16. februar 2023 A Winter Road Trip

"Can't miss it. Big sign.

 

    From the lofty elevation of Palmville of 1145’, I took a sixty-three mile northeasterly road trip last Saturday, downhill all the way to Graceton, Minnesota at 1135’.

    To pinpoint where Graceton is, it’s 10.9 miles W of Baudette; 5.8 miles SSE of Williams, 12.6 miles SSE of Roosevelt, 24.6 miles SSE of Warroad, 4.9 miles NE of Pitt, 7.5 miles SSW of Hackett, 9.2 miles SSW of Wheelers Point, and 11.5 miles NNE of Faunce Tower, 23.4 miles NNW of Carp -- And, 566 miles N of Carlisle, IA.

    Everybody, including God and all his friends were enjoying the sunny, upper-thirties above zero day; driving, snowmobiling, ice fishing, skiing, ice skating, walking, just being outdoors in such pleasant weather. The wife preferred to wisely stay at home, where, at times, being alone is pleasant in and of itself, so it was just me in my ‘93 Chevy Silverado 4x4, a couple snowshovels, a mug of coffee, cellphone/charger, and my colder weather gear.

    I enjoy a good long ride through country that I seldom travel. Usually I know where I’m going or have a good idea. I rarely use GPS or Google maps -- although I admit, the convenience of entering an address into an app beforehand and seeing a suggested route pop up, is rather satisfactory. The shortest route was going to take fifty-eight minutes, so I judiciously decided to leave a half hour early, just in case it didn’t, as things have a way of getting discombooberated in the best of weather.

    The man I talked to on the phone said to look for the Graceton Cemetery; he said I couldn’t miss its big sign as it was where 58th Avenue NW intersected State Highway 11, and to turn south there,”For about 3 miles ...” adding “Look for a big yellow pole shed.”

    "Okay," I wrote down “Graceton Cemetery. Big sign. Can’t miss it. 58th Avenue NW,” on a piece of paper. “3-miles. Big yellow pole shed.”

    Solitary trips like that, especially in an old truck where the radio doesn’t work, sometimes suggest to me to call a friend who doesn’t mind visiting awhile. Hands-free driving is the rule in Minnesota and I get that, but ‘way out in the country where there isn’t traffic around for miles, conversations can sometimes shorten the trip.

    So sixteen miles from home, after I turned east off of Roseau County 9 onto Roseau County Road 13, a gravel road shortcut of sorts that eventually connects to Roseau County Road 2, I called my old friend Kerry, in Carlisle, Iowa, a long-time retired individual who claims he has little else to do than, “Chat a bit.” As we began, I could hear him preparing something in his kitchen for what may be a long conversation; and hear his two Cocker spaniels, ‘Colby,’ the older, and ‘Henry,’ the younger newly acquired puppy, barking and creating commotion in the background.

    There’s a pretty stretch of spruce and jackpine, past Lyle Roseen’s lovely low-eaved log home nestled off the road south of Falun Township Hall; amongst the trees a mile or so north on the east side of the highway is Raven Works Forge. https://www.ravenworksforge.com/. Beltrami Island State Forest, Minnesota’s second largest state forest at about 700,000 acres, was a looming presence in my periphery although then three miles east; I planned to take obscure wilderness roads through the forest, home.

    I took Highway 2 all the way to Swift, MN, and its intersection with “Waters of the Dancing Sky Scenic Byway,” also known as MOM’S WAY aka Minnesota State Highway 11. It had been several years since I had driven that road to just two miles south of the Lake of The Woods for I don’t visit it often. Approaching the potentially busy intersection with much more traffic on it (and frequency of law enforcement), I said goodbye to Kerry, when I became momentarily unsure I was where I was supposed to be until things gelled that I was.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOM%27s_Way

    Calling him back, I asked, “Where were we in our conversation?” laying the cellphone on the seat and using the speaker phone until it was relatively safer to put the phone back to my ear again.
Kerry said, “I told you I love to eat liver and onions but the wife would never cook them ...”

