Itasca!

We moved up our camping trip to Minnesota's Itasca State Park because the weekend weather was supposed to be just terrible – lots of rain and temperatures in the low 40s and high 30s.

So Katie and Joey and I took off Thursday afternoon rather than Friday. We called along the way, and were assured that we could find a camping spot. We arrived at sunset, and were able to set up the tent pretty quickly in the dark.

The original plan had been to backpack to Lake Hernando DeSoto, about five miles into the park, but this was scrapped when we realized that even with our stepped-up schedule, we were going to have just one nice day. So we stayed put at the campsite.

Friday morning we headed out to Itasca's headline attraction: the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Here it is; to the left is Lake Itasca; to the right is the Mississippi River:


Katie and Joey don't have a lot of context for this; I'll be in St. Louis when the Eighth Circuit meets there next week and I'll try to snap a few pictures of the Mississippi where it's a little more Mighty.

We then headed to the park's tackle shop, where I bought a fishing license and a few worms. We were told that the best shore fishing in the park was by the main lodge, off the pier. We fished all day there, and practiced our casting, line-tying, and loafing around.

Toward the end of the day, I did actually catch a fish, a good-sized sunfish. We mostly had the pier to ourselves; some other guys showed up with some very impressive-looking lures. They could cast like pros, but they didn't catch a thing. It made us feel a little bit better about our skimpy haul.

We attached our fish to a stringer and tossed him back in the water while we fished on. Joey and Katie took turns showing the fish off to everyone who wandered down to the pier; to a person, they were quite impressed.

We hung out later than we probably should have to see if we could catch a complete meal, to no avail. We judged the day a great success, if only because no one ended up with a fishhook embedded in their bodies. (I'd studied up on hook removal technique, figuring we might be far from help; to the right is the "string-yank" method, I kid you not.) Both kids were very careful with their fishing poles all day; I was proud of them.

It was twilight and starting to rain when we gave up and walked back up to the lodge. Joey carried the fish in a Ziploc bag; everyone with a window seat in the restaurant cheered him as we passed – there's nothing more sweetly all-American than a little boy with his caught fish.

We got back to the campsite, and finally remembered to take a picture:


The kids played cards in the tent while I massacred the fish in the dark with a sharp new filet knife by the light of my headlamp. I knew it was going to end up this way: We ended up with about three tablespoons of fish meat. If I'd had a few more to practice on, I think it would have gone better.

We gamely battered and pan-fried our postage-stamp filets, and everyone tried them. Joey and I thought it was delicious, but I think Katie was still picturing the whole live fish. She had promised not to name him, but kept slipping and calling him "Freddie." I will admit to a little regret that our fine fish gave his life for so little in return. Mostly, we dined on macaroni and cheese, little sausages, and hot chocolate.

The skies opened up into a torrential downpour overnight, with winds that might not have been so impressive had we had a real roof over our head. In the tent, it was quite a show. The kids slept soundly while I lay half-awake wondering it the trees were going to be able to take it. They did, as did our tight little tent.

The next morning, during a break in the rain, we packed everything up and headed down to Park Rapids, a small town with a jewel of a Main Street. We ate breakfast at a classically beat-up cafe, Wimpy's:



It was delicious. The kids had scrambled eggs, a giant cinnamon bun, and more hot chocolate. I had coffee, juice, eggs, toast, hash browns, and bacon. An old-timer ambled in and pressed bicentennial half-dollars in the kids' hands by way of saying hello. How cool is that? I'm embarrassed to admit I'd almost headed to the McDonald's instead.

This doesn't happen often, but I am moved to verse:

Itasca! Itasca! Itasca!
A park that's as big as Nebraska!
A place to catch fish
Lots of rain, and an itch
Your mama been there? hmm -- Alaska.