thought my skin was pretty fucking soft. But he said feel my skin. I  touched his cheek and it was like dipping my fingers into a bottle of Noxzema.

He was quite a guy.

Here’s to Milt from Foxboro.

93 miles.

FCTTG

Wed, Jul 8 at 10:56 AM

Wild Turkey ride report.

Rode down the hill to the harbor and looked at the cruise ship that arrived yesterday morning. The city has rebuilt the port there so they can pull right up and discharge the passengers and go through customs, etc.

Also went and looked at the preparations being made for the big race tomorrow.

Tomorrow's grandma's marathon. Brings thousands of people to our town. Maybe even 1000 run in the race. From all over the world. The Africans usually kick everybody's butt. They were erecting grand stands at the finish line. All kinds of gantries and tents. Preparing. Tonight there will be a big spaghetti feed down there for the participants and maybe the public I don't know. Might go check that out for a change. Tomorrow there will be music, well starting today, at bayfront. Some really good bands, even soul asylum which is nationally recognized I guess and maybe some others. We try to go to that. You have to walk through the marathon runners to get there. One year I left mid afternoon to just go home and walk the dog and come back. A straggler runner was coming by. I tried to give him some kind of word of encouragement that he was almost there, etc. and he looked at me and puked all over the place. I'm a nurse, that's nothing new to me. But there is a lot of puking and other bodily fluids running down their legs at that point. They are a few blocks from the finish line. It is wild during the day with cow bells ringing everywhere, and people handing up bottles of water which are to discarded with aplomb by the runners along the streets. Last night we went to the Smokehouse to see the jazz there and the huge parking lot by grandma's saloon was now full of tents so it must be kind of fun. We made the mistake of leaving the Jazz early to see Wayne The train Hancock, a country guy, Honky Tonk a little bit of country swing and a lot of rockabilly. It was a lot of fun at first. He was singing songs about alcohol and making a lot of jokes, etc. After the break, he came back and was shitfaced. It was pathetic. There was an exodus from the theater.

At any rate, I followed the marathon course along the Lakeshore to it start near two harbors. Road around two harbors, checked out the beach and there was a half dozen or so people like always laying there looking for agates. I rolled north on that county road from downtown there. It's a straight as an arrow but has big hills and  at least one slight corner. It goes all the way up to Highway one which is the beautiful road that leads from Ely to the North Shore. Took a left up there, I don't know maybe a dozen miles? And came to the t by Hugo's. That is a nice stretch and you go through Wales. Lots of curves, good pavement, occasional glimpses of lakes. Stopped at Hugo to take the picture. Many years ago we went by there at night in the winter time and there had to be 50 snowmobiles and ATVs there. I say when you are at Hugo's and you take a step in any direction you are going back towards civilization. In Minnesota there are peculiar liquor license laws, depending on how much the proprietor

wants to spend. Hugo gets by with "beer and set ups." Or in other words a 32 joint. The bar can't serve beer with alcohol content above 3.2%. And the set ups are for you to bring your own bottle and they will mix you cocktails. You can leave your bottle there in a little locker so it is there for you in the next time. Also, in that shed next-door, they have Off-sale. They can't have off sale liquor, meaning a liquor store where you can grab a bottle and go, in the same premises. But you can go and buy a bottle of gin in that little shed, and then bring it back inside the bar and have yourself a martini served to you by the bartender. We used to go there once in a while to Music and they would have great country bands out there. Even old Hugo would get out on the dance floor with the young ladies. He had the moves.

From there down the Peyquan Lake Road. A beautiful road with curves and hills and good pavement. A canopy of trees. The curves range from tight to sweepers. With an occasional glimpse of P Q Lake.

A road construction sign ahead. One lane road. Out there in the boondocks it was just me and the young gal who was the flag person. We had quite a while to chat. She was from Esko. She had brand new Redwing boots that she was quite proud of. They were nice. Very comfortable, she says, for standing all day like she does. She has seen foxes, wolves, raccoons, lots of deer, bears, but never a moose.

