Canada or Bust

 This week I'm on vacation in northern Minnesota. I want to share some sights and sounds of where I went and what I did.

Every summer we go to Wilderness Point Resort in Pequot Lakes. During this time, my son always plans another side trip that he and I take. This year our side trip consisted of a trip to Rainy River in Ontario, Canada, along with several stops along the way.

My son collects city halls he takes pictures of them and posts them on a discord server. Our first stop was a visit to the Walker, MN city hall. Along the way to Canada we also stopped and got city hall photos for the following cities: Cass Lake, Black Duck, and Kelliher. 

A big highlight was getting out in Shooks and taking a picture at the Royal Shooks Motel. Shooks is an unincorporated community, but at the intersection of highways 1 and 72 is the hotel, conveniently located in the middle of nowhere.

In Minnesota and the upper Midwest, there is the legend of Paul Bunyan. We like to visit as many of the Legend's various statues and places. In Kelliher, Minnesota, there is Paul's grave and headstone. We had to stop and pay our respects to the giant lumberjack.

From Kelliher to Baudette there is not too much to see except for the Big Bog Recreation Area. There is a boardwalk you can walk along to see the bog, the nature area, and Ludlow Pond. We stopped there, hiked along the boardwalk, and took in God's beautiful creation. If you are in the area I highly recommend you visit this beautiful area.

When we got to Baudette (The walleye capital of the world), we took in an adventure lab. This is a type of geocache; instead of finding a container, you are visiting various locations in a city and answering questions. One of the stops on the adventure lab was seeing a roadside attraction, another thing we like to do. This roadside attraction was visiting Willy the Walleye statue, a giant walleye statue. Of course my son got a picture of the Baudette city hall.

Across the border into Canada is Rainy River our final destination before heading back to the cabin. In Rainy River we decided to eat first at a little bakery that also served lunch. When in Canada you must get poutine. My son ate most of the poutine, lunch was delicious. We did an adventure lab, visited a river side park, and got a tour of a train museum. It is always fun to learn about the history of cities we visit. This beaver was part of the adventure lab and it was outside the visitor center.

On the way back we stopped at the southern part of Big Bog State Park and saw part of Red Lake. We also stopped at numerous other city halls.

One thing I am going to start to do during these summer months is visit small town baseball games. Minnesota is big on town ball on Saturday I went to a town called Nimrod and watched the Nimrod Gnats play baseball and win 16-3 over the Vergas.

There are some of the highlights of my week.