Not everyone know this, but I am ordained–therefore I can officiate weddings. This past weekend the family and I went up to Bemidji to officiate my friend Joni’s brother’s wedding. Bemidji is about 4 hours north of the cities, and none of us had been there before. We made a little vacation of it. One night at a hotel and one night camping. Lucy LOVED camping. It was pretty sweet.
We headed up North on Friday morning. We stopped for lunch in a town called Little Falls. The town was not nearly as cute as the name implied. In fact, it was not cute at all.
We ate at the Pizza Ranch, which is pretty much what you would expect from a buffet called the Pizza Ranch.
Before this trip I was under this beautiful delusion that all small towns were cute and quaint. I thought everything was like Grand Marais (adorable town on Lake Superior, for those us you not from MN), with cute little shops and art galleries and candy stores. That is not true. Small towns are more likely to consist of a huge Walmart and then pretty much nothing else. I was saddened by this realization. Oh the sheltered life I have lived in the city.
Bemidji is actually a very nice town though. The lake, which is also the Mississippi river, is beautiful.
We did the touristy stuff. We took our pictures by Paul Bunyon. Speaking of Paul Bunyon, everything is Paul Bunyon up there. There are two Paul Bunyon streets–I mean main streets that actually intersect. It was a little confusing honestly.
We stopped at a winery outside of town called Forestedge. It was all fruit wines, but some were pretty darn good. We got a Black Currant wine that I thought was excellent.
The winery also had some chickens…
After the winery we did the coolest thing of all. We saw where the mighty Mississippi starts. We headed to Itasca State Park, which is a very nice park. I would camp there instead next time we go up there.
This was awesome. The Mississippi was this calm little stream that kids were playing in. We kinda want to see where the Mississippi ends sometime now. If you haven’t been to Itasca to see this, I think it is worth the trip.
Yup, I am standing in the Mississippi River in this shot. And I would NEVER do that here in the cities. It was clean and pretty up there.
After Itasca State Park, I officated the wedding, which went well. I wanted some pictures of that, but Alec was busy with Lucy and didn’t get time to take any pictures.
We camped that night at Lake Bemidji State Park. As I mentioned Lucy loved it. She crawled around the tent happy as can be. She liked sitting by the fire too. I feel bad we haven’t taken her camping yet before, and now the season is almost over. It was actually a cold for her (and me) this past weekend even.
And that was our adventure up North.