    “Continue,” I may have said, observing a long train of Canadian Northern Railway boxcars heading east, parallel with the highway I was on. Freight trains seem an oddly alien phenomenon to me now despite living among them the first 28 years of my life. Once inoffensive containers on steel wheels, today they are adorned by wild spray can artists who emblazon their varied contours with bright color and extraordinary script: I never gave it a thought to do the same to them when I was younger.

    “I told my mother-in-law, bless her, that I loved liver and onions, but didn’t get the opportunity to eat them very much, so when they asked me to remodel their bathroom, I told her she could pay me with them. I must’ve eaten ten pounds of the stuff. Man, they were good!”

    By the time I knew I was getting close to Graceton, I had passed through it in a blink of an eye, and so started looking for the Graceton Cemetery where I would be turning south toward a big yellow pole shed three miles away. Meanwhile I continued talking, listening, and laughing with Kerry, and watching the slow moving train roll on towards Baudette, when I saw a street sign go by. 

   “I just saw a sign that read, ‘sixty-fourth avenue northwest," I said. "I wonder if the street numbers get bigger the farther I go east, or if I’ve driven by it? We’ll see...”

    I went through a similar street numbering event back in November, trying to find a meat cutter over by Greenbush; but then that’s part of the non-GPS adventure. After seeing ‘37th Avenue NW’ come up, I told Kerry I decided to turn around and consult my GPS after all. I’d call him back if he wasn’t talked out by now.

    I had a half hour to spare but getting there early wouldn’t hurt either, so I keyed in the address and learned Graceton Cemetery is on the west side of Graceton, not the east, and on south side of the highway. I had driven, like four miles too far east, so pushed ‘start’ and watched it unreel its directions until it told me to turn north off the highway and across the railroad tracks, when I knew the cemetery, (I still hadn’t seen), was on the south side of the highway. Good grief.

    I didn’t turn north, but stayed on Highway 11, watching for the Graceton Cemetery and 58th Avenue NW west of town. The GPS kept recalibrating as it taunted me about my total lack of intellect, etc, etc. It wanted me to turn north across 11, then immediately turn west onto a gravel road parallel to the highway and railroad tracks, then after a couple miles cross back south over the RR tracks and highway onto 58th Avenue NW. That was weird.

   Noting the crowned snow-packed road and sloped shoulders, I stopped, shifted into four-wheel drive, and set my truck odometer to zero.  I stayed center knowing I had 3 miles more to go before I needed to look in earnest for a big yellow pole shed. The snow-covered rolling terrain were interesting.

    About a mile and a half down the road, I saw an older heavy-set man on a four wheeler and three young people with a little dog standing in the open doorway of a big yellow and brown pole shed; I pulled to the shoulder as I was meeting a imminent vehicle.

    Waiting, I looked toward the people by the pole shed, when the young man motioned to the man on the four-wheeler, and then pointed at me; who then rode over to me and hollered from his side of the road, “You looking for oats?”
“Yep,” I said, not at all amazed at the craziness of the event. “I thought you were three miles off the highway.”

    He laughed, “Yeah, well one ... to three miles, I was just guessing ...”
As we loaded up, I laughed and said, “Finding you has been a circus. Never did see the Graceton Cemetery. Did you make that up too?”

    The young woman with them laughed. “No! It’s right on the corner of the highway and 58th Avenue! You drove right past it!”
“Wha’?” I said in mock disbelief. “No way!”

    I figured I missed seeing it when I concentrated on putting the truck into four-wheel drive and setting the odometer. Shifting into neutral, and pulling a lever on the floor to put it into four-wheel drive, then awaiting lighted indication that it is in, is sometimes is an arduous affair; it’s an old truck, there’s nothing push-button about it.

    I was tempted to drift southwesterly from there, but decided to get back on Highway 11 and drive on to Roosevelt where I knew was a forest road, I had driven 44 years ago, by the entrance to the parking lot of The Hawk Tasty Tavern, I slid the truck into four-wheel drive again. 

