In May, there's no better place to be than a park in the bluffs of southeast Minnesota. Of course, May is beautiful everywhere. But Whitewater State Park has the best array of spring wildflowers, the best morel-mushroom hunting and the best trout fishing — or if it's not the best, at least there's none better. "I wish we could have a year of Mays,'' longtime naturalist Dave Palmquist likes to say.
Go to story ...Of all the immigrant groups, Norwegians perhaps are most sentimental. Generations later, they're still painting bowls and stitching costumes in the old style and celebrating holidays with foods poor Norwegians ate in the 19th century.
Go to story ...At first, the southeast Minnesota town of Spring Grove looks like any other town. There's a café, an antiques store and a park full of statues. But Spring Grove isn't ordinary. It's full of Norwegians. In the park, two bronze men appear to be squabbling; they're characters in a nationally syndicated comic strip written by a Spring Grove man 50 years before Neil Simon came up with "The Odd Couple."
Go to story ...In Minnesota, people value their own history so much that the Minnesota Historical Society was founded nine years before the state itself. No wonder the state's living-history sites are among the best in the nation.
Go to story ...Like most women who take care of small creatures, Karla Bloem splits her life into two parts: Before Alice and After Alice. Before Alice, Bloem could sleep late and travel whenever she felt like it. But then little Alice came along. Alice wakes her up at the crack of dawn, sulks if she leaves her and leaves messes all over the house. Alice is a spoiled brat, Karla Bloem admits.
Go to story ...It was a beautiful fall weekend in Lanesboro, and the streets of this picturesque town in Minnesota's bluff country were packed with sightseers and bicycle tourists. In fall, Lanesboro is the darling of day-trippers and weekenders. My children and I love it, too. They spent 15 minutes with me in the arts center, I spent 15 minutes with them in the Indian crafts shop, and then we went in-line skating on the paved trail, across the trestle bridge and along the limestone bluffs.
Go to story ...Under the cornstalks of Fillmore County, an unusual sculpture garden sits in shadow. Stalagmite topiaries line walkways, alongside pale-green flowstone as translucent as Chinese jade. Stalactite statuettes dangle in artistic arrays. They're obviously created by a Pollock of rock, a Van Gogh of stone. Yet their genius relies not on the medium — water, applied one drop at a time — but on eons worth of time.
Go to story ...Deep down, every morel hunter believes in divine providence. There's nothing so providential as baskets overflowing with morels, and the taste is so divine hunters dream about it all winter. In spring, they offer a fervent prayer to the mushroom gods: May the fungus be among us. Morels do taste heavenly. But it's the hunt that's so addictive — it's fun to find something for free that's so expensive in stores and restaurants, and it's fun to beat the odds by finding something so notoriously elusive.
Go to story ...It was a sunny day in southeastern Minnesota, and everywhere I looked, there were Babes. Babes bombing along bike trails, Babes prowling the shops of Lanesboro, Babes laughing over white wine in the inn where I was staying. They were the Fat Bottom Girls Cycle Club from Des Moines, also known as Babes on Bikes, and they were having a swell time riding the smooth, scenic trails of the Root River Valley.
Go to story ...In an isolated bluff-country valley, reached only by small, winding roads, lies one of Minnesota's favorite getaways. Only 725 people live here, and they can't afford to advertise much, so most visitors come via word of mouth.
Go to story ...For a hamlet out in nowhere, Lanesboro is picturesquely blessed. Eagles, herons and egrets cruise along the scenic river just to the north, alongside canoeists and kayakers.
Go to story ...Sometimes, we like to travel like kings . . . and paupers, too. I suspect a lot of other people do the same thing. To get what we want, we save on something else. Our favorite splurge is eating out, but a meal for two in a really good restaurant costs $80-$100, same as a hotel room. Our solution? We pitch a tent.
Go to story ...Before the Root River State Trail was built, the only places to stay in Lanesboro were some small hunters' cabins near the city park. With visitors pouring in, Lanesboro also has become the bed-and-breakfast capital of the Minnesota, with more B&Bs than any other town, plus several small inns.
Go to story ...Had it with mosquitoes? Head for southeast Minnesota. That's karst country, where porous limestone lies just under the surface and rain sinks into fast-moving underground streams that are chilled to 48 degrees when they run through the many cave systems. Trout like it, but mosquitoes don't. There's no standing water, so there's nowhere for them to breed.
Go to story ...Decorah's Nordic Fest is so big, so well-organized and so joyful that anyone would be happy to claim the heritage. Every year, the 8,700 people of Decorah, Iowa, put on a jubilee of Old World heritage that brings up to 75,000 to the picturesque hills of northeast Iowa and serves as a kind of homecoming for Norwegians from many states.
Go to story ...In southeast Minnesota, some of the locals stand out a bit. They travel in horse-drawn buggies, they dress only in dark colors and they speak an archaic German dialect. In their homes and workshops, they refuse to use electricity, natural gas or plumbing, all of which would literally connect them to the outside world. They're Old Order Amish, direct descendants of a Swiss religious group that believed Martin Luther and other Reformation leaders didn't go far enough in returning the church to strict Scripture.
Go to story ...At harvest time, Minnesota's bluff country overflows with beauty. Fat pumpkins await buyers at farmers' markets. Golden clumps of wildflowers line bicycle trails. From buggies, the Amish sell homemade baskets, bumbleberry jam and apple butter. There's an abundance of everything, including tourists.
Go to story ...There's something inspiring about a certain pocket of northeast Iowa. It's nurtured a a beloved children's-book author, a famous composer and two brilliant woodcarvers. It's stirred battalions of people who create art, preserve heirloom seed and carry on Norwegian culture. There are a lot of stories in these hills and valleys on the edge of the Driftless Area, which escaped the flattening effects of the glaciers.
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