Which brings me to another fascinating topic. We had dinner the other night at Mel George's resort on elephant Lake. The owner has a collector of moose horns. Or sheds as he calls them. If you find one, you will find the other one nearby. Interestingly, it might be this way for a deer, too, each shed is the moose's own singular fingerprint. No two moose have the same configuration. He showed us two pairs that were exactly identical from the same moose.

So there you have it.

She got a call on the walkie-talkie and answered, and I heard the other lady say, at the other end, sorry I really had to go. Eventually, the chain of cars went by, and I proceeded. I blushed for her when I rode by.

So I went from the young lady into the abyss. 7 miles of crater of the moon. Dust from big side dumpers flying by in the other direction, loose gravel and piles, ridges, the wind by this time was excessive and blowing my way and cold. Trenches and rous, and of course washboard. Another thing that is remotely interesting is that I heard a podcast once and it was concluded that science has no explanation, as of yet, for washboard roads. They happen at all kinds of roads, high speed, low speed, gravel, asphalt, even old train tracks will eventually develop some washboard type of contour.

I finally got on pavement, but it was after all the beautiful curves and over arching trees. Straight shot to duluth. My bike is a pig. I cleaned her up in the yard here, but we'll take her to the car wash and go after it. It is only a mile away in a good car wash. I can race home and take my weed blower, leaf blower, contraption, and blower dry. Works good.

I meet a group of guys every Wednesday and Thursday for happy hour at the Pickwick, which is a bar restaurant here downtown. One of them told me years ago not to worry about a mad influx of customers on grandma's weekend. He pointed out that they come to town, eat the free spaghetti, run the race pack up and jump in their Subaru and leave immediately after staying at grandma's, or a distant Cousin or someone they barely know in the backyard in a tent. He was an old-time bar owner. One time the Jehovah's Witnesses had a national convention here in duluth and he said they came with a $10 bill in one hand and the 10 Commandments in the other and never broke either of them.

Sorry about rambling on, but I am retired.

102 miles

 

 

