Mission: North Dakota

[offroadfx4_imp]

That's better ;-)

[GoldOxide_imp]

GO have you ever ridden or been on the 401 between Toronto and Montreal?

Is it totally unfriendly for motorcycles?

Thought taking it to get to the upper eastern states.

I read it's the busiest in North America...500,000 per day...18-26 lanes wide in places.
Oops, I'm logged in Ferret because he logged in and Google saved his login.

Sorry Ferret.

Unless you wish to visit Toronto, Ontario - I'd just avoid it ... kinda like Los Angeles reasoning.

Yes, too many times and if traveling by motorcycle, I try at the earliest to approach Montreal using rural and regional roads/highways. Freeway 401 between Toronto and Montreal is VERY boring.

That said, it is not unfriendly to motorcycles, just boring. Maybe the danger is falling asleep. The 401 in Toronto might drive your clutch hand crazy on poor days.

I wish I could say something positive Ferret. Nevertheless, east of Toronto the 401 will get you to Montreal the most quickly.

= = =

lol - I think this is the Ferret who asked the question?

[peterbaron]

I don't know what GO will say...

....I live on the north-western side of Toronto and going East, I have to pass through Toronto.
Going East, I always use the 401 to get to Kingston, Montreal, Quebec or Maritimes provinces. I leave very early morning at 4:30 - 5:00 am and come back in the afternoon. To bypass the 401 Toronto corridor, I use the 407 toll hwy, as well as recently no tall 412 and 418 hwys for easy travel.
If you live here, you will get used to like everywhere else.
Recently, local government make constant improvement to the 401 by adding more lines, but the Toronto corridor section cannot be widened due to NO space.

[the Ferret]

GO have you ever ridden or been on the 401 between Toronto and Montreal?

Is it totally unfriendly for motorcycles?

Thought taking it to get to the upper eastern states.

I read it's the busiest in North America...500,000 per day...18-26 lanes wide in places.
Oops, I'm logged in Ferret because he logged in and Google saved his login.

Sorry Ferret.

Electronics huh? Gotta love em

[emptysea]

Day 3 - Princeton to Detroit Lakes, MN by way of the headwaters of the Mississippi at Itasca State Park; wherein we first learn of Offroad's knack for short-term weather forecasting. Tuesday, June 28, 2022.

https://new.spotwalla.com/trip/053c-312ab68-c20f/view
Interactive Map Day 3

[url=https://imgur.com/DmBnWZ8]
Not Interactive Map Day 3


It did indeed rain early, but that gave us some extra time to enjoy the hotel breakfast (included in our room rate) and chat a bit. We were in our saddles and on the road sometime between 9 and 9:30 if the date stamps on my photos are correct. [Side note: Ferret never set the date/time stamp feature on his lanyard camera so if he offers to let you download his photos to your iPhone, be aware that you may need to scroll to 2011 or something to find them. You should be able to find them in the "Imports" folder by the date imported, though.] The forecast called for rain near our time of arrival at our lunch and rest stop in Itasca State Park. Itasca State Park surrounds Lake Itasca which feeds the great Mississippi River. For those unfamiliar, the Mississippi River flows from Lake Itasca south to the Gulf of Mexico, bisecting the United States, which is why you often hear phrases like "The biggest __(whatever)__ east (or west) of the Mississippi". Until and even into the early 1900s, everything west of the Mississippi was considered "frontier". The land between the Appalachian Mountains to the east and the Rocky Mountains to the west is essentially if not technically the watershed of the Mississippi. It is 11 miles wide at its widest point, but for most of it's length is a "mere" 1/2 to 1 mile wide. As a lifelong resident of Illinois, my image of the Mississippi was of a slow-moving, wide, and industrial shipping channel, an image is not as much incorrect as incomplete. My motorcycle trips both north and south along its banks have shown me the power, the nature, and the beauty of this waterway.

