By: Ana Alexander
25 Things, Adventure

At the Mouth of the Mighty Mississippi

Sometimes beginnings are fitting.

They tangle themselves like vines through our lives, and connect to other beginnings, other endings, until they branch out into their own.

At the mouth of the Mississippi, it feels like where it all began, and keeps beginning. It feels like a good place to begin recording this new adventure. So here we are.

Four hours of driving brought me to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, for a spontaneous trip to visit one of my favorite humans, Ms. Kaysey Price, as well as the chance to check Itasca State Park off my list of state parks to visit – one of the items on my 25 things list. You can read more about that here.

So one Saturday evening, I drove for hours into pink and blue skies, before finally making it to my destination. When I arrived in Detroit Lakes, I drove around the curve of the lake, drawn in by the reflection of a hotel’s green lights against the water, which reminded me of my favorite book, The Great Gatsby. There’s probably a metaphor in there, somewhere.

After a good night’s rest, and fueled with coffee and the best toast you’d ever have (Kaysey is the hostess with the toast-ess, as we say), we set off to Itasca State Park. We drove under a canopy of green leaves, dusting themselves yellow in the sunlight, and crunched gravel beneath our tires, a sound I’ve come to crave after exploring several of the state parks Minnesota has to offer.

Itasca has been one of the more impressive state parks I’ve visited this far – its gift shop was more expansive, and it has its own little café.

We hiked the short path to the Mississippi headwaters, where we discovered we weren’t nearly the only ones who’d thought of visiting the park that day.

Water from the lake poured itself across a bridge-like grouping of stones, which separated the lake from a small pool in which children were playing. A group of people were making their short voyage across the Mississippi in the shallower section of the water that poured out into the Mississippi, while kids raced across the rock bridge, stopping now and then to re-steady themselves on the slippery rocks.

It was fairly crowded, but Kaysey and I got our turn to cross the Mighty Mississippi – barefoot, I felt somewhat like a puzzle piece as I tried to find smooth, dry rocks that fit the curve of my foot, avoiding the slick, angular rocks I was likely to slip on. Once wasn’t enough, so we decided to cross again, wading through the water this time, which was much cooler than we expected.

We spent a few moments sitting at the mouth of the river, where I jotted down a few ideas for this blog, and Kaysey wrote some poetry. The headwaters became a little more crowded for our tastes, so we found a nice empty patch of grass a short distance away from the river.

We sprawled out in the empty space, letting the sun dry our feet, and breaking open a pack of Razzles, which we’d purchased at the gift shop. I looked for four-leafed clovers, and Kaysey looked through the map, locating the Aiton Heights Fire Tower – our next destination.

On the way to the tower, I made Kaysey stop for a “photo opportunity,” which was a cool grove of trees.

“I hope there’s no poison ivy out here,” I said, as I began climbing into the leafy green brush that covered a short, steep hill leading into the woods just off the path.

“There probably is,” Kaysey said reassuringly, handing me my Polaroid as soon as I cleared the incline.

Luckily, I got my photo without poison ivy, and we continued on to the fire tower.

There was a long line of people waiting to climb to the top, as the cab of the tower isn’t big enough to hold more than 6 people at a time.

The steel structure did not feel quite as sturdy as I hoped it would, but we trekked on anyway. As we got near the top, we had to shuffle around a group that was making their way down – space was getting tight, and we heard their reassuring conversation as one of the guys commented on how horrible the tower was shaking at the top.

With his vote of confidence, we kept climbing, fingers clenching on to the steel tighter as we made it above the trees, where the wind began to pummel against the sides of the tower. The higher we climbed, the more unsteady it felt, as everything we held on to shook, and my hat almost blew off my head and over the side of the tower.

I gripped the shaking steel railings, and pushed myself further into the powerful wind, as the walkway grew slimmer and slimmer, and there was only space for one person to walk. When we finally made it to the cab of the tower, it was like taking in a clean, shallow breath.

The openness of the tower and the feeling of being so high above the tree tops was freeing, and the view was gorgeous – but the shuddering of the tower was impossible to ignore!

We stayed for a few moments to take in the beautiful view, and then made our way down the tower so the next group could make their trek above the trees.

Stopping to take in the beautiful lake views along the way, we hiked back to our car, and headed back to Detroit Lakes after nearly four hours at the headwaters – and I checked Itasca off my list of state parks to visit.

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