7/6/26

Wild Turkey Ride Report
Day before yesterday, I decided to take a ride. Excuse me I’m dictating this while I walk the dogs up there all kinds of errors that is because I am picking up dog shit etc.
Also, I am laying down some dog shit here. I decided to go to the iron range. I headed it out of town on the Rice Lake Road past the airport. It’s a beautiful stretching road for many many miles. Through the woods. Also, between the 2 halves of Island Lake on a narrow strip of road in that’ll lake is beautiful with numerous islands in the distance. It is a reservoir, part of our power company’s, huge grids of locks and dams and lakes, etc. I’ve heard the people do not own their lake homes on this lake, but they lease it from the power company. Your shoreline can vary remarkably in one year depending on the need for water downstream at the power plants. Rode up through the.Palo Township area. Getting close to the range. All the roads have finish names. The Finn’s migrated there from the iron range. They were key figures in labor unrest on the iron range trying to get their share from the big shots like JP Morgan that controlled everything. Lots of labor unrest up there even some shootings if I remember right. The American communist party got its start up there towards Chisholm, one of the locals was a bona fide candidate for president. At any rate, the fins migrated from the range down to that neck of the woods I was driving through and considerably farther east. There is an old Finn school well preserved miles above two harbors. I stopped there on my bike at least once a summer. There are kiosks there. One of them holds an aerial photograph taken in about 1948. That shows numerous finish Homestead/farms dotting the landscape. These guys moved out there, Homesteaded and eeked out a living and a family. The next kiosk had that same aerial photograph the same altitude, etc. This one was taken sayi in 2009. Not one of them was visible any longer. At any rate came into the iron range at aurora- Hoyt lakes and continued north across the Embarrass Mountains, which, I take it are part of the Lairention divide. At their peak my bike turned over 30,000 miles. I stopped to take a picture. Kept going past more finish Homesteads that you can now visit to see how they did things back in the day.The cabins are also/barns attached. I took a right way up there towards Embarrass. The town of embarrass. A nice little place. The name comes from the French Voyagers, who named it, most likely, 100 years before George Washington was born.French voyageurso pelnetrated all through this neighborhood way up into Canada and across the continent to British Columbia. The primary export of this entire continent, Beaver skins, came through grand portage on Lake superior headed back towards Europe and the trade goods manufactured there came back up the grand portage to trade with the natives.. Embarrass was the name they applied to  river there over there because it had so many rapids and required so many portages. This town is historically known for being the coldest spot in the state butTower north of there recorded the state record low in the mid 90s. Now it is deemed that Cotton north of duluth is most likely the coldest spot in the state traditionally, but there was no accurate thermometers there in the days back then. There are now.I rode through cotton this spring when it was 35°, on my way to Virginia, Minnesota, it was north of Cotton, where my nuts fell off. Got to the town of Babbitt. I hadn’t been there in years and there was a road I wanted to fill in on my map from that town to Ely. Babbitt is a company town. By the 1950s iron R head been completely or nearly completely, exhausted. A professor at the university of Minnesota invented  invented a way to extract ironore pellets from Taconite. It was a resurrection for the iron range which was on its way to looking like the copper country of the upper Peninsula or the coal country back east. The original iron towns looked a lot like those in Michigan and back east. Babbitt on the other hand was completely designed for the workers by the taconite companies. Hoyt Lakes is another example. Silver Bay is too. And there was one named Taconite Harbor, where the Lakers would pull up on the big lake at the end of a rail line that I think came from Babbitt area. That is a complete ghost town. I went through in the 70s and it had all the same company ramblers. Houses A B or C in the curving streets, etc. That Port has been canceled and taconite comes to the twin ports here now. I have rode my motorcycle through the old town site and in the woods you can still see leaning street lights and maybe an old basketball hoop, etc. The houses were all sold and moved, probably around the tournament of the century.The Port itself is really bitching. I think One laker a year still calls on that port to unload coal for the nearby power plant. It has a very generous public boat landing there for fisherman, etc. at any rate Babbitt is a town of curving streets and the houses all laid out by the taconite company. INow they have been mostly remodeled and changed since being constructed in the 1950s. The company built churches and schools and all the infrastructure. They needed the workers there. My point of going to the town was to check it out one last time but also to see my next-door neighbor and drinking buddy Pete’s church there. He was the priest of the Catholic church in Babbitt for some time. I rolled out of there along the North Shore of Birch Lake. I have a 2nd cousin that lives there. Happily the road was paved all the way to Highway 1 which was my goal. I came out by the Ely  airport which figures in a late chapter of a mysterious book I got from a neighbor up at the lake named Jack Swim. He was a fishing buddy of my father’s and a World War II veteran. He said here take this book. Someone gave it to me back in rock island and said I think your uncle is in the book. He said I read it and sure enough it has my uncle who worked at the airport in Rock Island. I read the book a couple of times. It is called 1933. The devil comes to Henry County. The book is a complete mystery in some ways. Very few copies were printed. It was published by a press in Rock Island or Davenport that only publishes books on chess. Y You won’t believe how many books there are in chess. at any rate, this is about, God I could go into so much detail that is so unique about it, at any rate young guys who break into the National Guard armory and steel machine guns, and become Bank robbers. They are savvy. They, like Dillinger, knew when the money would be in the banks. They invested their money in a big farming operation southeast.  southeast of Rock Island. It is a fascinating story by an author. I can’t find any information on whatsoever. These guys buy some interesting cars like a supercharged Cord. And they also bought an high-performance airplane of limited production. I can’t remember the name of it, but Lindberg had one as well. They do some robberies in Minneapolis and things get tight towards the end and protagonist and his wife takeoff on their going north. Somehow that plane was at the Ely airport. At Atkinson, Minnesota, Bruce I had never heard of Atkinson and have been down Highway 61 prior to reading the book, FBI agent spot them. They were looking for them on every road out of Minneapolis. A gun fight and sued and I think the agents were wounded or one was killed. I don’t know but they made it to the hotel duluth and spent a very nervous night there. All of the locations are in unbelievable detail as if this memoir is for real. It is uncanny. He spends the night watching his car on the downhill side of the street by the hotel duluth and the next morning I think a friend picks them up from Ely and brings them to the plane and he flies it Back in the dark to rock Island navigating by the Mississippi river. Jack’s uncle is in the block at the Rock Island airport. The book is fascinating, and the manuscript for it is supposedly discovered is also fascinating. A cop finds it in Montreal or Toronto while they are on the trail for the kidnapper of the  Coors family heir back in the 1960s. Back in Colorado. Which did happen. And they chased the guy all the way across Canada. I think they finally got him in British Columbia. At any rate there are suggestions towards the end of the manuscript that this guy became associated with rebels in Central America in the late 50s and early 60s and flew missions for them and so forth. It is inexplicable, but a good read.
So get on with it, I hit Highway one which is probably the most beautiful stretch of road in  Minnesota crossing several branches of Birch Lake and going through woods and hills, not far from the boundary Waters, which the voyager used as their highway for centuries and numerous curves with deceitful Apexes. Just a blast. Towards Finland, Minnesota it straightens out and I was already feeling the cool air from the big lake .It was burning hot up in the iron range up there. Finland used to have a missile base. You can still go up there and see all the old buildings and stuff from the early days of the Cold War. Came out in Silver Bay and it sure does look like a company town with the same kind of house iand curving streets and one central area where the stores are and so forth. Blasted Home along the North Shore of Lake Superior. I filled in that one section of the map that was bugging me.

