Here's That Rainy Day

Sometimes song titles present themselves to me. They float into consciousness, for no other reason but that I've heard the title, or read it on an album cover, and it seems to fit.

Like today. It was supposed to rain, and it's raining now, but I noticed that there was no rain in the forecast for midday, so I suggested to Hilary that we go on a field trip. I had discovered a new destination—the Grey Cloud Dunes Scientific and Natural Area, which lies on the east bank of the Mississippi a few miles downstream from St. Paul, beyond the Indian mounds, the railyards, the scrap metal company, and the oil refinery on Highway 61.

We parked in the gravel parking lot on the outskirts of Cottage Grove, read the informational sign for a minute or two, and then commenced our stroll south through the golden grasses high above the river. We couldn't see the river yet, but the skies were almost blue in some spots, and the dunes had a graceful roll. That shouldn't be surprising. They've been sitting here, shaped first by glacial rivers, then by wind and rain, for ten-thousand years at least.

Unlike state parks and recreation areas, "scientific and natural" areas do not have official trails or trail markings. Of course there are well-worn paths, but there's no way to tell which ones go where. At the first obvious fork, a quarter-mile in, we opted to stay on the ridge rather than descent to the lower level of the dunes. We wanted to get some perspective.

Fifteen minutes later we came to another fork. By this time the river had come into view to the southwest below us, and also the railroad tracks and two small ponds. Aided by the map I'd printed out before we left, we convinced ourselves that this would be a good place to head down to the strip of oak woods alongside the river. And so it proved to be.

There were hundreds of duck out on the water, but they were hugging the far shore (as usual) and we could only pick out a few common mergansers and ring-necked ducks with binoculars. It was more interesting watching the three eagles that were gamboling high above the river, soaring, then diving playfully at one another while making that strangely evocative clicking sound.

We sat on the bank in the dead leaves for a few minutes, and it occurred to me that this would have been a great place for any youth to head in search of adventure. I was reminded of the hikes I used to take with friends when I was in junior high, out beyond the confines of Mahtomedi on Maple Street or Hickory Street, to the woods, fields, and lakes to the east, sometimes with our .22s. (We shot at anything that moved, but rarely hit anything.)

On our way back, Hilary and I took a different path. It stayed in the lower dunes and crossed under the railroad tracks farther to the north. It was wetter down there and we had to take a few detours to avoid flooded sections, but we also heard, and then got a good look at, the first song sparrow of the season. At one point Hilary spotted some pussy willows in bloom—another first—and we also came across a flock of thirty-odd tree sparrows that were headed north for the summer, with a few juncos tagging along.

The lower trail wasn't nearly so majestic—no views of the valley or the river, and the dune grasses on the hillsides above us looked rattier than the ones up top—but it was different, and it gave us a new perspective on the area. A lone killdeer was peeping shrilly in the distance, again and again—they like to nest in rugged, barren spots—and at one point I spotted a northern shrike crossing the field in the distance ahead of us. That was the best sighting of the day.

The rain didn't start until an hour after we got home. I fried up some bacon and got a pot of pea soup going on the stove while we listened to a duo album by pianist Brad Mehldau and bassist Charlie Haden.

Was "Here's That Rainy Day" on it? No.But the album does have quite a few standards along the same lines: "My Old Flame," "What'll I Do," "Long Ago and Far Away," and "Everything Happens to Me."

One reviewer remarked that the "casual intensity, and the willingness to commune with yearning lyricism one minute and dive into dark voids the next, make Mehldau and Haden's duo work here so compelling."

I would agree. And doesn't that look a little like Grey Cloud Island on the cover? 

Three Cheers for Thrifty White

While others were being inoculated, I was perfectly content to wait my turn. I'm not a teacher or a health care worker, and I have no underlying health concerns. I don't go out to bars much, and I'm perfectly happy to eat at home.

But after her Zoom book club the other night, Hilary mentioned that several of our friends had driven up to Grand Rapids to get the vaccine at a drug store chain called Thrifty White. That's more than a three hour drive, each way! It's true, they have a good pasty shop in Grand Rapids. But the crusts there are pretty thick, and that sweetens the pot only a little.

Yet I went on the Thrifty White website that very night, and there, lurking amid the hundreds of doses available in Manhomen, Red Lake Falls, Bagley, and Warroad—all of which are located in the remote northwestern corner of the state—I spotted a single dose available the next morning in Brainerd, hardly more than two hours away. But Hilary was volunteering at a local food shelf in the morning, and I didn't feel like making the trek all by myself. What if I passed out on the way home?

I continued to monitor the website every fifteen or twenty minutes, and it wasn't long before a slot appeared for the following Monday in Granite Falls, a mere two hours and fifteen minutes west of town. We hadn't been out that way in years. I nabbed it.

Monday morning was  cold and sunny, and it was fun heading west on Highway 7, past Excelsior and Carver Park, where we were skiing just a week ago, then continuing on through Hutchinson and a long string of farm towns with names like Cosmos  and Prinsberg and Clara City. It had snowed the night before, however, and parts of the highway were covered with packed ice—not slippery, but bumpy. It slowed us down considerably. I was glad I'd included an extra hour of drive time.

