Mike and Roxanne travel east

Baudette, MN Aug 3, 2007

Aug 3, 2007 8:30 45938

We are in the North Woods territory now. Mosquitoes at night and in the morning and lots and lots of trees, fir, cedar, pine. There are lots and lots and lots of resorts, all on one lake or another. Give Minnesota enough land and they would have as many lakes as Alaska. The area is dotted with lakes of all sizes and shapes.

We fueled up just outside of Bemidji at $2.99 a gallon 46025 or 470.2 miles. We are up to 9 miles per gallon, mostly because it has been very flat for the past 2 states.

A lot of the homes you see in this area have a flag in the front yard surrounded by flowers, especially out in the countryside.

12:45 we arrive at the International Voyageurs RV Park in International Fall, Minnesota. The RV park is just your basic park, a few trees, grass lots but it does have either 50 or 30 amp service, water and sewer hookups. There is a small laundry and bathrooms. Cost is $21.30 a night, including tax.

After lunch we head to Baudette, 60 miles west of here. I lived here in 1972/73 while we were stationed here in the Air Force. The idea is to drive out to the house we lived in and see if it is still there.

Baudette, now has 1100 people, probably about the same size as it was when we were here.

We found the house or at least the spot. The house we lived in had originally been a fish hatchery built in 1939 as part of the WPA program. It then became a restaurant and living quarters for the owner. Just before we moved in the Army Corps of Engineers had deemed it livable for the military.

In the summer it was wonderful, situated on one of the best fishing spots in the area, the kids and their dad went fishing nearly every day. They caught mostly Northern Pike. I got to clean them.

The yard is huge, with a rounded drive where the deer used to graze during the fall, probably because they figured it was safe. They were right.

When winter came, it was a different story. The windows were not double paned, and I don't believe there was any insulation. It took forever to heat the house and the furnace ran constantly to keep the inside at 65 degrees. We were on a well and the pump house had a propane heater. If the propane ran out the pump would freeze and then take hours to thaw.

That is exactly what happened one day and it took from 8:00 - 12:00 noon to thaw the incoming pipes. I had figured out by then that one 5 gallon bucket of snow melted on the stove would flush the potty once.

Around 2 that afternoon we realized that the outgoing pipes were also frozen and everything was coming back up into the tub.

Because the house was built over the fish hatchery, the tanks were in the basement, the temperature down there stayed around freezing. A shovel full of snow would not melt, just evaporate.

This was when the Air Force decided to move us out of the house and into a sub-standard 2 bedroom trailer, there were 5 of us.

Even in the winter with the cold we had a good time in that house. Deb I can remember taking what seemed like hours to get you dressed in your snowmobile suite, with scarf, mittens and boots and as soon as you were dressed you would like to go "potty" and everything had to come off.

You would eventually get outside and you could hardly walk for all the clothes you had on. The dog would run after you and knock you down and there you would have to stay until someone picked you up. You looked like a turtle lying on its back.

The dog, Midget, would get the snow frozen on her paws and stop to chew it off. We had to get her booties to wear outside.

We built snowmen, went ice fishing and sledding. The boys down the road would bring down the snowmobiles and give the boys a ride.

David and Carl, do you remember building the "snow monster" in the front for our Cub Scout competition. The snow was too dry to stick together so we added water, molded the monster and then spray painted it with florescent paint. Well I did not realize that I needed to drain the hose and the next morning it was in a thousand pieces about 1 inch long.

This was where I learned to drive in the snow. Also that I needed to get fully dressed first thing in the morning because if we turned on too many appliances at once the circuit would trip and I would like to walk the 300 yards to the circuit box and reset it.

The house eventually fell into disrepair and the owner of the land built a new house next door. The current owner always wanted to own the place and his parents bought it. They tore down the hatchery and built the existing house, still sitting right on the water with their own dock just like before.

The owner was not home but his mother was there and we talked with her and she showed us the house. It is not much bigger than what we lived in but the living room is now on the water side and the view is great.

We also drove down the road and talked to the new owners of the old Rowell' houses. They are the second owners and bought all the property and just like with the Rowell's the parents live in one house and their son next door.

We then drove out to where the Air Base was. It is now an Automotive Environmental Testing Facility. Many of the same building are still there just repainted with new facades. We could not drive around inside as you need a security clearance to get past the gate.

We then drove through the housing area that we moved to for a month just before leaving to go to Japan.

We drove back to International Falls and had Walleye for dinner. Baudette,