 

 

                                                                           TROPHY

          

        Virgil hunched himself down into his big jacket and shrugged it up around his neck, trying to keep out the damp cold. He began stomping his feet to bring them to back to life but stopped after just a few stomps. The noise reverberated through his crummy stand, through the tree trunk, and across the still meadow.

          He shot a quick, self-conscious look around and shrugged to himself.

          “Shoot,” he thought, “There aint gonna be no deer out here on this god forsaken morning.”

          He belched a sour rancid mixture of stale beers and not so stale bourbon that reminded him of last night.

          He cackled to himself and allowed that Old Jugs was about the liveliest wire he’d ever seen.

          Last night, he reflected, Old Jugs sure had them goin’ at Brad’s Bullseye Bar. He was a quick one, that Old Jugs. So quick, in fact, that he had the barmaid’s lace apron off and strung around the antlers of Brad’s old moose before she hardly missed it.

          And when she climbed up on that stool to fetch it…. Whoooooeee but man, she did have a pair of walkers under her!

          Surprising, because Lord knows she wasn’t much to look at it.

          He shivered a bit, but not from the cold. His fingers were trembling on his rifle.

          Now that was a thing he could do something about. Take a pull of old Jack in the Black … or a reasonable facsimile of Jack. Best remedy ever invented, hair of the dog and all, you know.

          With the dexterity of a virtuoso Virgil’s fingers found the pint and had the cap off in a flourish of well-honed motions that belied the fine tremors he would have displayed in other pursuits. He craned his neck back and spilled sour mash all over his stubble.

          For at that moment a brilliant light bulged through the overcast directly above Virgil’s head. A spaceship landed no more than 50 yards away.

          Since Virgil lived in a very remote – by galactic sentient standards – corner of the galaxy, (“The Sticks” one could say.) he had never seen a starship before. It was the most dazzling sight he had ever seen.

          However, in realty, by galactic standards, it was a clunk. Roughly a crude conversion of what, in Virgil’s neck of the woods, would be a camper wrought from a clapped-out school bus adorned in a forlornly conspicuous cosmic cammo paint job.

          Bottom shelf bourbon was gurgling from the bottle at Virgil’s feet as he watched, stunned, as a notch opened on the side of the ship and, out clambered the space aliens.

          Virgil didn’t notice, but they weren’t moving so well. It had been a long trip; they’d been partying for the last few hundred parsecs and one of their party had been sick all over the interior of the command pod module.

