Anatomy of a Field Trip

Several people we know are interested to hear about the places we've been visiting. "We should get out and do something like that," they say. And I think they mean it.

The foray we took today might serve as a good example of how such things get done.

It started last night, when Hilary said, "We're free tomorrow. We should go somewhere."

She sprained her ankle a few days ago on the tennis court, so we decided to go to Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge, an hour north of town. Why? Because you can see a lot of countryside on their six-mile drive without doing too much walking. And there are a few short trails here and there, too.  

But we've been to Sherburne two or three times already in the last few months, and this morning Hilary said, "What about Crex Meadows?"

An even better idea. A longer drive (maybe ninety minutes) but once you turn off the freeway at Forest Lake the route gets pretty scenic. Trouble is, the longer drive would mean that we'd spend the best part of the morning in the car, and there aren't as many places at Crex to get out and hike.

A riverside path at Wild River State Park

"Maybe we should stop at Wild River State Park on the way up," I suggested. "We haven't been there in years. Then we could go to the Scandinavian Bakery in Lindstrom and get some donuts."

More trouble: though Wild River State Park and Crex Meadows aren't that far from each other as the crow flies, it would take almost an hour to get from one to the other, due to the paucity of bridges across the St. Croix River.

So we decided to limit ourselves to Wild River, get the donuts on the way, and have lunch at the drive-in north of Taylors Falls on the way home.

We left at 7:30. The sky was blue, the roads were uncrowded, the air was cool and clear, the lakes were calm, and there were quite a few fisherman out already. From the window of a car the Chisago chain of lakes looked like a Grandma Moses painting on a jigsaw puzzle.

We parked a few blocks from the bakery in Lindstrom, put on our masks, and were immediately taken by a wooden picnic basket and some wicker chairs in the front window of an antique store on Main Street. I don't know why. There was beauty and nostalgia in the air, I guess. I took one look at a caroms board in the window and was reminded of Hilary's uncle Skidmore, a Honeywell lawyer who took childish delight in caroms, skittles, and other old-fashioned wooden games. I looked at the white enameled tin coffee-pot and thought of my mom, who could make egg coffee with the best of the Swedes—my dad was second-generation Swedish—but was more at home making corned beef and cabbage.

I did a little research on the Lindstrom Bakery before we left. The woman who runs it, Bernie Coulombe, started working there 48 years ago. "It was love at first sight," she told a reporter for City Pages a few years ago. "The owner fell in love with me ... and I fell in love with the bakery." The two were married and ran the bakery together for more than four decades. When her husband died, Bernie carried on alone. Now she does all the baking herself, though a helper comes in to run the cash register in the mornings.

I went inside alone—Covid etiquette—prepared to buy a cake donut and a crispy for Hilary and whatever I wanted for myself. A woman was completing her purchase at the register, and a middle-aged man with a Dennis Wilson haircut came in behind me.  He said something chipper, and Bernie replied, "I baked for two graduations and a wedding yesterday. Last night I got the ovens going at 11. I've been up all night. The Fourth of July is on a Saturday, and I'm closed!"

She wasn't complaining, just planning ahead. (Fourth of July is still a week away.)

The "Scandinavian" donuts, she told me, were on the left side of the display case. There were four tiers, and I ordered one of each. Then the crispy. I was tending toward a cinnamon roll but lurched at the last second in the direction of the apple crispy fold-over. And of course I had to get a dozen Russian teacakes. I'd grabbed a loaf of limpa caraway rye when I came into the shop.

Nothing was priced.

"Is that all?" she said. I couldn't tell if she was tired, exasperated, or was just spooked by my mask. Hilary and I were the only ones in town wearing them, though mine was a good Scandinavian mask—blue and yellow plaid.   

Grand total: $9.50.

The park was still lush and shadowy when we got there. Within sixty seconds of stepping out of the car, we'd identified seven or eight birds by song. At this time you seldom see them, but you often hear them.

We hiked along the river through field and forest from the visitors center (closed) to the Nevers Dam site and beyond. Butterflies, dragonflies, wildflowers, and birds singing everywhere. 

My favorite stretch followed along the river through some open fields. That's where we had our one great sighting: an orchard oriole. (Many years we don't see a single one.) And on the way back to the car we got an excellent and extended sighting of an ovenbird. Often heard, seldom seen at this time of year.

Before leaving we drove through the campground to check out the loops for future reference. (Site number 8 looks good.) But our lunch at the Taylors Falls Drive-in was not to be. When we pulled in, a young man wearing a mask, came out to tell us that one of the employees had tested positive for Covid and the place would be closed for at least a week.

Well, that was too bad. For the employee especially, less so for us. After all, we had a loaf of fresh limp bread in the back seat and a quart of herring in the fridge back home. The lesson being, in travel (as in life) never get your heart too firmly set on any one thing.

We returned home without a wicker chair or a carom board but with a waxed paper bag full of Russian tea cakes, a few ideas for further exploration in the area (the Almelund Antique Threshing Show in early August? Probably not.) and a modified birding wish list. OK, we've seen the dickcissel and the orchard oriole. Now how about a black-billed cuckoo? And where are all the scarlet tanagers?