On day three of my road trip, I woke up in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, to a temperature of about 55-60, somewhere in that range. That may not seem too cold, but when it’s August, that’s basically freezing! Plus, I think it felt colder, because there was very intense fog. There were some windmills I drove past early in the morning, and the fog was so thick that I could just barely see the spokes peeking out of the bottom of the fog as it spun, before disappearing back up into the fog again. Before I started out on my adventure, I stopped by a gas station to get a little morning breakfast, where I got a couple of cute stickers that I have since put on a water bottle.
Grand Rapids, Minnesota was officially the farthest north I had ever been at that time, and is still the farthest north I’ve been in the United States, though Ambleside in England is now the world record for my northern-ness. It made me feel like quite the adventurer, as I was also the farthest west I’d ever been. Kind of. I went to Arizona and New Mexico when I was five, but I remember so little of it that I don’t count it.
Minnesota is an absolutely beautiful place, I loved driving through it so much. The forests were absolutely stunning, and the roads I was on were filled with curves, so I was simply winding between trees, not even able to see any vehicles behind or ahead of me. That did mean I had to watch my driving as well, as you never know when you’ll be going around a curve and there’s a car there, but stay on the right side of the road, and hope the other drivers are doing the same, and you’ll be fine. I was able to drive past what is technically the widest point of the Mississippi River, though it’s a lake that the river passes through, Lake Winnibigoshish. I wasn’t aware that it was part of the river until later on in the week, when I was at the Arch and did some research on the Mississippi River. I saw a bald eagle while I was driving and got so excited about it that I missed the turn I was supposed to take. That was no problem though, as a little change in the route wasn’t a problem, but rather part of the adventure. And I saw a bald eagle! Who could be mad about missing a turn when they missed it because they were looking at such a cool bird?
In North Dakota, I had seen some advertisements for the National Buffalo Museum, with the world’s largest buffalo statue, and decided I would stop in Jamestown, where the Buffalo Museum sits behind the Frontier Village, a historical section of Jamestown that looks like an Old West town straight out of a movie. I got a postcard and a couple of patches that you iron on a jacket there, then walked back to the Buffalo Museum.
I didn’t have time to go through the museum, but I went into the gift shop and got an extremely cool, shimmery pottery jar. I went to go see the buffalo, but they must have been hiding from the fog in the trees in the field, as I didn’t see any. There were horses in the field next to it though, and I was content to look at them. They also had one of those binocular machines that you put a quarter in, and I was looking around and realized that the field across the highway in the distance wasn’t home to cows, but to buffalo! Even through the binoculars, I could barely see them, but it was still quite impressive.
Back on the road, I saw another bald eagle in North Dakota in the cloudy sky. I was driving south, and the sky was nothing but gray. Not a single break in the clouds. As I drove, I suddenly saw ahead that there was a line in the sky, straight across, going east to west, where the sky went from nothing but clouds, to nothing but clear blue sky ahead. I thought to myself, Hey, I’m getting close to the border between the Dakotas, wouldn’t it be funny if that very clear, very distinct line was the border between North and South Dakota? And then I saw the sign ahead. The “Welcome to South Dakota” sign. I went back and forth between looking at the sign and looking up at the sky, and I slowed way down and practically stopped as I passed the sign, and looked up… where the line in the sky was directly above me.
Now, I’m not big on serious conspiracy theories. But sometimes it’s fun to just come up with your own silly things that’s more of an inside joke than a real belief. So this is my conspiracy theory, that’s mostly a joke, but it’s so fun to say it completely seriously and treat as though I’m trying to convince everyone that I’m serious. Though that abrupt shift in the clouds in the sky, along with the temperature change (it was 100 degrees when I stopped in South Dakota for lunch), well. I have no scientific explanation for it. And sure, I could probably find the answer through a bit of research. But where’s the fun in that? It’s more fun to actually convince myself, at least a little bit, that the government controls the weather in the Dakotas. Life is an adventure, and sometimes the adventure is making up ridiculous yet harmless conspiracy theories that no one else listens to you about, but seeing them laugh at me is still nice. I enjoy making people laugh, even at my own expense sometimes.
Once I had come up with my own conspiracy theory, I discovered that South Dakota had some other rather interesting qualities. For instance, most states have their corn fields, then a little space of grass, then the road. South Dakota doesn’t have that grass strip between the fields and the road. Their grass strip areas are wider than other states, at least the states I’ve been to, and they grow hay there. I noticed each field was partnered with a round bale, which I found to be a very interesting agricultural practice, making the most of the space they had, not letting a bit of it go to waste.
I didn’t make any stops in South Dakota except for lunch and got to Nebraska just after nightfall. I stayed in a small town called O’Neill there, a cute town that leans into its Irish name and has a clover painted in the road of the main intersection of the town. However, just before I got to O’Neill, I discovered an area I decided to call Area 52. Cause Area 51 is already in another state. I saw all these red lights blinking in the sky in the distance, and part of me was convinced I was uncovering another conspiracy and had found aliens, especially as google just kept telling me it was a telephone pole, but unless there were at least 50 telephone poles clustered near each other, I doubted that was the answer. In case my interest in the clouds earlier hadn’t given it away, I’m a bit of a geek, and I welcomed the idea that I was seeing alien spacecraft. Alas, I figured it out the next day, and the answer was not aliens. It was wind turbines, blinking a red light so that no airplanes crashed into them. Better luck next time, I suppose.
Overall, day three of the road trip was a win, with two bald eagle sightings, a buffalo museum visit with a distant sighting of some real life buffalo, a conspiracy theory unlocked, some interesting agricultural practices learned, and a near discovery of aliens. Okay, maybe not a near discovery, but something that my imagination was allowed to run away with, and had my mind spinning for that last half hour of the drive. With so much intrigue and adventure in one day, is it any wonder that this road trip is what made me discover how much I truly love to travel?
Finally, to answer the question this article title asks, I don’t know. Minnesota is beautiful, but I’m also extremely loyal to the beauty of my own state. If I wasn’t though, I think I would say Minnesota is the most beautiful state. That I’ve been to anyways. As an artist I like sings in his first released song, “won’t fall for second best till I’ve been to all the rest.” It was that line in Dylan Gossett’s To Be Free that inspired my road trip in the first place. What state is the best and most beautiful? I suppose we’ll have to just keep driving and find out.
I hope all the Americans reading this had a very lovely Thanksgiving, and I am excited to say that the third annual Winter Wonderland Weekend will be happening in just a week from this upload, so do look forward to the article for that next month! Any guesses on what northern Michigan town my friend and I will be visiting this year? And speaking of Dylan Gossett, I went to his concert last month, and I’ve decided that I’ll upload a short article about that soon as well, to talk about the venue, the bar I went to, and where I went to eat, just as a little filler while I wait for my next adventure to unfold.