Start Location: Bemidji, MN
Ending Location: International Falls, MN
Miles Today: 144
Trip Miles: 1819
States Visited: 5
National Parks Visited: 1
Low Temp: 64.4° F
High Temp: 77.1° F
Min Elevation: 1117'
Max Elevation: 1449'
Route Map:
Voyageurs 2025 Day08
Well we made it to International Falls and visited our 44th National Park today.
The
ride today was very enjoyable and maybe too short. The temperatures
ranged from the mid 60s to around 70 and there was almost no traffic.
For 110 miles we passed one vehicle and one vehicle passed us - that's
all. There was obviously traffic the other direction but not much - a
lot of seemingly empty trucks, not sure what that was all about.
We
got to the park around 12:15 and browsed the museum, viewed the video
about the park and hung out until around 1:00 when we had lunch on the
patio at the back of the Visitor Center with a nice view of Rainy Lake.
Although there were a number of cars in the lot - almost full, I doubt
if we saw more than a dozen other people. My guess is the cars were for
people out on boat tours.
There were two hikes from the Visitor Center. One was the Oberholtzer Trail,
a dirt trail through the woods and the other was a paved trail also
through some woods but less primitive. We chose the Oberholtzer Trail
and it had a lot of exposed roots and rocks, it looked like a trip and
fall waiting to happen. About three quarters of the way through we
switched to the paved trail and ended up back at the Visitor Center.
After that we rode around some of the neighborhoods and downtown International Falls. We saw a Heritage Museum and a Bronko Nagurski Museum but both of them were closed - maybe next time.
Tonight
we stayed in an Americinn by Wyndham which is also the brand we stayed
in last night. We had never heard of them before but they were both
very nice. This one has a pub off the lobby where they serve beer and
wine as well as tonight was Taco Tuesday and they had free Tacos and
Nachos. Guess what we ate for dinner? Last night in Bemidji it was free
pulled pork sandwiches. Although the hotels were nice they were pretty
proud of them.
Tomorrow we head for Redwood Falls, MN and will be on US-71 the whole day. Not sure yet where we go from there.
