While I was waiting for Ms. Reporter, I talked with Dana about life in Fergus Falls. She had moved back here after living in L.A. for 22 years and is quite happy to leave the fast life behind. Her shop has become kind of a public meeting place, partly because of the nature of a coffee house, but mostly because of the nature of her personality. Totally gregarious, a little nosy, a dash of boisterousness, and a bit of irreverence, all add up to a great hostess. She shared with me a bit of irreverent humor, about the joys of moving to Minnesota. I think one could substitute any region, and describe the hardship of adjusting to a new venue.
She also owns a bagel shop in town which has a computer connected to the internet, so I suggested that she should check out my web site.
I had long since given up on the interview, and was trying to dodge customers to get on the road, when the reporter arrived and got her story. It was two hours before I got out of the door, but Dana gave me a bag full of biscotti to get me down the road. I thanked her profusely and finally got going.
A bit later in the day while I was nibbling at a late lunch, I chatted with the waitress about her attempt to leave Minnesota, only to be lost elsewhere and return to her home. It seems that she had developed a close relationship with a much older man whose hobby it was to collect exotic birds, many, many of them. His prized species was this weird kind of hairy chicken, and he had a whole tray full of fertilized eggs in various stages of incubation. He was recently called to Norway on a family emergency, and he apparently died shortly after arriving there, leaving the waitress grieving for him and sole caretaker of his avian legacy. I offered that if there are so many chickens, at least there's a good supply of eggs. WRONG THING TO SAY... What a predicament. I decided that if I encountered a story like this on my first day in Minnesota, Garrison Kiellor has an endless source of material for his stories.
The cycling today was quite divine, but it proved to be a long day, compounded by a headwind, an incorrect map, and a very late start. But I had a guaranteed room, so that sunset was the only deadline. It went flawlessly, dodging the rain showers that were about, and although I almost made a wrong turn at the end of the day, I rolled in at 7:20, dry, tired, and very hungry.
The entries in Babcock's articles and letters are somewhat abbreviated through this section of the country. Perhaps they are somewhat tired after pushing hard across North Dakota and on to Minneapolis. It does take its toll:
We spent a part of July 17 in Fargo, and there left the Northern Pacific, whose mileposts and signboards had become familiar to us, and followed in the general direction of the Great Northern to Minneapolis, striking Breckenridge and Willmar, but touching none of the larger towns of Minnesota.
It's on to Willmar for me.
91 miles and I'm still dry.
Dennis