On Tuesday, we drove west of our campsite to the town of Bemidji, Minnesota. Bemidji is known for the legend of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. So this is our second sighting of the Blue Ox. According to legend, the great (and huge) Paul Bunyan, the town’s “lumberjack son”, is an icon of the logging industry of Minnesota. He is depicted as being a gigantic logger who displayed superhuman labors in the felling of trees, and with the help of the (also legendary) Babe the Blue Ox, transported the logs to wherever logs go after they are felled. In Bemidji, there is a Paul Bunyan park where the larger than life statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox are displayed. Believe it or not, these statues are recognized as the second most photographed roadside attraction in the nation.

Paul Bunyan and Babe are said to have created the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota by their footprints. (Sure they did!) Because of the legendary superhuman exploits, everything associated with Paul Bunyan is of gigantic proportions, and many of these items were on display at the Visitors Center at Paul Bunyan Park in Bemidji: his belt, rifle, telephone, Minnesota North Stars jersey, fishing pole, axe, etc. Also part of the legend is that he created the Grand Canyon by dragging his axe behind him. And we believe every word of it, because as geologists, we both know that that is how the Grand Canyon formed.

The Mississippi River runs through Bemidji and Bemidji is known as the first city on the Mississippi River.

The source of the Mississippi River is Itasca Lake, and Itasca State Park contains the headwaters of the Mississippi River. So that’s where we headed next.

We stopped at the Visitor Center in Itasca State Park and then made our way down a short trail to the actual headwaters of the Mississippi River. Lake Itasca lies here, entirely within the boundaries of the State Park. There is a flow of water where the first drops of the river trickle from Lake Itasca over a simple rock barrier which separates the lake from the newly-beginning river. This is where it all begins, as the signpost said: “Here 1475 ft. above the ocean, the mighty Mississippi begins to flow on its winding way 2552 miles to the Gulf of Mexico.” I very much enjoyed seeing the beginning of the Mississippi, since growing up in S. Louisiana I am very familiar with the end of the Mississippi. The lower Mississippi through New Orleans, and then meandering down to where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico, is very wide. Here at the headwaters, it is very narrow. In fact, it is so narrow that you can walk across it. And that's what we did!

There are some rocks that traverse the river which at this point is 12 feet wide. You can walk across the rocks, but they were slippery, so instead we thought we’d wade in the river alongside the rocks. It looked a bit tenuous, so Joe ventured out first. As he was walking across the Mississippi River, a crowd of fellow senior citizens had gathered on the bank, trying to decide if they wanted to walk across. When they saw Joe, they said, “Let’s watch this guy. If he makes it, then we’ll go.” With every careful step he took, the onlookers ooh’d and aah’d, and when he reached the (not so far) opposite shore, there was a round of applause. Joe was unaware of his audience and when he heard the clapping, he was surprised. He told everyone that if he can do it with two knee replacements, then anyone can do it. With this encouragement, the rest of us decided to give it a try. It was a really amazing and enjoyable experience to walk across the Mississippi River.

You mean I came all this way to see the "mighty" Mississippi River, and this is it?!!!

We returned to the Visitors’ Center via a short boardwalk which went alongside the Mississippi River, which at this point was about the size of a large ditch. Amazing!

We left Itasca State Park and headed back towards Grand Rapids (Minnesota, not Michigan). We made one more stop before we went back to our campground. We visited the Judy Garland Museum and her restored Birthplace Home which is attached to the museum. The museum was excellent, really well done. There were lots of exhibits and artifacts about the life and times of Judy Garland, sometimes called “America’s Treasure”, and many displays depicting her various acting roles, including her role as Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Judy Garland, born Frances Gumm, began acting at the age of 1½ years old. The childhood home where she lived was not in its original location, but was restored with period furniture and accessories, and made to look exactly like the home Judy Garland and her family lived in when in Minnesota.