The water tower in Cosmos

Granite Falls lies mostly on the west bank of the Minnesota River, and to a casual traveler like me, it tends to share a hazy geographic blur with nearby river towns like Redwood Falls and Montevideo. I knew it was the home town of Andrew Volstead, the author of both the bill that introduced Prohibition back in 1920 and also the far more durable (but less well-known) legislation that made farm co-ops legal in the United States.

But on that sunny morning the looming issue was whether we should visit Carl's Bakery, in downtown Granite Falls, before or after the injection. Turns out we didn't get there in time to buy a donut or an apple fritter before we were due at the pharmacy. Little matter. As we drove by we noticed that Carl's is closed on Mondays.

The pharmacy is right down the street from the bakery. There was no one at the counter, but a woman restocking merchandise directed me to the back of the store, where another woman took my name, looked me up on the computer, and handed me some papers to sign. (No identification necessary.) She then wandered off, and I started chatting with the man who'd come up the aisle after me and was now standing seven or eight feet away, breathing into his mask. Gray hair, mustache, baggy jeans. He reminded me of Charlie Weaver.

"Are you here to get a shot?" I asked.

"I'm here to see about getting a shot," he replied. "I hate shots. Always have. I also hate heights. Worse than shots."

"I used to hate shots, but I got over it," I said in an encouraging tone of voice. Then I said, "Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon?"

"No, but I'd like to go there."

"You'd love it. It's gorgeous. Lots of vistas. But if you go there, I would recommend not going to Toroweap. It's on the North Rim, fifty miles west of the lodge and fifty miles south down a gravel road. There's a campground out there, not far from the canyon. But unlike most of the canyon, which is full of lovely step terraces, at Toroweap the drop is 5,000 feet straight down. Fifteen feet from the edge, you're already on your hands and knees, shaking."

At that point another young woman--the pharmacist, I would guess--directed me to a makeshift room that had been erected near the side wall of the pharmacy. 

"The nurse will be with you in a minute," she said.

Seizing the opportunity, I said, "I've got a problem. My second dose is scheduled for a morning when I teach a class. I was so eager to get a vaccine, I didn't notice it at the time. Is there any way to work around that?"

The woman stared at me for a moment—not a friendly stare—then she said, "Not really. The doses are scheduled together. They have to be a precise distance apart. Your best bet would be to cancel this vaccine and start over. Or reschedule your class."

"That's what I'll do. I'll reschedule the class," I said.

Meanwhile, the nurse, a heavyset woman in a brown print dress, had emerged from the pharmacy and gone into her booth. I waited for a minute or two, then poked my head around the corner.

"Come in. Come in," she said in a jolly tone of voice. "So you're here for a vaccine. I'm going to fill out this little card for you. It's tells what vaccine you got and when. Hang on to it."

I liked her immediately. While she was fiddling with the vials and syringes,  I asked her the same question I'd asked the pharmacist.

"When is your class over? Noon? Well, just come in at two or three. It doesn't make much difference. I'll put a note on your card." Then she said, "What class do you teach?"

I told her it was a geography class, and I'd be mentioning Granite Falls, the nearby state park, the Yellow Medicine River, and a few other details of local interest.

"Don't forget the powwow," she said. "It's in early August, down at the reservation. And there's a new restaurant opening across the street, it's called Café and Canoes."

By this time she'd given me the shot. A real professional. And a warm human being.

After applying the Band-Aid, she advised me to sit outside the booth for a few minutes to make sure I didn't have an adverse reaction. While I was sitting there, idly scrutinizing the display of jigsaw puzzles on a nearby endcap, I could hear, through the thin wall of the booth,  her next patient describing  his engineering project, which was at risk of coming to a premature and inconclusive end due to the fast-melting ice.

After a mediocre take-out lunch from a local café called the Granite Grinder, which we ate in the car at a parking lot overlooking the small hydro dam in the center of town, we drove south along the river to the state park and took a walk through the unplowed snow to the reconstructed Indian agency building that played a prominent role in the Dakota War of 1862. 

On the return journey we passed so many trucks in the vicinity of the Renville sugar beet cooperative that I looked it up online when we got home. We also flushed some horned larks on the side of the highway, and a flock of snow buntings scattering as we approached. We drove through Sacred Heart, the childhood home of poet Phoebe Hanson, and took a spin around the "classic" town square in Hutchinson, stopping at the Dairy Queen on Main Street for a treat. 

We entered the building through a door marked Entrance Only, but as we were about to leave I noticed the other door carried the same sign. I felt, for an instant, like I was trapped in a Christopher Nolan movie.

"How are we supposed to get out?" I asked the teenager behind the counter.

"I don't know about these signs," she said. "Go out any way you please." 

On our second trip to Granite Falls, a month from now, maybe I'll bring along Phoebe's collection Why Still Dance, to read in the car. But it will also be on a Monday. And that means Carl's Bakery will once again be closed.

Though my second vaccine is now securely booked, I still find it interesting to look at the Thrifty White website from time to time. It's almost like taking a road trip. Last week the available doses dropped into the 300s statewide, but now the number is above 3,000, mostly in Bemidji, Thief River Falls, Red Lake Falls, and towns even farther north.

But I see a few available doses in Cold Spring, which would have been a good destination--maybe even too close to town. And how far from here, exactly, is Pierz?