          Each alien had a hoop-like object which they positioned into Virgil’s direction. There was a sizzle and flash and half of Virgi’s deer stand vaporized beneath his feet. He plunged to the ground, windmilling his arms in a sadly comical imitation of a doomed DC-3.

          His rifle struck the ground and discharged on impact. A few seconds later, and considerable distance away, Old Jugs heard the report and cursed under his breath.

          “Old Virgil,” he muttered as her turned in that direction, “Must be gettin’ himself some action.” He shook his head.

          Virigl had suffered a severe fracture of his humerus, and clavicle as well, in his sudden stop at the bottom. He had no time to consider this because there was another of those sizzle/flashes and a cloud of frozen earth was flung into his face. Without further prompting Virgil was on his feet and moving.

          Actually he never did have a chance. Togged with enough blaze orange to swaddle a Sherman Tank, they had him in their scopes already a 100 million miles this side of Jupiter.

          He plunged through the brush. There were more of those sizzle/flashes and the plumes of vapor from his flaring nostrils had become pink. His side was wet and everything had gone heavy.

          He was on his back and his big Sorrels scraped raggedly at the frost. His eyes were wide, showing white all around and there was something very sharp at his throat.

          Those same eyes stare down now at a very different scene each night, and a noisy, rowdy lot it is.

          Last night he had the alien equivalent of a barmaid’s lace apron draped across his blaze orange cap.    

         

1/14/24 Duluth MN

Found this story the other day while going through and organizing my journals. Completely forgot about it. Probably written in the 1990’s or so.

 7/16/25 Letter to the editor regarding Skyline Parkway Changes at Enger.

 

I hereby offer gratitude to The City for their accomplishments in delivering the nonmotorized arc around Enger Hill.  Well done, beautiful, simple. Thank you for doing it. Thanks for giving it a try. Good job.

I also want to urge my fellow citizens to get up there and check it out. Take a walk. Hold hands. Bring a dog. Ride a skateboard. A unicycle. Bike. Stilts. Pogo stick. Bring a chair. Catch some rays. Bring a table. A chess set. Scrabble. Twister perhaps. Take the family photo for next Christmas. Hold a class. Hold a meeting. Meditate. Do yoga. Practice dance, ballet. Practice karate. Do magic tricks. Read the News Tribune. Have a little picnic, a sandwich, a cup of coffee. Bring a guitar, bring a sax, bring a violin, a harmonica. Perhaps have a Banjo and/or Accordian Day. Maybe. Read a book, write a book. Bring a visitor, relish that look of envy for your town in their eyes. After all, there is nothing else anything like this in any other town in the state, at least to my knowledge. Just stare at that view. Bring a blanket, a stroller. Yell at the kids when they stand on one of those rocks by the edge. Get up there. It’s yours. It’s ours.

Park up on Enger, take in the fantastic flowers, climb the tower, bang the gong. Take the trail down to Skyline. Or the ample lane down.

Park at Twin Ponds. Use the recently improved bridge across the creek for access.

Get up there! Have some fun! Cruise the Crescent!

P.S. Have you seen the tablets recently installed along The Incline Steps/Trial? They are planted at intervals. Explore that path. Remarkable. And thanks to those responsible for doing that too.

- Jeff “Smitty” Smith, Skyline Parkway, Duluth MN.

 

Published 2011 HOG Magizine

                                                 CONTINENTAL TDC

This is my only published work where I received payment, $100 dollars to be spent at the local Harley Dealer. I don't recall what I bought with that money.

Published in 012 Issue of HOG Magazine, 2011

Howdy.

Here’s my stab at $100 Dollar Rides.

I count 747 words. Whew.

I am:

Jeffrey B. Smith

610 W Skyline Pkwy

Duluth MN 55806

PH# 612-840-7278

smithasota@aol.com

Thank you.

 

Bottom Line follows at conclusion

 

                                                                           Continental TDC

              

               Someone, probably me, once said, “There’s no place finer to be - on a nice day - than Duluth.”