Itasca State Park is "out there". Roughly 175 miles from our starting point isn't that far, but there are few towns in between. Towns mean shelter. Lack of towns can mean wet boots and wet boots can mean a grumpy ride leader. Offroad felt that we'd be OK at least until we got to the park based on the time it would take us to travel the almost straight north route. I tended to agree with him and off we went.

Not a lot to report about the first half of the day's ride. As I said, it's a straight shot. I put us on two-lane roads for most of it and there was a segment north of St. Cloud that had us following the significantly narrower Mississippi for a few miles. Very few views of the river over that stretch, but I have become able to tell with reasonable certainty when a road is following a river by the sweeping turns on what should be a flat straight road.

Our first gas stop was in Little Falls, a short 64 mile hop from Princeton. We needed that short stop because a) it was an hour after breakfast (anyone over 50 knows the significance of this) and b) the other thing about "few towns" is that there are fewer gas stations. The Little Falls stop would not have been worthy of noting on these pages were it not for it being the place that Ferret realized that his credit card was sitting in the Fore Seasons Clubhouse and Grill, left there after our dinner. It was warm (for three of us) that morning so we parked in the sliver of shade of the Speedway building while Ferret called the restaurant. This seemed to go as smoothly as these things can go - there was someone at the restaurant when he called, they had the card, and they assured him that it would be mailed to his home that day.

After his call, he walked over to his bike which was parked next to Offroad's. It was there I noticed just how tall Offroad had packed his big BMW. Ferret could barely be seen when standing on the opposite side of the bike from me. We teased Offroad about his packing the entire trip, but it Ferret stopped making fun (for the most part) when one of those bags produced a sweatshirt for him when the temps had dipped to a "chilly" 75 degrees. Oh yeah, I guess we teased Ferret about his sensitivity to cooler temperatures the entire trip, too.

[url=https://imgur.com/EXwDyXY]
Ferret playing Kilroy behind Offroad's bike.

Though the gas stop was longer than anticipated, I felt that we were still looking good to beat the rain to Itasca State Park. I was wrong. Somewhere between Little Falls and Akeley along MN64, and in the middle of nowhere, ran into construction traffic. They were resurfacing the southbound lane (we were heading north). This would have not been worthy of mention were it not for the process were it not for the amazing efficiency of the process. In Illinois, they would tear up the old surface on one day, grade/grove the next day, resurface the next day, and then stripe the day after that (and you can reasonably replace "day" with "week" in the previous sentence). Here, though, they were doing the everything at once and moving not-so-slowly down the road. the first section of road we passed was being torn up and the debris dumped into trucks. When the truck was filled it would pull out and an empty one would take its place. Behind them were the grading/grooving vehicles, doing their thing, then a truck dropping piles of asphalt atop the rough grooved surface. They were followed by another grading vehicle and a roller and finally there was the striping team bringing up the rear. They moved quickly; we guessed that they might do as much as 5 miles of road in a day, maybe more. It reminded me of a mechanized reenactment of the road scene in "Cool Hand Luke".

[url=https://imgur.com/j7Pciu8]
Waiting for the guy to spin the sign from "Stop" to "Slow".


Just one part of the "road show" we witnessed

It was an amazing site, but we did get slowed down considerably waiting for construction workers to clear our lane. By the time we pulled in to Akeley, MN for gas, it was 1:00pm and we were still another 45 minutes from our intended lunch stop at Itasca State Park. Worse that that, the skies were darkening in the direction to which we were heading. My radar app indicated that we could make it, but we might get damp part way. Offroad quietly suggested that we lunch in Akeley since a) he was hungry and b) he felt that the rain would be heavier and come sooner than I was suggesting. He had me, and especially Cheryl at "A". Zappy's Cafe (which we consistently misread as "Zippy's Diner") was directly across the street from the Shell station we used to fill our tanks and discuss meteorology. The proprietor let us leave the bikes parked on his property so we didn't have to gear up just to cross the street. We took our rain gear, helmets, and appetite over to Zappy's and it started raining hard just as the door closed behind us. Some might say that his background in physics gives him an advantage in predicting weather; I contend that his insanely tall motorcycle simply brings him closer to the weather than the rest of us.


