As adults, we sometimes forget how great it is to be a kid. People give you toys to play with. They show you new games and explain things in interesting ways. They feed you freshly baked cookies and s'mores. Kids take it for granted. But I didn't one January, when I got to stay at Deep Portage Learning Center, in the woods north of Brainerd.
Go to story ...As soon as we turned off the highway into Nisswa, my children's heads began to swivel. "Souvenirs . . . Gift Shop . . . Moccasins,'' read my daughter Madeleine. "And look — Candy Store.'' "This is a cute town,'' said my son Peter, noticing the covered sidewalks. "It's like a cowboy town.''
Go to story ...The days when the Brainerd area was best known for lakes are long gone. Today, it has more golf holes than fishing holes - and there are 465 lakes within 25 miles of Brainerd, a railroad town that lends its name to a swath of north-central Minnesota that includes the lakeside villages of Nisswa, Breezy Point, Crosslake and Deerwood. Golf Digest has ranked the Brainerd Lakes one of the Top 50 golf destinations in the world, which is pretty good for real estate that spends most of the year under snow.
Go to story ...It's hard to tell where it started, this love affair we tundra dwellers have with the game of golf. Maybe we just love being surrounded by acres of perfect green grass, since much of the year the ground is white or brown.
Go to story ...It's as wide as seven axhandles and a plug of tobacco, and as smooth as a flapjack griddle. It unfurls over a landscape dotted with lakes created, according to north-woods legend, by the tracks of a giant lumberjack and his faithful blue ox.
Go to story ...To hear resort owners in the north woods tell it, Brainerd is the Times Square of Minnesota. "It's crazy down there," they say, shaking their heads. "It's a zoo. We don't want to be like Brainerd." In Wisconsin, people talk the same way about Door County. Those places are busy, all right. They're busy because plenty of people like that kind of atmosphere — the restaurants, the golf, the shopping, the fancy condo resorts.
Go to story ...Big Mille Lacs is up north, but it isn't a wilderness lake. It's more like a big pond, its vast surfaces dotted with powerboats, its depths thoroughly probed. A highway rings its 100 miles of shore, the better for boat access. Its air is laced with the perfume of gasoline, minnows and frying oil; the lake wouldn't be known as the Walleye Factory if it weren't.
Go to story ...In winter, the famous Brainerd Lakes freeze over, ice houses replace pontoon boats and skiers and snowmobilers ply the forests. We hiked under bright-blue skies in a frosted forest, crossing bogs and watching for wildlife. And because we had time, we finally discovered something we'd bypassed dozens of times.
Go to story ...North of moneyed Gull Lake, the Brainerd Lakes area starts to look more like traditional Minnesota resort country. Pequot Lakes, July 8-9 in 2014).
Go to story ...In summer, the crowds pour into the Brainerd Lakes, the Minnesota vacation land that's been stomping grounds for millionaires and middle managers alike since the loggers finished up and headed west. What's it known for? Lakes, of course. And golf. It's not so known for its restaurants, but that may be because only locals know the best places.
Go to story ...It was a warm, sunny fall day in the heart of Minnesota. The woods were aglow with color, and there were many ways to wallow in it — on trails for hiking, paved paths for biking, lakes for boating. But something was missing. Where were all the people? Apparently, they were on the North Shore, fighting for space amid crowds that arrive as reliably as spawning salmon.
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