    Slowing to look at the long line of snowmobiles parked there, their owners presumably inside enjoying a meal and refreshments, I called Kerry to relate story about when our mutual friend, Jeff, and I had driven up that very road to the bar there then called, “The Nitehawk,” back in the fall of 1979. https://www.facebook.com/TheHawkRoosevelt/

   “We had put on almost a hundred miles on the Land Cruiser by that time, and seeing it was Sunday, we came where we could buy some beer for the road home through Beltrami Forest, then ended up sitting there drinking beer and eating, listening to a guy’s stories about Wannaska, for like three hours.”

    I was listening to Kerry talk about the rude treatment he received at a new  coffee shop in Carlisle recently. Driving slowly, 25-30 mph down the forest road by then; taking in sight of the cabins and interesting places off the well-used road; noting where the snowmobile trails on either side, along and above the ditches, were dark with heavy use, the warmth of the day telling through the snow, right down to the dirt, in places.

    The brilliant sun and transcendent blue sky; the beauty of the woodland environment, and our interesting conversation lulled me into a trance, almost; my right brain reeling practically poetic, alone in the moment, no distractions entering in, Kerry talking away, when very suddenly my left brain jerked the needle across a vinyl record.

    I let off the gas pedal and touched the brakes to stop the truck, right where I was. I said to Kerry,
    “I have to hang up.”  Then yelled the obvious,
    

    “I’M ON A F##KING SNOWMOBILE TRAIL!!”

    Its impact on me was akin to realizing I had just driven my truck onto a camouflaged floating bridge with absolutely no room for error. 

    Ironically, I thought about when me and Woe Wednesday helped a young man  from Grand Forks, get out of a similar situation, stuck on a snowmobile trail with his car just south of Bemis Hill Shelterhouse. https://wannaskanalmanac.blogspot.com/2022/03/thursday-march-17-2022.html

    I had to think about how I was going to get out of this predicament. I could see the plowed road turned southeasterly about 100-200 yards distant, and I briefly considered continuing to drive toward it, when I saw, ahead of me, where a vehicle had slipped into the ditch with one wheel and had wildly spun to get back out, ending up here, opposite to where my truck stood idling; a large area off the road, where among the slew of empty pop and beer cans, chip bags, and the like was a heavily rutted area where it appeared someone had gotten stuck, and at long last got out.

    Another sobering thought came to mind that the inside of my wheelbase was 48-inches, the same width of a snowmobile trail; I was just straddling it. A wrong move either direction would likely pull me into the ditch.

    I had thought it odd I couldn’t make out car or truck tracks ahead of me on the road, and had let my doubts be erased by the predominance of snowmobile and ATV tracks -- when they were exactly what I should’ve been cognitive of in the first place! There was no one around to help me; but I did have two good shovels and many feet of heavy chain. The only thing I could possibly do was... My cellphone rang. It was my wife.

     “Hi! Where are you?” she asked cheerfully. “It’s such a nice day! Did you get to where you were going?”

    “I’m going to have to call you back,” I said slowly, without further explanation. “I can’t talk now.”

    I had decided to back up the quarter mile or so on my own tracks, using my side mirrors, just like I used to do when I drove a bulkmilk truck in Iowa, and in later years an electric forklift at the toy factory. I’d see if I still had it. There was no room for error.

    Easing into reverse, then slowly applying the gas, the truck’s wheels spun once; its body shuddered as its heavy lugged tires dug into the snowpack, slowly assuming rearward motion; its 600 lb payload earning its keep as added weight does for trucks on bad winter roads. A lucky break.

   I had to exercise my mind-eye coordination, reminding myself there was no reason to hurry. “Slow down. Easy now.” Once I saw a suitable field crossing, I felt so much better about having narrowly averted disaster, I heartily laughed off my tension.

    “Miigwech!” I shouted, looking into the sky. “Yeah baby!”

    Outside of The Hawk, I stopped to call my wife back and explain what had happened to me
“That was soo close!!!”

    No more ‘obscure forest roads’ for me that day. Just go home.

     "Hey man, you'd never believe what just happened..."