day 36 -- morehead to new ulm, MN

due south from morehead through now-endless cornfields. I must have missed the descent into the red river bottom on the dakota side while zipping along on the 'superslab.' not quite as soul-crushing as the arkansas-missouri bottom, likely because it was cooler than 105 degrees, absent the blazing sun. it was sunday morning quiet and still. small towns and grain elevators and the red river and western rail line...and the iowa, chicago, and eastern...and one stray canada pacific train decorated with 'come to canada' slogans fading on the boxcars. and here hunting licenses for sale, bait and tackle in convenience stores. no wilderness in sight, but the route skirted the forest margin. and everywhere a parkway in this featureless cornland -- highway 75 the king of trails (from the gulf to canada), the prairie passage, the laura ingalls wilder parkway. there was more history on these routes, or more like manufactured historical places with shiny new asphalts looping off the scarred concrete of the secondary highway. minnesota was surprisingly immediately in the lead for roughest roads, though the rural sample was probably not representative. seamed concrete, endless rough tar squiggles.

roads in disrepair notwithstanding, I'd actually reminded myself to slow it down a bit once I got to the more well-ordered and lawful side of the red river. no more desert and high plain highways here. and sure enough, the very first dotted-yellow pass I attempted in the state of Hubert Humphrey and Jesse Ventura? undertaken just as a squarish car with not-a-bike rack-on-its-roof appeared over the crest of the next hill. seriously. he U-turned behind me and the truck I'd passed, I pulled over, yadayada. somehow I divined that this was minnesota and the tough guy out-intimidate-the-cop act wasn't necessary, so I was polite and positively gregarious with a trooper who was in fact fred rogers' grandson. he had me at 76mph in a 55, but focused on a 'new law' that limited passing speed to 10mph over the speed limit. I'm not clear why it's okay to speed while passing, and he correctly pointed out that I passed another vehicle that was doing 61mph at the time. but I produced the trifecta of license, registration, and insurance info (even after he told me it was okay if I didn't want to dig them out of my luggage), and because I don't yet have any bench warrants, officer very friendly helped me 'get through this state without a ticket.' and I thanked him for his concern for my safety. 'magine that.

stopped to blog in a sleepy coffee shop somewhere and zig-zagged across the minnesota river valley on a sweep southwest of the twin cities. I missed one scenic route when it slipped off onto a county road...minnesota roads were obsessively numbered, and there was no road too small to get the scenic designation. ended up a town short of a mankato destination, but happily, as it turned out, in new ulm, MN. the road to mankato turned north across the river one more time, but I took a quick detour into downtown new ulm down a treelined boulevard, along a notably lively main street and then down a steep hill to the river and the annual RiverBlast. clouds of bbq smoke, music, crowds, and I'd managed not to miss labor day weekend completely.

surveyed the scene, then headed back out to a cheap motel on the edge of town where some good ol' boys had set up their own par-tay on a picnic table in a corner of the parking lot. bud lite and cards and kid rock (!) on a genuine boom box. tempting, but RiverBlast smelled a touch better, so after donning the party shirt I rolled back down to the river. at first glance this looked like any smalltown festival -- food trucks selling pork bbq, a tent for beer armbands and a separate tent for beer tapped from the side of a truck (from the local august schell brewery). I had already missed a lot -- the saturday started with a road race and later a paddling rally and canoe obstacle course on the river. various boomers were discussing aches and pains from same. and the music! the plan b band, which the website advertised as 'minnesota's fastest rising blues band,' though perhaps 'the palest blues band on the planet' would be more accurate; Donnie Klossner on the accordion -- 'musik mit Herz;' and the band I saw, finishing off the festival -- Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeeans. but even at 10pm riverblast was still very much alive, nearly raucous. admittedly it was competing with stereotypes about you betcha lake woebegone scandinavians, but new ulm is self-identified teutonic territory. perhaps this explains the remarkably bacchanalian atmosphere, as far as public festivals go in recent midwestern experience. the crowd leaned heavily toward boomers, though there was a smattering of younger folks...but everyone was into the band. so none of this sounds all that wild, really, and it wasn't...but there was an openness that stood out. everyone knew everyone else (and eyes followed me as an interloper)...people slid in and out of conversations over beer and brats and canoe stories, and in and out of the stiff-legged but uninhibited jiving in front of the funk 80s soul from the milwaukeeans. that reunion-of-some-sort vibe was awesome, esp since there was a complete lack of posturing and self-consciousness. and precious little awkward flirting though the crowd looked more and more unattached as the evening wound down. maybe all of this was boomers passing into the who-cares-anymore phase. two tall frizzy blondes in matching semi-uniforms who were in charge of drawing names for the gun cabinet giveaway shimmied away with whoever happened by. the resident punk danced with someone's grandma. a squat couple with matching flattops fired off some seriously dirty dancing. the drunk girls from the office wore glow-in-the-dark bracelets seductively. cowboy hats were about as ironic as it got. and so on. can't adequately describe it, but there was something easy and joyous about it that made an impression, even sounds from a distance when I wandered down to the dock on a misty moonsilver river.