~~~ Tour Guide Notes ~~~ There is a most pleasant surprise stop that would be easy to miss on your way to nearby Lake Itasca’s source of the Mississippi, so make note! Especially, if you are feeling the need for some tranquility.Nestled within an aromatic grove of pines,...
~~~ Tour Guide Notes ~~~The Mississippi River flows through Little Falls, Minnesota. And through Little Falls once flowed a pesky tributary, Fletcher Creek. In the 1890s, as the growing town pinched perilously close to the creek, its destiny and struggle with periodic spring...
Tour Guide Notes – Visit a stream-powered flour mill...Nestled among the streams and hardwoods of Southeastern Minnesota are two waterwheel flour mills, each over a century old: both still grinding away, both welcoming visitors.In Winona County, Pickwick Mill, in the village of...
~~~Tour Guide Notes~~~Photo: tree swallow (one of 150 species at Salt Lake)~~~How can there not be a celestial design lab? A bird-watching trip with binoculars and camera to Salt Lake in Lac qui Parle County on the MN/SD border stirs up such meditations.Some 150 species of...
~~~Tour Guide Notes~~~The Lost 40: Oh, to decipher the whisper of the wind through these giant ancient pines...It may say “thank you” to a survey crew mistake! On a chilly, northern Minnesota November day in 1882, four forestry surveyors, perhaps disoriented or cold...
~~~Tour Guide Notes~~~Why are there two grasshoppers at the feet of the Virgin Mary on the entry plaque of this tiny chapel in Cold Spring, Minnesota?They represent the millions of grasshoppers which invaded the area from 1873-1877, devouring crops, trees, even tool handles and...