               Duluth, the farthest inland seaport in the world, sits nearly TDC in the continent and could hardly be farther from the seas.  Yet, thanks to the St Lawrence Seaway, ocean ships from around the world call on this port routinely.

               The spirit of the greatest of lakes, Superior, is ever present in this city. Rarely benign, often malevolent, on an excellent day the light she gathers in her crystal blue depths and returns through the incandescent air makes it seem like you’re viewing the world through champagne, or at least through the first glass.

               I woke up this morning with 2 goals: Ride this city and spend a hundred bucks. I did it. And now I lean against my bike and look down on Duluth knowing that today there was no finer place to be. My bike pings a comfortable assent.

               I bought this bike, a 2009 Nightster, for this town.  Its power to weight ratio is perfect for these hard streets. Duluth: think San Francisco only with chuckholes and glaciers. Some of the stoplights I wait at, with some moron in a monster truck revving inches behind me, are at such an acute gradient that my toes cling to the earth, clutch, brake, shifter; nearly every organ is focused on not rolling backwards. You practically need a prehensile tail to adjust your shades here. But this bike, with its torque, and relative aplomb, shines.

               Today I have thundered under the massive ore docks in rusty West Duluth and snarled past the stately mansions of Gilded Age robber barons.

               Under the high bridge to Superior Wisconsin I chugged through the frenzied, teeming boat ramps. I recalled my uncle Maynard once saying, “You’re more likely to get in a fist fight at a boat launch than in a tavern.” A volatile mixture: testosterone, time off and trailer boats.

               I pounded down main street, Superior Street, essentially Highway 61. Yes that one, Bob Dylan, born in this city, put it to music. The “Blues Highway,” 61 arcs from the tip of Northeast Minnesota along the famed Northshore Drive through Duluth and down to New Orleans via Memphis.

               I n the shadow of the lift bridge, I postured through the touristy Canal Park to my first destination, The Saratoga, Duluth’s venerable gentleman’s club.

               My wife, Kristi, dances there. Well, actually, on Saturday afternoons we dance there. They give the ladies a few hours off and terrific jazz takes the stage, soloists dodging the shiny pole.  With no cover charge, and the fact that my bike doesn’t burn that much gas around town, I needed to spend money. I bought a pitcher for the table.

               We strolled across Canal Park, past the shops and clubs and hotels, to see our daughter Mesa at Belisio’s, the superb restaurant where she serves. Dinner, family, warm conversation, an excellent bottle of wine, and outstanding fare followed. Tonight it was fennel roasted pork and asparagus shrimp risotto.

               After bidding the girls farewell I buzzed over the grates of the lift bridge, now aglow overhead. A ship, bound downlake, had passed under this structure while we dined. Out on the inky blackness to my left I saw its lonesome lights.

               I rolled out to the tip of the longest fresh water sand bar on the planet, Minnesota Point, a place of generous beaches and barbecues. I returned with the city glittering against the dark hills and the now luminous lift bridge a vertical exclamation point in the foreground.

               I thundered up those hills. Wailing through a couple of empty intersections, I thought of McQueen’s Bullit, a twist of the wrist and I could imagine myself airborne.

               Back on earth, I rumbled sedately along Duluth’s legendary Skyline Drive, the lights of the Twin Ports scattered beneath me like rhinestones on black leather.

               After one final flourish of throttle, I wistfully twisted the key on my Harley. Below me was the city, the harbor, and in it a ship with a probing, blinding spotlight, threading towards the lift bridge and the cold expanse beyond. A ripe moon was on the rise over the Wisconsin shore, wrestling with the stubborn darkness of the greedy lake. That downlake-bound ship’s lights were still clearly discernable against the infinite horizon, and others, far distant, testified to the commerce that built this unlikely seaport.

               It was a fine day to ride Duluth Minnesota.

 

               THE BOTTOM LINE

              

FUEL                                                   $5

PITCHER AT THE ‘STOGA               $10

DINNER                                             $82

 

TRIP TOTAL                                       $97