Land of 10,000 Lakes

I spent my boyhood summers in Minnesota. My grandparents rented a cottage each year near the town of Detroit Lakes and we would travel there and back by car from Wilmington, Delaware. What an adventure!

Those were the days before Interstate highways. Granddad would drive directly to the Pennsylvania Turnpike then traverse its entire length. We climbed and descended mountains, sometimes even passing under them through tunnels where traffic travelled in opposite directions on single lanes separated by only a painted yellow line. The roar of engines and whine of tires were deafening, the strobe effect of passing overhead lights made the passage seem surreal. Grandma would grip the dashboard and armrest tightly, fearful that a fiery crash could engulf us at any moment. She was right! My heart raced until we emerged again safely into the sunlight.

My granparents were frugal Swedish immigrants. Meals on the road were prepared standing at the open trunk lid of the big Oldsmobile. Breakfast was bread with peanut butter and jelly. Lunch was a sandwich, ham, bologna and cheese or (gag) pimento loaf. At supper we splurged on meals selected from the menu of a budget roadside diner. Macaroni and cheese or meatloaf seemed to be statistical favorites. The turnpike provided roadside picnic tables every few miles so families like ours could dine just a few feet from the roadway, squinting against the dust and gravel thrown up by passing trucks. I imagined myself a pioneer blazing a trail westward.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike gave way to the Ohio Turnpike, followed in turn by the Indiana Turnpike. Every year Grandad griped about the price of gasoline at the rest areas. It was a nickel higher than gas beyond the toll booths. Highway robbery he called it.

We usually ended the day's travel by 6:00 PM when Grandad would find an inexpensive motel. He avoided those lit by too much glowing neon, a warning of unecessary and high-priced opulence. Fortunately, the cost of theme-based tourist cabins fell right into our budget. I loved these places. They each had an office/coffee shop set beside a dozen or more separate cabins built to resemble something a kid would find magical. They might be painted Indian teepees made of sheet metal or a row of identical log cabins or miniature castles with stunted towers at each corner or tiny one-roomed Victorian houses with a miniature porch just big enough for a single steel lawn chair. I still have a collection of postcards depicting places with names like The Apache Tourist Lodge and King Arthur's Camelot Court. I suppose they've all long since fallen to make way for car dealerships and Starvin' Marvin convenience stores.

The passage through Illinois was carefully navigated to avoid the chaos of Chicago. Wisconsin was a single-lane odyssey through old-growth forests and dairy farms and then at last we reached the mystical land beyond the Mississippi River.

Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Lakes. As we crossed the state line I would be catapulted into a state of perpetual excitement and anticipation. Everything became suddenly special; the sillouette of the state road signs, the design and color of the license plates, the smell of the air, the taste of the water from the drinking fountains. This was Minnesota! I had waited all year to arrive. I had planned and dreamed and counted down the days until summer and then, after working myself into a fever pitch in the back seat of the Delta 88, I exploded in joy as the tires sang across the metal deck of the bridge over the nation's mightiest river and carried me into a land of sweet summer dreams come true.

Here was a world that existed for me only three weeks each year. Fishing at sunrise for a breakfast of walleye and perch. Skpping down gravel roads to in search of friends not seen for a year, taller and older now and hopefully as excited to see me as I was them. Long hours spent on the lake alone in Grandad's varnished lapstrake utility boat with the ten-horsepower Evenrude outboard, entrusted to me because I had ably demonstrated my maturity and good seamanship. Nights spent lying on the boat dock staring at stars, envying the local kids for their privilege of living in a paradise they took for granted.

The weeks always passed too quickly. I spent the last few days wishing it would never end. I dreamed that I might some day return and spend a whole summer recreating the joy of those few weeks in July.

The trip home was always very different from the trip out. I rode silently in the back, staring at passing telephone wires, watching them dip and rise from pole to pole, hypnotized by the drone of the tires and their rythmic slapping against the highway tar strips.

I rode lost in my memories, holding onto images frozen in time, burning them into my mind so I could recall them at will during the cold lonely Delaware winter.

I have not returned to Minnesota in over 40 years. I would not wish to revisit the old places and find them unrecongizable, changed as much as I have myself. My memories have faded over time but they still can rekindle the warm feeling that engulfed me each summer as I crossed the Mississippi and entered the Land of 10,000 Lakes.