This is where we left our bikes. Zippy's [sic] is in the background. Best pic I have of the place.

We had a great lunch at Zappy's. Our server asked if we were in town to see the Paul Bunyan statue. She seemed surprised at our "just passing through" answer since, she said, " Pretty much everyone who comes here comes her to see Paul Bunyan. Ours is supposed to be the world's largest." Well, now we HAD to stop to see him. We donned our rain gear, paid our bill and headed out into gray skies that would drop only a minimal of rain upon us before they moved out and left blue skies for the remainder of our day.


In deference to time, we agreed that this would be a "stay on your bike" photo op.


Itasca State Park is beautiful and it is home to the headwaters of the Mississippi River. We arrived without incident at the park entrance at about 3:30pm. Two hours later than planned, but we were well-fed, mostly dry, and were only something like 17 seconds short of the longest day of the year. We took a short hike (stroll might be a better, if less rugged term) to the headwaters marker for a group photo, took a few other photos, Cheryl and I walked across the Mississippi at the only place over its entire 2552 mile course that once can do that, and rode the scenic park loop (at an incredibly slow pace behind a car...the full story of which will never be told in public) out of the park and toward our motel in Detroit Lakes, MN.


Ferret and Cheryl


Offroad taking a selfie with some "scenery" in the background


Walking across the Great River


Itasca Lake were it spills into the Mississippi River
The route I picked from the park to the hotel was direct enough, but it did have some curves and elevation changes and other than being a bit fatigued, I enjoyed the last 60 or so miles "home". If you're riding in the area, I recommend MN113 west from US71 to MN37, but if we had more time, I'd have continued on 113 to Elbow Lake and try out MN35 which looks very pretty on the map.

Detroit Lakes is a weekend getaway destination for people from Minneapolis/St. Paul. The parts of the lake we saw were bordered by large summer homes. It reminded me a lot of the Wisconsin lakes near Chicago like Lake Geneva. They even have a waterfront supper club, a restaurant style or type most commonly connected to Wisconsin. After arriving at our motel and getting settled in, we walked a very short distance down the road to The Fireside Restaurant for dinner. It was a beautiful evening so we ate on their deck, watching the sun set while enjoying cocktails (for most) and a delicious dinner. Cheryl and I enjoy ending the day's ride with a decent meal and a cocktail. The route and the timing makes this an impossibility on some nights. I was glad that we were able to enjoy this lovely establishment with such wonderful people in such a beautiful setting.


Supper clubs often have cool retro signage.


The view of our table


The view FROM our table


The man, the myth, the legend


Ribeye


Artsy picture of my martini with blue cheese stuffed olives. Offroad had a riff on a Manhattan called Perry's Manhattan which adds brandy to the more traditional bourbon. Offroad liked it, but it was a bit more boozy than I think he's used to.

[Cormanus]

Love it.

[Nachodaddy]

Great story and pictures. Thanks for sharing with us.

[the Ferret]

Empty Sea and Offroad going into Zappy's



At the self check in at Itasca State Park



Empty Sea and Cheryl... MTC drying off after wading out and getting a small rock for Mrs Ferret (the rock collector) out of the headwaters of the Mighty Mississipp



On our way from Itasca SP to the hotel ..nothing but traffic free, giant sweeper roads.. Empty Sea leading going into a right hander while, Offroad and Cheryl in the mirror coming out of a left hander



one of the thousands of beautiful little lakes we rode past that day



More Empty Sea magic as we pulled into our hotel that evening once again after a series of small curvy backroads that would have had this traveler confused

[pdedse]

What a fun-looking trip! Quite the feat to say you walked and waded through the mighty Mississippi!

[GoldOxide_imp]

Cool narrative MTC.