DAY 17 THE HEADWATERS

Woke this morning to Lake Superior looking like a giant mirror. Left Ashland headed west and soon rode into Superior/Duluth at the western end of Lake Superior. It’s the western most port on the great lakes, they ship grain and iron ore all over the world. Superior is in Wisconsin and Duluth is in Minnesota but they are only separated by a river.

Does any one know where the love of god goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searches all say they'd have made whitefish bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her.
They might have split up or they might have capsized;
May have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake huron rolls, superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
Old michigan steams like a young man's dreams;
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below lake ontario
Takes in what lake erie can send her,
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of november remembered.

Gordon Lightfoot-The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald

Superior was the last port-of-call for the Edmund Fitzgerald which sank with all hands aboard.

Left heading west riding on beautiful country roads alternating between farms and forests for mile after mile. Stopped in some little town for lunch at a small café called Woody’s, good food with a local flavor. Left route 2 for route 200 west and made it to Lake Itasca, stopped at the visitors center before driving down to the headwaters of the Mississippi River. You remember the Mississippi River it was one of the reasons we headed this way two and a half weeks ago. Found the headwaters and Jan and I had to wade across the mighty miss-a-sip.

We took the seventeen mile ride around the lake before heading for Bemidji MN, the first town on the river, and stopping for the day. Bemidji is north of Duluth just 120 miles from the Canadian border.

The weather today was awesome, jackets in the morning turning to t-shirts by lunch. The sky is such an incredible blue with just a few wisps of white as if you were painting and had to get the last bit of white out of your brush. Traffic was almost nonexistent just a beautiful day, the kind we do this for. Tomorrow we head south, down the river we'll see how far we get.