Mississippi Headwaters

Lake Itasca is where the Big Muddy starts, and Itasca State Park is where you go to view the starting point.  I was here on a school field trip about 60 years ago but it's new territory for Trish.

The Mississippi starts its 2552 mile run to New Orleans, above and below.

I walked across on the rocks; Trish didn't feel it was worth the risk of falling.

The largest white pine in Minnesota, about 300 years old, is in the Park.  Back in Paul Bunyan's time, the timber business boomed in northern MN.  Most of the logs were floated downriver to the lumber mills via the St Croix River and other waterways.

Oops!

How the devil did they untangle this mess?  Dynamite, I suspect.

The guys in the photo don't appear overly fussed about it but I'm 

guessing they're townspeople who just came for the photo op.

The Douglas Lodge, built in 1905, is on a small hill overlooking Lake Itasca. 

We were gonna have lunch there one day but never got around to it.

A large field of sunflowers about 50 miles south of the Park.

We saw many such fields in SD and MN, never saw any at all when I lived here.